Abstract
Most writers, if they live long enough, accumulate a personal archive of unfinished projects and unpublished works. The original version of this article, written twenty-five years ago, is from my archive. A study of survivors of Stalin’s Gulag who returned to Soviet society during the period of Nikita Khrushchev’s reforms from 1953 to 1964, it was researched under forbidding circumstances—in pre-glasnost Moscow in the still-repressive late 1970s and early 1980s, when the entire subject was officially banned.
It can’t be covered up. People will come out of prison, return to their native places, tell their relatives and friends and acquaintances what actually happened … that those who remained alive had been innocent victims of repression.
—Nikita Khrushchev
Now those who were arrested will return, and two Russias will be eyeball to eyeball: the one that put people in the camps and the one put there.
—Anna Akhmatova
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Notes
See Anna Larina, This I Cannot Forget: The Memoirs of Nikolai Bukharin’s Widow (New York, 1993).
For a discussion, see Stephen F. Cohen, Rethinking the Soviet Experience (New York, 1985), esp. chaps. 1, 3–5.
For my first attempt, “The Friends and Foes of Change,” see Stephen F. Cohen, Alexander Rabinowitch, and Robert Sharlet, eds., The Soviet Union Since Stalin (Bloomington, IN, 1980); and for subsequent ones, Cohen, Rethinking.
There was, however, a narrow but useful PhD dissertation, Jane P. Shapiro, “Rehabilitation Policy and Political Conflict in the Soviet Union” (Columbia University, 1967); and, on a related subject,
Mikhail Geller, Kontsentratsionnyi mir i sovetskaia literatura (London, 1974).
See Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, vol. 3 (New York, 1976), pp. 445–68.
See Libushe Zorin, Soviet Prisons and Concentration Camps: An Annotated Bibliography (Newtonville, 1980). There were two important exceptions:
Eugenia Ginzburg, Within the Whirlwind (New York, 1981); and
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Oak and the Calf (New York, 1980).
Dariusz Tolczyk, See No Evil (New Haven, 1999) makes the same point but in an ideological way (pp. xix–xx, chaps. 4–5) that dismisses survivor-authors other than Solzhenitsyn. Similarly, see
Leona Toker, Return From the Archipelago (Bloomington, IN, 2000), pp. 49–52, 73. Varlam Shalamov, perhaps the greatest Gulag writer, refused to be so dismissive of those lesser authors. See his letter to Solzhenitsyn in Nezavisimaia gazeta, April 9, 1998.
See Roy Medvedev and Giulietto Chiesa, Time of Change (New York, 1989), pp. 99–100; and
A. Antonov-Ovseenko, Vragi naroda (Moscow, 1996), p. 367.
Baev felt free to tell his story only many years later. See A. D. Mirzabekov, ed., Akademik Aleksandr Baev (Moscow, 1997), chap. 1. In August 1968 the twenty-one-year-old Tanya Baeva participated in the famous “Demonstration of Seven on Red Square.” There were actually eight; the others were arrested and severely punished, but Tanya was released because of her father’s position.
See, respectively, Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago; Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge (New York, 1972); and
A. Antonov-Ovseyenko, The Time of Stalin (New York, 1981).
Andrei Timofeev in Literaturnaia gazeta (hereafter LG), Aug. 23, 1995.
Several questionnaires were prepared after 1985. See Gorizont, No. 7, 1989, pp. 63–64; Nanci Adler, The Gulag Survivor (New Brunswick, 2002), p. 121; Moskvichi v GULAGe (Moscow, 1996), pp. 51–52; and
Orlando Figes, The Whisperers (New York, 2007), p. 662.
Stephen F. Cohen, ed., An End to Silence (New York, 1982); and Cohen, Rethinking.
Vladlen Loginov’s introduction to A. Antonov-Ovseenko, Portret tirana (Moscow, 1995), p. 3.
Anne Applebaum, Gulag (New York, 2003), p. 515
For examples of memoirs, in addition to those cited above, n. 7, see Anna Tumanova, Shag vpravo, shag vlevo … (Moscow, 1995);
Aleksandr Milchakov, Molodost svetlaia i tragicheskaia (Moscow, 1988);
Pavel Negretov, Vse dorogi vedut na Vorkutu (Benson, VT, 1985);
Anatolii Zhigulin, Chernye kamni (Moscow, 1989);
Mikhail Mindlin, Anfas i profil (Moscow, 1999); and
Olga Shatunovskaia, Ob ushedshem veke (La Jolla, CA, 2001). Most still focus, however, on life in the Gulag, as do, for example, those in
Simeon Vilensky, ed., Till My Tale Is Told (Bloomington, IN, 1999). For general Western studies, see above, nn. 8, 21;
Adam Hochschild, The Unquiet Ghost (New York, 1994);
Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin (London, 2003);
Kathleen E. Smith, Remembering Stalin’s Victims (Ithaca, 1996);
Catherine Merridale, Nights of Stone (New York, 2001); and Figes, Whisperers.
A point made when the Russian edition appeared in 2005. Adler continues her research, focusing on returnee attitudes toward the Soviet Communist Party, and a conference on the Gulag held at Harvard University in 2006 may result in publications on returnees. There are still few pages on the subject in Russian literature, as in Elena Zubkova, Russia After the War (Armonk, 1998), chap. 16; and Mir posle Gulaga (St. Petersburg, 2004). The two main repositories, in Moscow, are the Memorial Society and Vozvrashchenie (Return). For archive volumes, see Reabilitatsiia, 3 vols. (Moscow, 2000–2004) and Deti GULAGa (Moscow, 2002), under the general editorship of A. N. Iakovlev. Bukharin’s relatives are among the best documented returnee cases. See
Larin, This I Cannot Forget; Mark Iunge, Strakh pered proshlym (Moscow, 2003);
V. I. Bukharin, Dni i gody (Moscow, 2003);
A. S. Namazova, ed., Rossiia i Evropa, No. 4 (Moscow, 2007), pp. 190–296 (on Bukharin’s daughter Svetlana Gurvich); and my introduction to
Nikolai Bukharin, How It All Began (New York, 1998).
Aleksandr Proshkin in Sovetskaia kultura, June 30, 1988.
See, for example, Varlam Shalamov, Kolymskie rasskazy (London, 1978); Ginzburg, Within;
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (New York, 1963);
Boris Diakov, Povest o perezhitom (Moscow, 1966); and the exchange in LG, July 4–10, 2007.
On the eve of Stalin’s death, according to archive sources, there were 2.7 million people in Gulag camps and colonies and 2.8 million in the “special settlements.” A. B. Suslov in Voprosy istorii, No. 3, 2004, p. 125; Istoriia stalinskogo GULAGa, 7 vols. (Moscow, 2004–2005), vol. 5, p. 90. There are at least two uncertainties about this total figure of 5.5 million. The usual assumption that half of those in camps and colonies were criminals may be too high. And the number given for special settlements, which were mainly for specific deported groups and nationalities, may not include the many individuals released into exile after serving their camp sentences or those sentenced to exile, some of whom I knew. See, for example, the discussion in Istoriia stalinskogo GULAGa, pp. 23–24, 90.
As the zek Lev Gumilyov characterized his mother, the proscribed poet Anna Akhmatova. Emma Gerstein, Moscow Memoirs (New York, 2004), p. 456.
My files include scores of such cases. In addition to those in Deti GULAGa, four must suffice here: Larina, This I Cannot Forget; Pyotr Yakir, A Childhood in Prison (New York, 1973);
Kamil Ikramov, Delo moego ottsa (Moscow, 1991); and
Inna Shikheeva-Gaister, Semeinaia khronika vremen kulta lichnost (Moscow, 1998). For the record, Bukharin’s son and others report that their orphanages were not the cruel, uncaring institutions usually depicted, as, for example, by
Vladislav Serikov and Irina Ovchinnikova in Izvestiia, May 1, 1988, and June 22, 1992.
“Spoilt biographies”—people “whose fates were ruined by political repression” (Aleksei Karpychev in Rossiiskie vesti, March 28, 1995)—run through Figes, Whisperers. Among the exceptions who had officially honored careers were the president of the Academy of Sciences Sergei Vavilov; the famous caricaturist Boris Efimov; the actress Vera Maretskaya (all had brothers who were arrested and killed); the actress Olga Aroseva, whose father was shot; and the ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, whose father was executed and mother sent to a camp. See, respectively,
Iu. N. Vavilov, V dolgom poiske (Moscow, 2004);
Boris Efimov, Desiat desiatiletii (Moscow, 2000); the obituaries of Maretskaya in Pravda, Aug. 19, 1978 and LG, Aug. 30, 1978, which do not mention her brother;
Olga Aroseva and Vera Maksimova, Bez grima (Moscow, 2003); and I, Maya Plisetskaya (New Haven, 2001). Regarding benefits, see, for example, the plight of
Pyotr Petrosky’s widow, Golosa istorii, No. 22, Book 1 (Moscow, 1990), p. 230.
For Molotov’s wife, see Viacheslav Nikonov in Knizhnoe obozrenie, No. 27–28, 2005, p. 3, and
William Taubman, Khrushchev (New York, 2003), p. 246; for other relatives of leaders,
Roy Medvedev and Zhores Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin (New York, 2004), pp. 107–08; for Communists, Milchakov, Molodost; Shatunovskaia, Ob ushedshem; and
Ivan Gronskii, Iz proshlogo … (Moscow, 1991), pp. 192–96; for the doctors,
Iakov Etinger in Novoe vremia, No. 3, 2003, p. 38; for Fyodorova,
Victoria Fyodorova and Haskel Frankel, The Admiral’s Daughter (New York, 1979), p. 185; for the Starostins, Moscow News, Feb. 5–12, 1988; and for Rozner,
Iurii Tseitlin in Krokodil, No. 7, 1989, p. 6.
Reabilitatsiia, vol. 1, p. 213. For the slow process, see the case of Vsevolod Meierkhold in B. Riazhskii, “Kak shla reabilitatsiia,” Teatralnaia zhizn, No. 5, 1989, pp. 8–11. For the period, see Adler, Gulag Survivor, ch. 3.
Reabilitatsiia, vol. 2, pp. 6, 9, and the documents in Part I. For examples of appeals, see Mikhail Rosliakov, Ubiistvo Kirova (Leningrad, 1991), pp. 15–17; and Gerstein, Moscow Memoirs, p. 467. For the decision to read the speech publicly and reactions, see Izvestiia TsK KPSS, No. 3, 1989, p. 166, n. 1; and Medvedev and Medvedev, Unknown Stalin, pp. 103–05
My account of the commissions is based on two varying but generally compatible sources: Reabilitatsiia, vol. 2, pp. 193, 792–93; and Shatunovskaia, Ob ushedshem, pp. 274–77, 286–89. See also Adler, Gulag Survivor, pp. 169–71; and Anastas Mikoian, Tak bylo (Moscow, 1999), p. 595. For “unloading parties,” see Solzhenitsyn, Gulag, vol. 3, p. 489. Many of my returnees confirmed this account. Some estimates of people released by the commissions are considerably higher. See Medvedev and Medvedev, Unknown Stalin, p. 115.
V. N. Zemskov in Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, No. 7, 1991, p. 14.
Vladimir Lakshin in LG, Aug. 17, 1994; Grossman, Forever Flowing, chap. 1; Solzhenitsyn, Gulag, vol. 3, p. 506; E. Nosov in
Iu. V. Aksiutin, ed., Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev (Moscow, 1989), p. 98.
For examples, see Negretov, Vse dorogi; Ginzburg, Within; Mikhail Vygon, Lichnoe delo (Moscow, 2005); Mir posle Gulaga, pp. 36–40; and on Kazakhstan, Leonid Kapeliushnyi in Izvestiia, Dec. 17, 1992. Poetic expressions of such attachments appeared in the journals Baikal and Prostor. See also Adler, Gulag Survivor, pp. 231–33.
Hochschild, Unquiet Ghost; Colin Thubron, In Siberia (New York, 1999), pp. 38–48; and for skulls, Evgenii Evtushenko in LG, Nov. 2, 1988.
Applebaum, Gulag, 512. For examples of the former, see the cases of Iulian Khrenov in LG, July 4–10, 2007;
Boris Zbarskii in Pravda, April 5, 1989; and
Daniil Andreev in Grazhdanin Rossii, No. 4, 1993. For the latter, see the stories about
Oleg Volkov in Sobesednik, No. 2, 1990; and
Anna Nosova in Ogonek, No. 12, 1989, p. 5. A few—for example, Olga Tarasova and Nikolai Glazov—lived to be 100 or more. See Nedelia, No. 33, 1990; and Eko, No. 4, 1991, p. 197. All those I knew personally lived into their seventies or beyond. Bukharin’s brother Vladimir died at eighty-eight, while Antonov-Ovseyenko, almost ninety, is still active in Moscow.
Oleg Khlebnikov on Shalamov in Novaia gazeta, June 18–20, 2007; Gerstein, Moscow Memoirs, p. 423; and similarly
Mikhail Baitalsky, Notebooks for the Grandchildren (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1995), p. 420 and
Lez Razgon, True Stories (Dana Point, CA, 1997);
Aleksei Snegov in Vsesoiuznoe soveshchanie o merakh uluchshenii podgotovki nauchno-pedagogicheskikh kadrov po istoricheskim naukam, 18–21 dekabria 1962 g. (Moscow, 1964), p. 270; and the obituary of
Valentin Zeka (Sokolov) in Russkaia mysl, Dec. 20, 1984. Regarding friendships, my Moscow acquaintances were good examples. Similarly, see Zhigulin, Chernye kamni, pp. 265–71. For those who lived fearfully, see Adler, Gulag Survivor and Figes, Whisperers; and for “prisoner’s skin,” Bardack and Gleeson, After the Gulag, p. 26.
See, respectively, V. Kargamov, Rokossovskii (Moscow, 1972), pp. 147–48;
Vladimir Lakshin, “Otkrytaia dver,” Ogonek, No. 20, 1988, pp. 22–24;
N. Koroleva, Otets, vol. 2 (Moscow, 2002); editor’s note in LG, Aug. 1–7, 2007; above, nn. 12 and 33;
Georgii Zhzhenov, Prozhitoe (Moscow, 2005); and
Petr Veliaminov in Sovetskaia Rosiia, June 4, 1989.
For “happy ends,” in addition to ones listed earlier, see Mikhail Zaraev in Ogonek, No. 15, 1991, p. 15, where the term appears; Milchakov, Molodost; Mindlin, Anfas and profil; Tumanova, Shag; and
Efim Shifrin in Argumenty i fakty, No. 1, 1991. For unhappy ends, see Cohen, ed., An End, pp. 101–02; more generally Adler, Gulag Survivor and Figes, Whisperers; and the example of the homeless
Wilhelm Draugel, Moskovskie novosti (hereafter MN), Dec. 31, 1989. Even the great Gulag writer Shalamov died in exceptionally lonely circumstances, as related by
Elena Zakharova in Novaia gazeta, Nov, 8–11, 2007.
See, for example, Aleksei Savelev in Molodoi kommunist, No. 3, 1988, p. 57; and Natalya Rykova, on behalf of her mother, in Reabilitatsiia, vol. 2, p. 351. For a discussion, see Adler, Gulag Survivor, pp. 29, 205–23; and for
Levitin-Krasnov, his Likhie gody (Paris, 1977) and V poiskakh novogo Grada (Tel-Aviv, 1980).
See, for example, Shalamov’s letters in Nezavisimaia gazeta, April 9, 1998 and in Knizhnoe obozrenie, No. 27–28, 1997; Mikhail Zolotonosov in MN, Sept. 10–17, 1995; and similarly,
Kim Parkhmenko in Nezavisimaia gazeta, Jan. 5, 1991.
See Karpov in Sovetskaia Rossiia, July 27, 2002, Pravda, April 26, 1995, and his Generalissimus, 2 vols. (Moscow, 2002); and
Sviashchennik Dmitrii Dudko, Posmertnye vstrechi so Stalinym (Moscow, 1993).
See, for example, Izvestiia, June 22, 1992; Ella Maksimova, ibid., May 5, 1993; E. M. Maksimova, Po sledam zagublennykh sudeb (Moscow, 2007); and similarly, Deti GULAGa, p. 12.
See, for example, the account by Anthony Austin in New York Times Magazine, Dec. 16, 1979, p. 26; and by Adler, Gulag Survivor, pp. 140–41.
For the well-known example of Eugenia Ginzburg and Pavel Aksyonov, see Konstantin Smirnov, “Zhertvo prinoshenie,” Ogonek, No. 2, 1991, pp. 18–21.
The wife and daughter of my friend Yevgeny Gnedin, for example, remained utterly devoted to him. Similarly, see Milchakov, Molodost, pp. 91–92; and Baitalsky, Notebooks, pp. 389–91. For a contrary example, see Lakshin in LG, Aug. 17, 1994. More generally see Adler, Gulag Survivor, pp. 139–45.
See, for example, Oleg Volkov, Pogruzhenie vo tmu (Moscow, 1992), pp. 428–29. Solzhenitsyn and Aleksei Snegov had much younger post-Gulag wives. Among survivors who married other victims were Lez Razgon, Yuri Aikhenvald, and Antonov-Ovseyenko. Children included Irina Yakira and Yuli Kim, who married, and the famous novelist Yulian Semyonov, whose father spent many years in the Gulag, who married a victim’s daughter. Similarly, see Figes, Whisperers, pp. 566, 650.
For a discussion, see Adler, Gulag Survivor, pp. 114–18; for a specific case, M. Korol on the discarded wife of Marshal Budyonny in Argumenty i fakty, No. 23, 1993; and a tragic (and heroic) one, Iulii Kim on
Pyotr Yakir in Obshchaia gazeta, Feb. 8–14, 1996. According to
N. A. Morozov and M. B Rogachev. (Otechestvennaia istoriia, No. 2, 1995, p. 187), effects of the “syndrome” lasted for decades. For circles, see Ginzburg, Within, p. 157 and Adler, Gulag Survivor, p. 134; and for nostalgia,
Ludmilla Alexeyeva and Paul Goldberg The Thaw Generation (Boston, 1990), p. 88;
Bulat Okudzhava in Novaia gazeta, May 5–11, 2005; and even Solzhenitsyn, Gulag, vol. 3, p. 462.
For statutes and property compensation, see Reabilitatsiia, vol. 2, pp. 181–83, 194–97, 333–34; and Adler, Gulag Survivor, pp. 186–90. I heard of very few instances of possessions being returned, not even photographs, except ones saved by relatives and friends, but learned of numerous instances of such items being held or sold by descendants of secret policemen. Similarly, see Liudmila Saveleva in Izvestiia, May 5, 1992; and
Aleksandr Kokurin and Iurii Morukov, “Gulag,” Svobodnaia mysl, No. 2, 2002, p. 109.
E. Efimov, “Pravovye voprosy vosstanovleniia trudovogo stazha reabilitirovannym grazhdanam,” Sotsialicheskaia zakonnost, No. 9, 1964, pp. 42–45; and
Lev Zaverin in Soiuz, No. 51, 1990, p. 9.
Golosa, pp. 185–86, 214–33; Reabilitatsiia, vol. 2, pp. 370–71, 456–62, 474–75; Joshua Rubenstein, Tangled Loyalties (New York, 1996), pp. 287–91, 303.
Adler, Gulag Survivor, pp. 171, 177; Ivan Zemlianushin in Trud, Dec. 24, 1992. The figures are probably compatible because the first refers to 1954–1961 and the second apparently to 1954–1964.
Adler, Gulag Survivor, p. 179, and passim for official opposition, which included Molotov (Golosa, p. 214). For examples of the other obstructions, see Semen Vilenskii, ed., Dognes tiagoteet, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1989), p. 5;
G. Anokhin in Izvestiia, March 23, 1988; N. Zarubin, ibid., March 31, 1995; and employers in Briansk described in Lesnaia promyshlennost, May 1, 1989.
See Zaraev in Ogonek, No. 15, 1991, p. 15; Adler, Gulag Survivor, p. 186; for the poem,
Vladimir Kornilov in Moskovskii komsomolets, July 13, 1966, and similarly the tributes in
Evgenii Gnedin, Vykhod iz labirinta (Moscow, 1994); and for Gnedin’s life,
Stephen F. Cohen, Sovieticus, exp. ed. (New York, 1986), pp. 104–07.
