1/2 "[...] the so-called organs of the NKVD are in the main a degenerate organization of unprincipled, dissolute, well-kept functionaries who, enjoying the former authority of the Cheka, seeking to satisfy the pathological suspiciousness of Stalin (I fear to say more), pursuing

November 6, 1938. #OTD Jan Yurievich Laks, an Estonian national who worked as a locksmith at a factory in Leningrad, was executed on an article 58-6 (espionage) charge. Laks and his wife, Evdokia Efimovna, had a daughter, Claudia, who survived the Nazi siege of Leningrad.

November 5, 1937. #OTD Mitrofan Ivanovich Belousov, an Odesa-born priest of Russian nationality, who led an orthodox church in Berezino village in the Moscow region, was executed at age 39. He was arrested on charges of “counterrevolutionary fascist activity,” and spent about

November 4, 1937. #OTD Alexandru Dobrogeanu-Gherea, a leading militant of the Romanian Communist Party and the son of the reformist-Marxist theorist Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, was executed at age 58. He was rehabilitated in the USSR in 1956; in Ceaușescu's Romania in 1968.

November 3, 1937. #OTD Georgy Nikolaevich Belousov, an unemployed Ukrainian peasant with no higher education, who found himself in ‘Moscow 1937’, was executed for supposedly belonging to a “counterrevolutionary terrorist group.” He spent 8 months in NKVD custody between his

Another from Sandermokh

November 3, 1937. #OTD Karl Wilhelmovich Borosh, a German by nationality who earned his living molding cast iron at the Kolomna Machine-Building Plant, in the Moscow region, was executed at age 46. Borosh had no known political affiliations and no higher education. He was

Sandarmokh, from the late months of 1937 through 1938, saw massive amounts of bloodshed. At least 6000 people were murdered and buried in 236 communal pits. Today, the entire massif stands as a monument to the victims that found horrid final rest there.

November 3, 1937. #OTD Mykola Konstantynovych Zerov, a poet and professor (along with other deserved titles) who led the Neoclassical movement in the USSR; a key figure of Ukraine's Executed Renaissance, was shot in Sandarmokh, Karelia at age 47. He was rehabilitated in 1958.

November 3, 1937. #OTD Oleksandr-Zenon (Les) Stepanovych Kurbas, a legendary Ukrainian director and actor, a key figure of the so-called Executed Renaissance, and a vital pillar of the early Soviet avant-garde, was executed at age 50. He was rehabilitated in 1957.

November 2, 1937. #OTD Alexander Isaakovich Vilensky, a Jewish Ukrainian who earned his living as the director of a brick factory, and was educated as a ceramics engineer, was executed at age 33. Vilensky was born in Novovorontsovka village in the Kherson region, and lived in

October 31, 1938. #OTD Ida Osipovna Rappoport, a Jewish national born in Riga, and educated in Germany, who worked as an engineer at a factory in the Mari ASSR, was executed at age 34. Rappoport spent a year in NKVD custody before she was shot on Article 58-6 (espionage)

October 31, 1939. #OTD a foundational writer of Yakut literature and an architect of the modern Yakut nation, Platon Alekseevich Sleptsov (pseud. Oyunsky), after his arrest for accusations of preparing an armed uprising, died of Tuberculosis in a prison in his homeland at age 45.

Today is Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression. In 1933, British and Soviet staff of Metro Vickers were put on a show trial in Moscow, accused of “wrecking and espionage”, but the case was so weak that one was acquitted and the rest of Brits, expelled to UK.

October 30, 1937. #OTD Anton Korneevich Beldovsky, a Polish national who earned his living as an engineer at the thread factory Krasnaya Nit, manufacturing the supplies necessary to clothe citizens, was executed at age 47. Beldovsky’s hometown was Mokhnach village in Kharkiv

October 30, 1942. #OTD Kaspar Kasparovich Armbrister, a carpenter of German nationality who earned his living working for an NKVD-run metallurgy outfit in Chelyabinsk, was executed at 41 years old. Armbrister was born in Krasny Yar, a small settlement in Mordovia. He had only a

October 30, 1937. #OTD Mikhail Osipovich Razumov, a Ukrainian Soviet stateman who held a litany of posts, the most notable of them being First Secretary of the Tatarstan Communist Party, was executed at age 42-43. He was rehabilitated; restored to the Order of Lenin in 2005.

October 30, 1991. #OTD the “Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions” was officially established by the Supreme Soviet of the newly minted Russian Federation to honor the victims of repression in the former Soviet Union. This day of mourning was unofficially

For context, here's an excerpt from our description that explains what this book is and why we feel it's important to read #OTD: 'This episode is the introduction and first essay of a collection of six essays entitled Names That Have Returned: Writing on the Restructuring.

The first part of our seven part audiobook production of Names That Have Returned, in honor of the eve of the Day of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repression, is out NOW! Listen on Spotify and YouTube (see our Linktree in bio) and be on the look out for the next parts! 🫡🎉