The House of Government

by Slezkine, Yuri

  18. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/01.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 20; “Stalinskie spiski,” http://stalin.memo.ru/names/index.htm.

  19. “Moe poslednee slovo na sude, veroiatno, budet moim poslednim slovom voobshche,” Istochnik 4 (1996): 89–90 (underlined lines were crossed out by the censor); Jochen Hellbeck, “With Hegel to Salvation: Bukharin’s Other Trial,” Representations 107 (Summer 2009): 67–68.

  20. Gennadii Bordiugov, ed., Tiuremnye rukopisi N. I. Bukharina (Moscow: AIRO-XX, 1996), 2:34, 37, 39, 321, 324, 333, 30. I am indebted to Jochen Hellbeck, “With Hegel to Salvation,” 56–90.

  21. Bordiugov, Tiuremnye rukopisi N. I. Bukharina, 2:63, 80, 216, 175, 82, 159.

  22. Ibid., 2:92.

  23. Ibid., 2:131.

  24. Ibid., 2:157–58.

  25. “‘Prosti menia, Koba’: Neizvestnoe pis’mo N. I. Bukharina,” Istochnik 0 [sic] (1993): 23–25. English translation (by Benjamin Sher) from J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov, eds., The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), 556–59 (doc. 198).

  26. Ibid.

  27. Ibid.

  28. “Moe poslednee slovo na sude,” 90–91. English translation from Robert C. Tucker and Stephen F. Cohen, eds., The Great Purge Trial (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1965), 668.

  29. V. I. Piatnitskii, comp., Golgofa (St. Petersburg: Palitra, 1993), 60–61; Mikhail Kol’tsov, “Ubiitsa s pretenziiami,” Pravda, March 7, 1938.

  30. Aleksandr Avdeenko, “Otluchenie,” Znamia 4 (April 1989): 91–92.

  31. Gordon, in Mikhail Kol’tsov, kakim on byl: Sbornik vospominanii (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1989), 400–401.

  32. Viktor Fradkin, Delo Kol’tsova (Moscow: Vagrius, 2002), 19–31, 74–94 (quotation from 86).

  33. Ibid., 247, 95; Boris Sopel’niak, Smert’v rassrochku (Moscow: Olma-Press, 2004), 141.

  34. Fradkin, Delo Kol’tsova, 95–96.

  35. Ibid., 95–119, 321–29; Sopel’niak, Smert’v rassrochku, 129–59.

  36. Ursula El-Akramy, Transit Moskau: Margarete Steffin und Maria Osten (Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1998), 13, 229–33, 262–72; Boris Efimov, Desiat’ desiatiletii (Moscow: Vagrius, 2000), 320–22; V. F. Koliazin, ed., Vernite mne svobodu! Deiateli literatury i iskusstva Rossii i Germanii—zhertvy stalinskogio terrora (Moscow: Medium, 1997), 284–302; Fradkin, Delo Kol’tsova, 171–94.

  37. AMDNN, “Poloz” file, letters, M-4–M-5 (August 9, 1936); M-9 (October 9, 1936).

  38. Ibid., M-8 (September 25, 1936); AMDNN, “Poloz” file, “Lichnoe delo No. 90365.”

  39. AMDNN, “Poloz” file, letters, M-7 (August 31, 1936); M-12 (November 17, 1936); M-9 (October 10, 1936).

  40. Ibid., M-13 (November 26, 1936); M-13 (December 1936).

  41. Ibid., M-14 (September 2, 1937).

  42. Ibid.

  43. Ibid., M-15–M-16 (September 18, 1937).

  44. Ibid.

  45. T. I. Miagkova, “Poslednee pis’mo k docheri,” introduction by R. M. Poloz, in S. S. Vilenskii, ed., Dodnes’ tiagoteet (Moscow: Vozvrashchenie, 2004), 2:139–42.