On the amnesty, see Miriam Dobson in Polly Jones, ed., The Dilemmas of De-Stalinization (London, 2006), pp. 21–40; and Solzhenitsyn, Gulag, vol. 3, p. 452. A well-known Soviet film about the amnesty, “The Cold Summer of 1953,” was released in 1988.
Relatives naturally appealed on behalf of their loved ones, and professionals sometimes on behalf of their colleagues. See, for example, V. A. Goncharov, Prosim osvobodit iz tiuremnogo zakliucheniia (Moscow, 1998);
N. S. Cherushev, ed. “Dorogoi nash tovarishch Stalin!” (Moscow, 2001); and “Akademiki v zashchitu repressirovannykh kolleg,” Vestnik rossiikoi akademii nauk, No. 6, 2002, pp. 530–36. Friends and unrelated individuals sometimes tried to help, as, for example, related by Razgon, True Stories, pp. 81–86;
Evgeniia Taratuta in Sovetskaia kultura, June 4, 1988; and
Marina Khodorkovskaia in Novaia gazeta, May 16–18, 2005. In
Rasprava, prokurorskie sudby (Moscow, 1990), some prosecutors are reported to have resisted. For reports of NKVD officers resisting or helping people, see Zhigulin, Chernye kamni, pp. 262–64;
I. Kon in Argumenty i fakty, No. 18, 1988;
V. Chertkov in Pravda, May 1, 1989; and
Galina Vinogradova in LG, Nov. 12, 1997. For a few “good bosses” in the camps, see
E. Boldyreva in Sovetskaia kultura, Sept. 14, 1989.
Lidiia Chukovskaia, Zapiski ob Anne Akhmatovoi, vol. 2 (Paris, 1980), pp. 115, 137; and similarly,
Lev Razgon in LG, Dec. 13, 1995, and Applebaum, Gulag, pp. 516–17. For a different perspective, see
Miriam Dobson, “Contesting the Paradigms of De-Stalinization,” Slavic Review, Fall 2005, pp. 580–600.
See Cohen, ed., An End, chap. 2; for Monte Christo, Igor Zolotusskii and Kamil Ikramov in MN, June 18, 1989; and for revenge more generally,
Lev Razgon in Ogonek, No. 51, 1995, p. 48, and Adler, Gulag Survivor, pp. 123–24.
Antonov-Ovseenko, Vragi, p. 16. For the no-guilt view, see Aleksandr Shitov on Yuri Trifonov in Novaia gazeta, Aug. 29–31, 2005; for the opposing view,
Vladimir Sapozhnikov in LG, Aug. 24, 1988; for
Yuri Tomsky and Svetlana Stalin, Boris Rubin, Moe okruzhenie (Moscow, 1995), p. 187; for the guards, Figes, Whisperers, p. 631. When I introduced Bukharin’s widow to his Lubyanka interrogator’s daughter, Larina reassured the latter, “They were both victims.”
I was told the first episode. For the others, see, respectively, Zhigulin, Chernye kamni, p. 263; Valentin Kuznetsov in Knizhnoe obozrenie, No. 49, 1990, p. 3;
Efim Etkind, Notes of A Non-Conspirator (New York, 1978), pp. 113–14, 118, 204; and
Aleksandr Borshchagovskii in LG, June 10, 1992. For similar episodes, see
V. Volgin, “Dokumenty rasskazyvaiut,” Voprosy literatury, No. 1, 1992, pp. 257–83; Cohen, ed., An End, chap. 2; and
See, for example, Bronia Ben-Iakov, Slovar argo Gulaga (Frankfurt, 1982);
Vladimir Kozlovskii, Sobranie russkikh vorovskikh slovarei, 4 vols. (New York, 1983); and, in the Soviet Union itself,
K. Kostsinskii (Kirill Uspenskii), “Sushchestvuet li problema zhargona?,” Voprosy literatury, No. 5, 1968, pp. 181–91. For objections, see those cited by Elvira Goriukhina in the weekly supplement of Novaia gazeta, Sept. 14, 2007.
Quoted by Tseitlin in Krokodil, No. 7, 1989, p. 6. Yevtushenko said at the time, “The intelligentsia is singing criminal songs.” Quoted by
Mikhail Roshchin in Ogonek, No. 41, 1990, p. 9. For a study written as early as 1979, see
Iurii Karabchievskii, “I vokhrovtsy i zeki,” Neva, No. 1, 1991, pp. 170–76.
See the accounts of Iurii Panov in Izvestiia, Aug. 10, 1990; and
Viktor Bokarev in LG, March 29, 1989.
See, for example, Sovetskaia kultura, May 6, 1989; Gorizont, No. 6, 1989; Ogonek, No. 39, 1990, pp. 8–11; Tvorchestvo v lagerakh i ssylkakh (Moscow: Memorial Society, 1990); Tvorchestvo i byt GULAGa (Moscow: Memorial Society, 1998); and Nikolai Getman, The Gulag Collection (Washington, 2001). For the sketches, see Literator, No. 35, 1989.
For “catacomb,” see Paola Volkova in Nezavisimaia gazeta, May 30, 2001.
Konstantin Simonov in Izvestiia, Nov. 18, 1962. For examples of earlier works, see
K. Simonov, Zhivye i mertvye (Moscow, 1959);
V. Kaverin, Otkrytaia kniga, Part III (Moscow, 1956);
V. Panova, Sentimentalnyi roman (Moscow, 1958);
N. Ivanter, “Snova avgusta,” Novyi mir, Nos. 8 and 9, 1959; and
A. Valtseva, “Kvartira No. 13,” Moskva, No. 1, 1957. For a few of the early 1960s, see
V. Nekrasov, “Kira Georgievna,” Novyi mir, No. 6, 1961;
Iu. Dombrovskii, “Khranitel drevnostei,” Novyi mir, Nos. 6 and 7, 1964;
A. Vasiliev, “Voprosov bolshe net,” Moskva, No. 6, 1964;
A. Aldan-Semenov, “Barelef na skale,” Moskva, No. 7, 1964;
V. Aksenov, “Dikoi,” Iunost, No. 12, 1964;
Iu. Semenov, “Pri ispolnenii sluzhebnykh obiazannostei,” Iunost, Nos. 1 and 2, 1962;
K. Ikramov and V. Tendriakov, “Belyi flag,” Molodaia gvardiia, No. 12, 1962;
B. Polevoi, “Vosvrashchenie,” Ogonek, No. 31, 1962;
I. Stadniuk, “Liudi ne angely,” Neva, No. 12, 1962; and
I. Lazutin, “Chernye lebedi,” Baikal, Nos. 2–6, 1964 and No. 1, 1966.
For the imagery and quote, see Alexander Yanov, The Russian New Right (Berkeley, 1978), p. 15; and Solzhenitsyn, Oak, p. 16.
See, for example, the complaints by Ivan Isaev in Istoricheskii arkhiv, No. 2, 2001, pp. 123–34; and V. Ivanov-Paimen, ibid., No. 4, 2003, pp. 23–24. For returning to Party work, see, for example, Milchakov, Molodost, pp. 92–99; Rosliakov, Ubiistvo, p. 16; and D. Poliakova and V. Khorunzhii on
Valentina Pikina in Komsomolskaia pravda, March 17, 1988.
For Burkovsky, see Michael Scammell, Solzhenitsyn (New York, 1984), p. 482; for
Suchkov and Kheiman, Emily Tall in Slavic Review, Summer 1990, p. 184, and
V. Loginov and N. Glovatskaia in Voprosy ekonomiki, No. 1, 2007, pp. 154–56.
For Shirvindt, who died in 1958, see Aleksandr Kokurin and Nikita Petrov, “MVD,” Svobodnaia mysl, No. 4, 1998, pp. 115–16. For Todorsky, see
N. Cherushev, 1937 god (Moscow, 2003), pp. 407–35; Reabilitatsiia, vol. 1, pp. 214, 460, and vol. 2, pp. 376, 693–95, 793, 896;
A. I. Todorskii, Marshal Tukhachevskii (Moscow, 1963); and
V. Sokolovskii, “Boets i voennyi pisatel,” Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, No. 9, 1964, pp. 53–60. I was told a great deal about Shatunovskaia and Snegnov long before printed sources on their roles became available. For the former, see Shatunovskaia, Ob ushedshem; and
Grigorii Pomerants, “Pamiati odinokoi teni,” Znamia, No. 7, 2006, pp. 165–69. For both, see
Sergei Khrushchev, Khrushchev on Khrushchev (Boston, 1990), chap. 1;
S. A. Mikoian, “Aleksei Snegov v borbe za ‘destalinizatsiiu,’” Voprosy istorii, No. 4, 2006, pp. 69–83; Mikoian, Tak bylo, chap. 48; and the name index in Reabilitatsiia, vols. 1–3, and in
K. Aimermakher, ed., Doklad N. S. Khrushcheva o kulte lichnosti Stalina na XX sezde KPSS (Moscow, 2002).
Mikoyan, who headed the first commission on rehabilitations, personally received and helped a remarkable number of returnees, as I was told and now is well documented. For his own account, see Mikoian, Tak bylo, pp. 589–90; and, in addition, A. I. Mikoian (Moscow: Gorbachev Foundation, 1996). A well-informed historian thinks Mikoyan was “the most distraught by his conscience.” Miklós Kun, Stalin (Budapest, 2003), p. 290. For disagreements about his role under and after Stalin, see
Sergo A. Mikoyan and Michael Ellman in Slavic Review, Winter 2001, pp. 917–21.
Quoted in Roy Medvedev, Khrushchev (Garden City, NY, 1983), pp. 89–91; and similarly,
Fedor Burlatsky, Khrushchev and the First Russian Spring (New York, 1988), pp. 61–62. For the memorial, see XXII sezd kommununisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza, 17–31 oktiabria 1961 goda, 3 vols. (Moscow, 1962), vol. 2, p. 587.
For the Beria trial, see Lavrentii Beria 1953 (Moscow, 1999). Among the witnesses were Pikina, Snegov, and Suren Gazarian, who wrote a memoir account. See SSSR: Vnutrennie protivorechiia (New York), No. 6 (1982), pp. 109–46. For the congress, see S. I. Chuprinin, ed., Ottepel 1953–1956 (Moscow, 1989), p. 461; for the showdown, see
A. N. Iakovlev, Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich 1957 (Moscow, 1998); and for Lazurkina, XXII sezd, vol. 3, p. 121. Solzhenitsyn’s novella appeared in Novyi mir in November 1962.
