The following is a copy of an undated letter to the Prosecutor General of the USSR Rudenko from People’s Artist of the Ukrainian SSR and UZ SSR Valentina Chistyakova with a request to provide information about her husband Oleksandr Kurbas, who was sentenced in 1934 to 5 years of imprisonment, information about his whereabouts, andContinueContinue reading “Letter from Wife of People’s Artist of Ukraine Oleksandr Kurbas to Soviet Authorities in Hopes of Learning his Fate, ca. 1954”
Tag Archives: Stalin
Coded Telegram to Moscow on Meeting Between Maksim Litvinov and FDR the Day After the Attack on Pearl Harbor
On 8 December 1941, new Soviet Ambassador to the United States Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov met with US President Franklin Roosevelt to present same with his credentials and address the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The following is an English translation of the coded telegram penned by Litvinov that day (sent to Moscow on 10 December).ContinueContinue reading “Coded Telegram to Moscow on Meeting Between Maksim Litvinov and FDR the Day After the Attack on Pearl Harbor”
Ukrainians React to Stalin’s Death in a Way that Attracts the Attention of State Security
Source: Istorychna Pravda, “How Ukrainians Reacted to Stalin’s Death. Declassified Special Notifications of the MGB” On Friday, 5 March 1953, the newspaper Pravda published the following sensational piece of news: “On March 5, at 9:50 in the evening, after a serious illness, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of the SSRContinueContinue reading “Ukrainians React to Stalin’s Death in a Way that Attracts the Attention of State Security”
Beria’s Son Petitions CPSU and KGB Leadership for Return of Confiscated Goods, Academic Title, and State Decorations
By 1965, Sergo Beria had lived with his KGB-assigned new last name ‘Gegechkori’ (his mother’s maiden name) for a decade. He’d also found himself, in his words, unaware that he had been stripped of his academic credentials, and that his discharge from the Soviet Army had been accompanied with a demotion down to the lowestContinueContinue reading “Beria’s Son Petitions CPSU and KGB Leadership for Return of Confiscated Goods, Academic Title, and State Decorations”
Translating History 