  46. AMDNN, “Poloz” file, “Lichnoe delo No. 90365.”

  47. Ibid.

  48. Ibid.; Miagkova, “Poslednee pis’mo,” 142–45.

  49. Solovki-entsiklopediia, bk. 10, chap. 4, “Rasstrel solovetskogo etapa v urochishche Sandarmokh (Sandormokh),” http://www.solovki.ca/camp_20/sandarmoh.php; AMDNN, “Poloz” file, R. M. Poloz, letter to the Museum,” October 7, 2000, l. 9; Memorial’noe kladbishche Sandormokh, 1937, 27 oktiabria–4 noiabria (Solovetskii etap) (St. Petersburg: Memorial, 1997), 87–124, 160–71.

  50. Memorial’noe kladbishche Sandormokh, 69, 150.

  51. Gronskii, Iz proshlogo, 168–69.

  52. “Zakhoronenie v Kommunarke, spisok po godam: Posleslovie,” Memorial Society database, http://www.memo.ru/memory/communarka/index.htm.

  53. L. Golovkova, “Spetsob’’ekt ‘Butovskii poligon’ (istoriia, dokumenty, vospominaniia),” in Butovskii poligon, 1937–38: Kniga pamiati zhertv politicheskikh repressii (Moscow: Institut eksperimental’noi sotsiologii, 1997), 24–26.

  54. “Zhertvy politicheskogo terrora v SSSR,” http://lists.memo.ru/index1.htm.

  55. N. V. Petrov, “Stalinskii zakaz: Kak ubivali Sokol’nikova i Radeka,” Novaia gazeta, June 5, 2008.

  56. L. S. Redens (Alliluev), interview with author, June 24, 1999; Vladimir Alliluev, Khronika odnoi sem’i (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 2002), 97; “Poslednee slovo N. I. Ezhova,” Dokumenty o deiatel’nosti N. I. Ezhova, http://perpetrator2004.narod.ru/documents/Yezhov/Yezhov.htm; cf. English translation in Getty and Naumov, Road to Terror, 561–62.

  57. Agnessa Mironova-Korol’, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory: A Voice from Stalin’s Russia, trans. Rose Glickman (Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2012), 101–2, 103; M. M. Iakovenko, Agnessa: Ustnye rasskazy Agnessy Ivanovny Mironovoi-Korol’, Memorial: Istoricheskie programmy, “Nasha zhizn’ s Miroshei,” http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  58. Mironova, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory, 100–101; Iakovenko, Agnessa, http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  59. Mironova, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory, 114–17; Iakovenko, Agnessa, http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  60. Mironova, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory, 117–18; Iakovenko, Agnessa, http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  61. Mironova, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory, 122; Iakovenko, Agnessa, http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  62. Mironova, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory, 123–25; Iakovenko, Agnessa, http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  63. “Stalinskie spiski,” http://stalin.memo.ru/names/index.htm. On “Kashketin executions,” see Vadim Rogovin, Partiia rasstreliannykh (Moscow: N.p., 1997), 299–305, http://trst.narod.ru/rogovin/t5/xxxiv.htm; Ia. I. Kaminskii, “Minuvshee prokhodit predo mnoiu…”: Izbrannoe iz lichnogo arkhiva (Odessa: Aspekt, 1995), 95–98; A. V. Antonov-Ovseenko, Vragi naroda (Moscow: Intellekt, 1996), 98–102. When Agnessa Argiropulo was told that Mironov had been sentenced to ten years “without the right to correspondence,” she married his cousin, Mikhail Davydovich Korol (who had recently returned to the Soviet Union after serving as an undercover agent in the United States). In 1942, she was arrested for “anti-Soviet conversations” and sentenced to five years in a labor camp. After her release in 1947, she started working as a nurse. She died in Moscow in 1981, at the age of seventy-eight.

  29. THE END OF CHILDHOOD

  1. AMDNN, “Zaitsev” file; T. I. Shmidt, Dom na naberezhnoi: Liudi i sud’by (Moscow: Vozvrashchenie, 2009), 24–27; Memorial Society database, http://lists.memo.ru/index3.htm. See also Cathy A. Frierson and Semyon S. Vilensky, Children of the Gulag (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), esp. 136–232.

  2. AMDNN, “Osepian” file; Shmidt, Dom na naberezhnoi, 62–63; Memorial Society database, http://lists.memo.ru/index3.htm; Gamlet Mirzoian, “Ovsepian, A. A.,” Noev kovcheg 11, no.134 (November 2008): http://www.noev-kovcheg.ru/mag/2008-11/1432.html.

  3. AMDNN, “Moroz” file; S. S. Vilenskii et al., eds., Deti Gulaga, 1918–1956 (Mosow: Demokratiia, 2002), 291–93, http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/almanah/inside/almanah-doc/129; Mikhail Korshunov and Victoria Terekhova, Tainy i legendy Doma na naberezhnoi (Moscow: Slovo, 2002), 355–58. Lermontov’s “The Death of a Poet,” trans. Robert Hillyer, in Samuel H. Gross and Ernest J. Simmons, eds., Centennial Essays for Pushkin (New York: Russell and Russell, 1967), 225–26.

  4. Moroz, “Minuvshee,” 16–20, in AMDNN, “Moroz” file.

  5. Vilenskii et al., Deti Gulaga, 291; Korshunov and Terekhova, Tainy i legendy, 359.

  6. AMDNN, “Moroz” file; Vilenskii et al., Deti Gulaga, 290.

  7. AMDNN, “Moroz” file; Vilenskii et al., Deti Gulaga, 285–86.

  8. AMDNN, “Moroz” file; Vilenskii et al., Deti Gulaga, 287–88.

  9. AMDNN, “Moroz” file.

  10. AMDNN, “Letter
from deputy director of the Central State Security Archive, V. P. Gusachenko, to the House on the Embankment People’s Museum, August 31, 1993,” copy; “Spravka Tsentral’nogo arkhiva FSB Rossii,” n.d., no number (in author’s possession); Leonid Redens, interview with author, June 24, 1999. Aleksei Kirpichnikov’s Stalin’’iugend (Moscow: Veche, 2010), http://lib.rin.ru/doc/i/221529p19.html, is a fictionalized account based on interviews and documentary evidence, including the fully reprinted text of the indictment.

  11. Anatoly Granovsky, I Was an NKVD Agent (New York: Devin-Adair, 1962), 31, 51–96, 107–11, 116–34 (the quotations are from 111).

  12. Ibid., 111.

  13. Ibid., 46–47, 51, 130.

  14. Ibid., 161, 190. See also O. B. Mozokhin, “Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR v gody Velikoi Otehestvennoi voiny,” vol. 2, bk. 2 (September 1–December 31, 1941), doc. no. 564, http://mozohin.ru/article/a-114.html. Granovsky’s presence in the school is confirmed by Pavel Sudoplatov in P. A. Sudoplatov, Raznye dni tainoi voiny i diplomatii: 1941 god (Moscow: Olma Press, 2001), 270, also http://www.pseudology.org/Abel/Sudoplatov1941/12.htm.

  15. Granovsky, I Was an NKVD Agent, 194–206.

  16. Ibid., Irina Muklevich, interview with author, December 4, 1997; Valerii Frid, 58 ½: Zapiski lagernogo pridurka (Moscow: Izdatel’skii dom Rusanova, 1996), 7–40; Viktor Levenshtein, “Za Butyrskoi kamennoi stenoi,” Kontinent 132 (2007): http://magazines.russ.ru/continent/2007/132/le14.html; Anatolii Korkmasov, “Korkmasov Dzhelal-Erast (Erik) Dzhelal-Ed-Dinovich,” Gazavat.ru, http://www.gazavat.ru/history3.php?rub=31&art=411. Frid’s and Levenshtein’s accounts of the affair differ considerably from Granovsky’s.

  17. Granovsky, I Was an NKVD Agent, 145, 214, 223; Evgenii Zhirov, “Vse proiskhodiashchee so mnoi lozhitsia ten’iu na moego ottsa,” Kommersant-Vlast’, November 7, 2005, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/624225; Roi Medvedev, “Slava i tragediia odnoi sem’i,” Karetnyi riad 5 (November 1989); R. I. Medvedev, Oni okruzhali Stalina (Moscow: Vremia, 2012), 407–10, Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=u1P4TUgiqncC&pg=PA408&lpg=PA408&dq=елизавета+драбкина+андрей+свердлов&source=bl&ots=xK3_KjSVqa&sig=PpSLDdaaysZ5zmvUm0-DWxKQQog&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VxSXVN-pOJawogTr8IDACQ&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=елизавета%20драбкина%20андрей%20свердлов&f=false.