Iurii Trifonov, Otblesk kostra (Moscow, 1966), p. 86; and similarly, Cohen, ed., An End, pp. 29–30.
Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, 3 vols. (University Park, PA, 2004–2007), vol. 2, p. 209; Georgii Ostroumov in Proryv k svobode (Moscow, 2005), p. 288, and similarly,
Evgenii Evtushenko in Novaia gazeta, Jan. 26–28, 2004f.
Suren Gazarian, “Eto ne dolzhno povtoritsa” (samizdat manuscript, 1966);
Eugenia Ginzburg, Journey Into the Whirlwind (New York, 1967) and Within;
Kopelev, To Be Preserved Forever (New York, 1977), The Education of a True Believer (New York, 1980), and Ease My Sorrows (New York, 1983);
Razgon, True Stories; Gnedin, Katastrofa i vtoroe rozhdenie (Amsterdam, 1977); Baitalsky, Notebooks.
Trifonov, Otblesk; L. P. Petrovskii, Petr Petrovskii (Alma-Ata, 1974); Yakir, Childhood; and Ikramov, Delo. Under a pseudonym, Antonov-Ovseyenko published a censored biography of his father in 1975 and much later an uncensored edition:
A. V. Rakitin, V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko (Leningrad, 1989). Yuri Gastev, a returnee whom I knew well, prepared a documented biography of his father in order to facilitate the latter’s posthumous rehabilitation. He did so at the suggestion of the Procurator’s office. A number of published books and articles began that way. Several children of prominent victims were given prized slots for graduate students at history institutes, including Yakir and Petrovsky.
Quoted in Medvedev, Khrushchev, p. 84; for “fashion,” see Vladimir Lakshin in LG, Aug. 17, 1994.
See Nikita Petrov, Pervyi predsedatel KGB Ivan Serov (Moscow, 2005); Shatunovskaia, Ob ushedshem, pp. 285–91; also on Suslov, Mikoian, “Aleksei Snegov”; and similarly on Molotov, above, n. 68. For the lists, see Reabilitatsiia, vol. 3, p. 144.
N. Barsukov, “Proval ‘antipartiinoi gruppy,’” Kommunist, No. 8, 1990, p. 99.
See N. Barsukov, “Oborotnaia storona ‘ottepeli,’” Kentavr, No. 4, 1993, pp. 129–43;
Evgenii Taranov, “‘Raskachaem leninskie gory!’” Svobodnaia mysl, No. 10, 1993, pp. 94–103; and Reabilitatsiia, vol. 2, p. 7. For the quote, see
Nikita Petrov in Novoe vremia, No. 23, 2000, p. 33; and similarly, Gazarian cited above, n. 92.
The latter number is from V. P. Pirozhkov in Nedelia, No. 26, 1989, who also reports that 1,342 were tried. Nikita Petrov, whom I follow in this regard, effectively debunks the number tried, in
N. G. Okhotin and A. B. Roginskii, eds., Zvenia, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1991), pp. 430–36. For the number executed, see
Iu. S. Novopashin in Voprosy istorii, No. 5, 2007, pp. 54–55. For examples of the various punishments, see Kokurin and Petrov, “MVD,” pp. 114–18; and
Robert Conquest, Inside Stalin’s Secret Police (Stanford, CA, 1985), pp. 155–57.
Kokurin and Petrov, “MVD”; Aleksandr Kokurin, “GULAG,” Svobodnaia mysl, No. 2, 2002, p. 98; Aleksandr Fadeev (Moscow, 2001); and similarly, Burlatsky, Khrushchev, p. 18 and Medvedev and Medvedev, Unknown Stalin, pp. 116–17.
Khrushchev cited in Medvedev, Khrushchev, p. 99, and similarly in Shatunovskaia, Ob ushedshem, p. 286; Gorbachev in V politbiuro TsK KPSS: Po zapisiam Anatoliia Cherniaeva, Vadima Medvedeva, Georgiia Shakhnazarova (1985–1991) (Moscow, 2006), pp. 323–24. For his vulnerable position, see Khrushchev, Khrushchev on Khrushchev, p. 14.
I borrow the phrase from Vladimir Lakshin, “Ivan Denisovich, ego druzia i nedrugi,” Novyi mir, No. 1, 1964.
Lev Ozerov, Den poezii 1962 (Moscow, 1962), p. 45. I remain grateful to the late Professor Vera Dunham, who located and translated the poem. For a list of other examples, see Cohen, Rethinking, p. 199, n. 65; and above, n. 82.
Read comparatively, for example, the reviews of Ivan Denisovich; Iurii Bondarev, “Tishina” (Novyi mir, Nos. 3–5, 1962); and Diakov’s memoirs Povest, which began appearing in 1963. See also Lakshin, “Ivan Denisovich.”
See, for example, E. Genri, “Chuma na ekrane,” Iunost, No. 6, 1966 and his comments on a related
Soviet film, “Ordinary Fascism,” in Novyi mir, No. 12, 1965;
Fedor Burlatskii in Pravda, Feb. 14, 1966;
Evgenii Gnedin, “Biurokratiia dvatstogo veka,” Novyi mir, No. 3, 1966 and his “Mekhanizm fashistskoi diktatury,” Novyi mir, No. 8, 1968; Politicheskii dnevnik, vol. II, pp. 109–22; and similarly, Adler, Gulag Survivor, p. 194.
