The House of Government

by Slezkine, Yuri

  13. TsDNA, f. 336 (Pavlovy-Shtrom), op. 1, d. 32 (dnevnikovye zapisi Very Pavlovoi–Shtrom), II. 137–38 (I am grateful to Jochen Hellbeck for making this document available to me); TsAODM, f. 75, op. 1, d. 310, ll. 16, 22.

  14. Moroz, “Minuvshee,” 8, in AMDNN, “Moroz” file; G. B. Ivanova, interview with author, March 13, 1998; V. N. Rabichev, interview with author, April 14, 1998; E. I. Zelenskaia, “A. A. Sol’ts,” unpublished manuscript in AMDNN, “Solts” file, 85. See also Iurii Trifonov, Ischeznovenie, RoyalLib.com, http://royallib.ru/read/trifonov_yuriy/ischeznovenie.html#0; cf. Yuri Trifonov, The Disappearance, trans. David Lowe (Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1991), 62.

  15. Zelenskaia, “A. A. Sol’ts,” 85; Moroz, “Minuvshee,” 11–13; Moroz, “V Dome tom,” 6, in AMDNN, “Moroz” file; G. B. Ivanova, interview with author, March 13, 1998; V. N. Rabichev, interview with author, April 14, 1998; TsDNA, f. 336 (Pavlovy-Shtrom), op. 1, d. 32 (dnevnikovye zapisi Very Pavlovoi-Shtrom), ll. 137–38.

  16. TsMAM, f. r-528 (MONO), op. 1, dd. 13, 16; f. 528 (MONO), op. 1, dd. 43, 106, 161, 165, 352 (quotation is on l. 3), 353 (quotations are from l. 6), 379.

  17. TsMAM, f. 528, op. 1, dd. 41, 486, 519.

  18. G. Lesskis, “Shkola na Sofiiskoi naberezhnoi,” Russkii iazyk 32, no. 152 (August 1998): 2; Korshunov and Terekhova, Tainy i legendy, 109–24, 64; Shikheeva-Gaister, Deti vragov naroda, 20.

  19. TsMAM, f. 528, op. 1, d. 150; Kisis, “Pis’mo v muzei,” 11–12; Lesskis, “Shkola na Sofiiskoi naberezhnoi,” 2; Korshunov and Terekhova, Tainy i legendy, 109–24, 64; Shikheeva-Gaister, Deti vragov naroda, 20; I. A. Gaister, interview with author, September 30, 1997; N. P. Kerzhentseva, interview with author, January 12, 1998; Z. A. Khatskevich, interview with author, September 4, 1998; T. V. Ignatashvili (Shuniakova), interview with author, April 22, 1998; M. A. Usievich, interview with author, January 30, 1998. Also T. I. Smilga, interview with author, January 19, 1998; Aroseva, Prozhivshaia dvazhdy, chap. 5; V. N. Rabichev, interview with author, April 14, 1998; V. D. Shvarts, interview with author, December 10, 1998.

  20. Moroz, “Minuvshee,” 11.

  21. E. I. Gruzinova (Kraval’), interview with author, January 16, 1998; T. I. Smilga, interview with author, January 19, 1998; I. A. Shikheeva-Gaister, Deti vragov naroda, 20; L. P. Postyshev, interview with author, October 1, 1998; M. Kol’tsov, Fel’etony i ocherki (Moscow: Pravda, 1956), 150–63.

  22. Osaf Litovskii, “Uriel’ Akosta” (Novyi teatr), Pravda, May 23, 1934; Aleksandr Leizerovich, “Gore razumu: ‘Uriel’ Akosta’ Karla Gutskova,” Sem’ iskusstv 5, no. 18 (May 2011): http://7iskusstv.com/2011/Nomer5/Lejzerovich1.php.

  23. AGTsTM, f. 454, d. 736, ll. 10–24.

  24. RGALI, f. 656, op. 1, d. 954, ll. 1–3, 24; f. 2310, op. 1, d. 78, ll. 13–15; Em. Beskin, “Novyi Gutskov,” Literaturnaia gazeta, August 6, 1934.

