cigarette case from WW2

This is my 1st post to the nice Vintage & Antiques community (let it flourish and bloom, as a market at Damask or Basra at their best days!)

Recently I finished my book layout project for the 'Red Sailor' publishing house. It is an album of a hand-crafter soldiers cigarett cases from the World War 2 period. There were some wonderful examples of the 'trenches craftsmenship' - some are more primitive, figuratively saying "scratched with a nail on one's knee" - and other more solid and looking even professionally-made, using decent technologies. The truth is, these cigarette cases have been crafted not exactly at the trenches, but usually at special technical support units, repair crews that followed the troops.

This gift cigarette-case has an attribution. It was made on May 15, 1945, as a memorial gift on the occasion of Victory in the war, for the SMERSH NKVD guards major I.Gerasimov. Material used: aluminum, brass plate, engravings. The cartouche on the inside of the lid indicates: "SMERSH. NKVD. USSR" - which means its owner belonging to the special internal security forces. 'NKVD' was the successor to the 'GPU' and the forerunner of the 'KGB', and 'SMERSH' is the abbreviation for the military intelligence. These were the police units that everyone was afraid of at the front. Plate in the form of a sword is an allegory of inevitable punishment, "a punishing sword brought over the heads of all the guilty".

Aтрибуция: самодельный дарственный портсигар принадлежал гвардии майору И.А.Герасимову, на крышке указана дата: 15 мая 1945 года. Алюминий, латунная накладка, гравировка. Картуш на внутренней стороне крышки дополнительно указывает: "СМЕРШ. НКВД. СССР" - что означает принадлежность к специальным внутренним войскам безопасности. НКВД - наследник ГПУ и предшественник НКВД, а СМЕРШ аббревиатура, означающая войсковую разведку. Это были самые страшные подразделения полиции, которых на фронте все боялись. Накладка в виде меча - аллегория неотвратимого наказания, "меч занесенный над головами преступников".

taken with Canon 350D, 50mm 1.4, copyright by me