  18. A. M. Larina, Nezabyvaemoe (Moscow: APN, 1989), 234–36.

  19. Ibid., 237–38.

  20. Ibid., 239–40.

  21. “Zhertvy politicheskogo terrora v SSSR,” http://lists.memo.ru/index18.htm; M. Parkhomovskii, Kniga ob udivitel’noi zhizni Eshua Zolomona Movsheva Sverdlova, stavshego Zinoviem Alekseevichem Peshkovym, i neobyknovennykh liudiakh, s kotorymi on vstrechalsia (Jerusalem: N.p., 1999), 198–209, 222; Larina, Nezabyvaemoe, 240n; Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, “Samizdat,” http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/01.shtml; Irina Chaikovskaia, “Vgliadet’sia v postup’ roka: Interv’iu s Ruf’iu Val’be,” Chaika 17, no. 148 (September 1, 2009): http://www.chayka.org/node/2464; Nadezhda Kataeva-Lytkina, “145 dnei posle Parizha,” Vestnik 1, no. 312 (January 8, 2003): http://www.vestnik.com/issues/2003/0108/win/lytkina.htm; Irma Kudrova, Gibel’ Mariny Tsvetaevoi (Moscow: Nezavisimaia gazeta, 1995), http://tsvetaeva.synnegoria.com/WIN/about/kudrovG3.html; Medvedev, “Slava i tragediia,” 6; Medvedev, Oni okruzhali Stalina, 408–9.

  30. THE PERSISTENCE OF HAPPINESS

  1. A. M. Larina, Nezabyvaemoe (Moscow: APN, 1989), 140–41.

  2. Moroz, “Minuvshee,” 43, in AMDNN, “Moroz” file.

  3. B. H. Uimanov, Repressii: Kak eto bylo (Zapadnaia Sibir’v kontse 20kh—nachale 50-kh godov) (Tomsk: Izdatel’stva Tomskogo universiteta, 1995), 288–91.

  4. N. N. Demchenko, “Kanikuly dlinoi v 18 let,” Mendeleevets 36, no. 1799 (November 30, 1988): 3; L. P. Postyshev, interview with author, October 1, 1998.

  5. Inna Shikheeva-Gaister, Deti vragov naroda: Semeinaia khronika vremen kul’ta lichnosti 1925–1953 (Moscow: Vozvrashchenie, 2012), 73–74; Z. A. Khatskevich (Volkova), interview with author, September 4, 1998.

  6. Gaister, Deti vragov naroda, 54.

  7. Ibid., 55, 62–63, 72–73.

  8. Ibid., 56, 59.

  9. Ibid., 54; Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, “Samizdat,” http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/01.shtml; Z. A. Khatskevich (Volkova), interview with author, September 4, 1998; E. I. Kuchmina, letter to the Museum, August–September 1991, in AMDNN, “Kuchmin” file. For a history of the Moscow Exemplary, see Larry E. Holmes, Stalin’s School: Moscow’s Model Schoool No. 25, 1931–1937 (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999).

  10. Lidiia Libedinskaia, Zelenaia lampa, LitRes, http://www.litres.ru/lidiya-libedinskaya/zelenaya-lampa-2/chitat-onlayn/page-7.

  11. Ibid. The Pushkin translation (“To Chaadaev”) is from Avrahm Yarmolinsky, ed., The Poems, Prose, and Plays of Alexander Pushkin (New York: Modern Library, 1936), 51. On the Pushkin jubilee, see Karen Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades: Celebrations in the Time of Stalin (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 113–48.

  12. A. Shitov, Iurii Trifonov: Khronika zhizni i tvorchestva (Ekaterinburg: Izdatel’stvo Ural’skogo Universiteta, 1997), 144–45.

  13. V. E. Iusim, “Detskie gody,” 12–13, in AMDNN, “Efim Lande” file.

  14. Ibid., 24.

  15. Ibid., 20–38 (the long quotation is from 28); V. E. Iusim, interview with author, December 5, 1998.

  16. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml; Svetlana Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora: Vospominaniia (Moscow: AGRAF, 2013), 89–90.

  17. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 90.

  18. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml.

  19. Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 90; Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml.

  20. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml.

  21. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 91.

  22. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 91–93.

  23. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 64, 72.

  24. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 73.

  25. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 72.

  26. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 75.

  27. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 69–70.

  28. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 78–79.

  29. Obolenskaia, “Vspominaiu o druzhbe,” Lib.ru, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/03b.shtml.

  30. Obolenskaia, “Vspominaiu o druzhbe,” http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/03b.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 81–82.

  31. Obolenskaia, “Vspominaiu o druzhbe,” http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/03b.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 83.

  32. Obolenskaia, “Vspominaiu o druzhbe,” http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/03b.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 82–83.

  33. Obolenskaia, “Vspominaiu o druzhbe,” http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/03b.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 83–84.

  34. A. Kosterin, “Za pereval,” in V potoke dnei (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1958), 223–49; RGALI, f. 457, d. 392, ll. 54, 57; Dnevnik Niny Kosterinoi (Moscow: Detskaia literatura, 1964), 21–22, 67–68, 83, 77–78, 71, 58, 91, 89, 105, 12, 20, 19, 32–34, 33, 60, 68, 63, 88–89 and passim. For the uncensored
version, see Dnevnik Niny Kosterinoi, http://gendirector1.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_4833.html. See also Il’ia Okunev, “Dom, v kororom proshli moe detstvo i iunost,’” http://www.liveinternet.ru/showjournal.php?journalid=4298821&jday=14&jyear=2012&jmonth=8.

  35. Dnevnik Niny Kosterinoi, 23, 49, 28, 30, 34, 53, 77, 81. Cf. http://gendirector1.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_4833.html.

  36. Ibid., 31, 56–57, 59, 81–83, 94. Cf. http://gendirector1.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_4833.html.

  37. Ibid., 36, 54, 102, 104, 62–63, 83, 86–87, 93. Cf. http://gendirector1.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_4833.html.

  38. Ibid., 37, 41–47, 72–73, 76, 84, 88–89, 94, and passim. Cf. http://gendirector1.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_4833.html. The German original is “Erinnerung”: “Willst du immer weiter schweifen? / Sieh, das Gute liegt so nah. / Lerne nur das Glück ergreifen, / Denn das Glück ist immer da.” The English translation is from Paul Carus, Goethe, with Special Consideration of His Philosophy. Containing One Hundred and Eighty-Five Portraits and Other Historical Illustrations (Chicago: Open Court, 1915), 335.

  39. Ibid., 103; Cf. http://gendirector1.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_4833.html.

  40. Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 13 (January 2 and 3, 1941), 56–58, 89–90, 92; bk. 14 (January 5 and 6, 1941), 7, 13–14 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 171–92, 211–15]. See chapter 22, note 22, for how this work is cited.

  41. Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 14 (January 6, 1941), 16; bk. 14 (January 8, 1941) 27; bk. 13 (December 31, 1940), 59 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 231–32, 176].

  42. Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 14 (January 2, 1941), 86–87 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 207].

  43. Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 14 (January 5–9, 1941), 8, 11–12, 39, 25–26, 14 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 223, 226–27, 240, 253, 230].

  44. Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 14 (January 12, 1941), 50 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 264].

  45. Ibid., 52 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 266].

  31. THE COMING OF WAR

  1. Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 14 (June 5, 1941), 77–83 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 289–95]. See chapter 22, note 22, for how this work is cited.

  2. Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 14 (June 12, 1941), 96 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 306–7]; Evgenii Gurov, “Chego ne znali Stalin i Gitler, znal Leva Fedotov,” Prezent (supplement to Moskovskie vedomosti) 37 (December 1993): 6, 8.