  25. Litovskii, “Uriel’ Akosta”; MKhAT vtoroi: Opyt vosstanovleniia biografii (Moscow: Moskovskii khudozhestvennyi teatr, 2010), 190, 300, 611.

  22. THE NEW MEN

  1. G. B. Ivanova, interview with author, March 13, 1998; Volodia Ivanov’s diary, AMDNN, “B. Ivanova” file, April 14, 1937.

  2. Volodia Ivanov’s letters, AMDNN, “B. Ivanova” file, August 11 and October 20, 1938.

  3. Ibid., April 15, 1939; February 7, 1939; and n.d.

  4. Ibid., March 10, 1939.

  5. Ibid., n.d.; April 15, 1939.

  6. Ibid., March 10, 1939.

  7. Ibid., n.d.

  8. Ibid., September 25, 1939; and n.d.

  9. Obolenskaia, Iz vospominanii, “Samizdat,” http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml; Svetlana Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora: Vospominaniia (Moscow: AGRAF, 2013), 88; ARAN, razriad 5, op. 1-0, d. 11, ll. 74–74ob. The English translation is from Heinrich Heine, Deutshland: A Winter’s Tale, trans. T. J. Reed (London: Angel Books, 1997), 31. The letter cites the original German: Ja, Zuckererbsen für jedermann, Sobald die Schoten platzen! Den Himmel überlassen wir Den Engeln und den Spatzen.

  10. ARAN, razriad 5, op. 1-0, d. 11, l. 75; Maria Osten, Gubert v strane chudes (Moscow: Zhurgaz, 1935), 54.

  11. Obolensksia, Iz vospominanii, http://samlib.ru/o/obolenskaja_s_w/02.shtml; Obolenskaia, Deti Bol’shogo terrora, 87–88.

  12. Iurii Trifonov, “Iz dnevnikov i rabochikh tetradei: Publikatsiia i kommentarii Ol’gi Trifonovoi,” entry for October 11, 1934, Druzhba narodov 5 (1998): http://magazines.russ.ru/druzhba/1998/5/trif.html.

  13. Ibid., entry for December 29, 1934.

  14. A. Shitov, Iurii Trifonov: Khronika zhizni i tvorchestva (Ekaterinburg: Izdatel’stvo Ural’skogo Universiteta, 1997), 102 (the Yaroslav quotation), 78; Trifonov, “Iz dnevnikov,” entries for June 2, 1937; January 1, 1938; January 31, 1938, http://magazines.russ.ru/druzhba/1998/5/trif.html.

  15. M. Daniel’, “Chetyre dnia (Iulis),” in Teatr narodov SSSR: Al’manakh p’es No. 1 (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1934), 113–66; S. Rozanov and N. Sats, Negritenok i obez’iana (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1930); Shitov, Iurii Trifonov, 86.

  16. Iurii Trifonov, Ischeznovenie, RoyalLib.com, http://royallib.ru/read/trifonov_yuriy/ischeznovenie.html#0; cf. Yuri Trifonov, The Disappearance, trans. David Lowe (Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1991), 46.

  17. Trifonov, Ischeznovenie, http://royallib.ru/read/trifonov_yuriy/ischeznovenie.html#0; cf. Trifonov, Disappearance, 49; Shitov, Iurii Trifonov, 89.

  18. Trifonov, “Iz dnevnikov,” Druzhba narodov, entry for November 2, 1938.

  19. Ibid., February 9, 1938.

  20. Iurii Trifonov, “Dobro, chelovechnost’, talant” and “Istoriia bolezni,” in Trifonov, Kak slovo nashe otzovetsia (Moscow: Sovetskaia Rossiia, 1985), 187–88, 200.

  21. Mikhail Korshunov and Victoria Terekhova, Tainy i legendy Doma na naberezhnoi (Moscow: Slovo, 2002), 48, 47, 51, 45; Trifonov, Kak slovo nashe, 200; L. Roshal’, Piramida, Solo truby: Kinostsenarii (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1989), 58, 70; Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 13 (December 27, 1940), [41]. As of this writing, Lyova’s diary has not yet been catalogued at RGALI. I am using Lyova’s own notebook numbers (only four have survived: 5, 13, 14, and 15); his pagination, where visible (brackets indicate uncertainty); and his dating (brackets indicate uncertainty). After this manuscript had been completed, Lyova’s diary was published as Lev Fedotov, Dnevnik sovetskogo shkol’nika, ed. I. V. Volkova (Moscow: AST, 2015). I am adding references to this text in brackets following the original citations.

