In 2002, five years after the tragic death of Ivan Chukhin, Yury DMITRIEV published the Commemorative Lists of Karelia. This Book of Remembrance named 14,308 individuals -- most of them shot (11,275); others sent to the Gulag (1,958). The task on which Chukhin and Dmitriev had embarked almost a decade earlier was completed. Why we … Continue reading WHY DMITRIEV? (1)
OGPU-NKVD*
“It’s effing unbelievable” (Prudovsky)
The proceedings at today's hearing of the Supreme Court effectively placed NKVD officers who had engaged in torture during the Great Terror on the same footing as the officers of today's FSB, entitling them to the same degree of confidentiality regarding their identity (see "Judges" and Executioners, pt 2). Lawyer Marina Agaltsova and plaintiff Sergei … Continue reading “It’s effing unbelievable” (Prudovsky)
Sergei Prudovsky vs. the FSB
Whilst we wait for the Supreme Court to continue its hearing of the case against the Memorial Society, and to decide whether it will make any response to Yury DMITRIEV’s appeal (19 October 2021), the court will today consider the case brought against the FSB by researcher Sergei Prudovsky. Thwarted by the Tula and Ivanovo … Continue reading Sergei Prudovsky vs. the FSB
“Judges” and Executioners [2]
In February 2021 after a visit to Petrozavodsk reporters eagerly repeated [Postscript] a suggestion of DMITRIEV’s 88-year-old acquaintance Alexander Selyutsky that the historian might have upset a local relative or descendant of the “Judges” or Executioners of 1937-1938: “He not only came across those who were arrested: the executioners were also named in those documents.” … Continue reading “Judges” and Executioners [2]
Thirty Years On …
On 23 June 1992 Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued Edict no 658, declassifying legislative and other acts that “served as the basis for mass repressive measures and violations of human rights”. This clearly applied to KGB [NKVD] archives and the Great Terror of 1937-1938. Yet as Sergei Krivenko and Sergei Prudovsky of Memorial noted in … Continue reading Thirty Years On …