Translated by George Reavey, The Poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 1953 to 1965 (London, 1966), pp. 161–65. The poem appeared in Pravda, Oct. 21, 1962. On the same point, see
Z. L. Serebriakova in Gorbachevskie chteniia, No. 4 (Moscow, 2006), p. 96.
For Snegov, Shatunovskaia and the report, see Reabilitatsiia, vol. 2, p. 524; and Shatunovskaia, Ob ushedshem, p. 291. For the editorial and constitution, see Burlatsky, Khrushchev, pp. 200–01, 215; and G. L. Smirnov’s memoir in Neizvestnaia Rossiia, vol. 3 (Moscow, 1993), pp. 377–81.
Medvedev, Khrushchev, p. 98, who gives a somewhat different version and dates it later than did my informants. Similarly, Party bosses were now heard to say: “Far too many were rehabilitated.” Solzhenitsyn, Gulag, vol. 3, p. 451. For neo-Stalinism after 1964, see Cohen, Rethinking, chap. 4; and for Beria’s men, O. Volin in Sovershenno sekretno, No. 6, 1989, p. 18.
Adler, Gulag Survivor, pp. 196–97. For several “hangmen,” see Antonov-Ovseyenko, Portret; N. V. Petrov and K. V. Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD (Moscow, 1999); and above, n. 108.
For Trifonov, whose House on the Embankment (1976) and The Old Man (1978) were especially important, see New York Times, Dec. 16, 1979; and for Shatrov, the interview in Figury i litsa, No. 7, supplement in Nezavisimaia gazeta, April 13, 2000, and Mikhail Shatrov, Shatrov: Tvorchestvo, Zhizn, dokumenty, 5 vols. (Moscow, 2006–2007).
For Nuremberg, see, for example, Vitalii Shentalinskii in Komsomolskaia pravda, Oct. 17, 1990; and
G. Z. Ioffe, looking back, in Otechestvennaia istoriia, No. 4, 2002, p. 164. For the “trial of Stalin,”
A. Samsonov in Nedelia, No. 52, 1988; the special issue of MN, Nov. 27, 1988; and
Iurii Solomonov in Sovetskaia kultura, Sept. 9, 1989. And for Memorial,
Nanci Adler, Victims of Stalin’s Terror (Westport, CT, 1993).
As I heard repeatedly. Similarly, see, for example, Iurii Orlik in Izvestiia, March 3, 1989; Shatunovskaia, Ob ushedshem, p. 430; and even Akhmatova, quoted by N. B. Ivanova in Gorbachevskie chteniia, No. 4, p. 81.
Reabilitatsiia, vol. 3, pp. 507, 521–22. For the quote, see Orlik in Izvestiia, March 3, 1989.
Mikhail Gorbachev, Zhizn i reformy, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1995), pp. 38–42. others in the leadership included Yegor Ligachev and Eduard Shevardnadze, whose wives’ fathers had perished. For the charge, see the letter in Izvestiia, May 7, 1992; and similarly, Vladimir Karpov’s complaint about “rehabilitation euphoria,” quoted by
Zhanna Kasianenko in Sovetskaia Rossiia, July 27, 2002.
Reabilitatsiia, vol. 3, pp. 600–06; Adler, Gulag Survivor, p. 33. For the post-Soviet period generally, see ibid., chap. 7; and Nanci Adler, “The Future of the Soviet Past Remains Unpredictable,” Europe-Asia Studies, Dec. 2005, pp. 1093–1119.
B. S. in Nezavisimaia gazeta, Sept. 21, 1993. More generally, see Mir posle Gulaga. A returnee who headed a Moscow city commission on rehabilitations in the early 1990s recalled that benefits were a “huge problem.” A. Feldman, Riadovoe delo (Moscow, 1993), pp. 58–60.
See, respectively, above, n. 136; Leonid Goldenmauer in Knizhnoe obozrenie, No. 40, 2003, p. 7;
A. T. Rybin, Stalin v oktiabre 1941 g. (Moscow, 1995), p. 5; and similarly,
Evgenii Strigin, Predavshie SSSR (Moscow, 2005), pp. 181–85.
See, respectively, kremlin.ru June 21, 2007 and Peter Finn in Washington Post, July 20, 2007; Reuters dispatch, Nov. 2, 2000; Der Spiegel interview with Solzhenitsyn in Johnson’s Russia List (e-mail newsletter), July 24, 2007, which includes his favorable opinion of Putin; and kremlin.ru Oct. 30, 2007, along with Itar-Tass dispatch the same day.
Cited by Paul Goble in Johnson’s Russia List, Feb. 24, 2006. For examples of grandchildren, in addition to Gorbachev, see
V. V. Obolenskii’s letter in Ogonek, No. 24, 1987, p. 6; and
Efim Fattakhov in Sobesednik, No. 21, 1989; and
I. Shcherbakova, ed., Kak nashikh dedov zabirali (Moscow, 2007).
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Cohen, S.F. (2008). The Victims Return: Gulag Survivors under Khrushchev. In: Hollander, P. (eds) Political Violence. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230616240_4
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