  22. Korshunov and Terekhova, Tainy i legendy, 45; Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 14 (June [5], 1941), 72 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 284–85]; bk. 13 (August 29, 1940), 5 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 113]; Roshal’, Piramida, Solo truby, 58, 60–61, 70.

  23. Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 5 (November 23, 1939), [10] [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 60]; bk. 13 (August 29, 1940), 5 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 113]; Roshal’, Piramida, Solo truby, 53.

  24. Roshal’, Piramida, Solo truby, 53–54.

  25. Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 13 ([September, 2], 1940), 9 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 118].

  26. Ibid., bk. 5 (December 5, 1939), 59 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 87–88].

  27. Ibid., bk. 5 (November 23, 1939), 9–11 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 60–61]; Evgenii Gurov, “Chego ne znali Stalin i Gitler, znal Lyova Fedotov,” Prezent (supplement to Moskovskie vedomosti) 37 (December 1993): 1–2. Cf. Irina Paperno, “Tolstoy’s Diaries: The Inaccessible Self,” in Laura Engelstein and Stephanie Sandler, eds., Self and Story in Russian History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 242–65. Lyova’s “A Day from My Life” has not survived.

  28. Korshunov and Terekhova, Tainy i legendy, 129–30; Roshal’, Piramida, Solo truby, 53–55. My copy of those pages of the diary is illegible, so I am using Korshunov’s and Roshal’’s transcription [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 89].

  29. Korshunov and Terekhova, Tainy i legendy, 130 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 90].

  30. Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 5 (December 7, 1939), 66–67 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 91–92].

  31. Ibid., (December 8, 1939), 72–73; Korshunov and Terekhova, Tainy i legendy, 129–42 [Fedotov, Dnevn
ik, 93–107]; Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Google Books, http://books.google.de/books?id=VxcD91Uh4dcC&pg=PT19&lpg=PT19&dq=He+said+if+I+warn’t+so+ignorant,+but+had+read+a+book+called+%22Don+Quixote,%22+I+would+know+without+asking&source=bl&ots=IulY-bfDw0&sig=TmCkpDowiuNV-3v-1eUAyuSPBH4VxcD91Uh4dcC&pg=PT19&lpg=PT19&dq=He+said+if+I+warn’t+so+ignorant,+but+had+read+a+book+called+%22Don+Quixote,%22+I+would+know+without+asking&source=bl&ots=IulY-bfDw0&sig=TmCkpDowiuNV-3v-1eUAyuSPBH4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LdpkUo3gPMfXtQb0iIDIDg&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=He%20said%20if%20I%20warn’t%20so%20ignorant%2C%20but%20had%20read%20a%20book%20called%20%22Don%20Quixote%2C%22%20I%20would%20know%20without%20asking&f=false.

  32. Korshunov and Terekhova, Tainy i legendy, 169; Roshal’, Piramida, Solo truby, 69; Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 5 (December 8, 1939), page no. illegible [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 104].

  33. Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 14 (January 4, 1941), 6 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 221]; bk. 13 ([December 8], 1940), 33 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 146]; Gurov, “Chego ne znali,” 2.

  34. Roshal’, Piramida, Solo truby, 77–79; Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 5 (November 23, 1939), 16 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 64].

  35. Ibid., 16–17 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 64].

  36. Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 5 (November 27, 1939), 20 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 66].

  37. Ibid., (November 28, 1939), 20 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 66].

  38. Roshal’, Piramida, Solo truby, 59.

  39. Lyova Fedotov’s diary, bk. 5 (November 28, 1939), 20–22 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 66–68].

  40. Ibid., (November 29, 1939), 28 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 71].

  41. Ibid., (December 1, 1939), 35–36 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 75].

  42. Ibid., (December 1, 1939), 36–37 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 76].

  43. Ibid., (November 30, 1939), 39–40 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 77–78].

  44. Ibid., bk. 13 (August 27, 1940), 3 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 110–11].

  45. Ibid., 4–5 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 112].

  46. