Military Pilot Joseph Bashko, Commander of the "Ilya Muromets "Kievsky" Airship during the First World War: Experience of a Comparative Analysis of Memoirs

In this research an attempt was made to conduct a textological analysis of the memoirs of Joseph Bashko – a military pilot, that became famous like a commander of the airship Sikorsky Ilya Muromets «Kievsky». His memoirs, which have been published in 1939 in Latvian, stayed little studied by our days. Only in 2017 the were translated into Russian and published under the title «In the sky over the enemy». Consistent comparison of the book of Joseph Bashko with other available memoir sources, as well as documentary information, allows us to clarify our understanding of the course of hostilities in which the Squadron of Airships took part in. Some non-military, everyday aspects of the life of the officers and soldiers of the Squadron, were generally unknown by now. In the annex to the work contains well-known in the literature, but previously unpublished documents about Joseph Bashko and his airship staying in the Polish I Corps, which was led by general Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki.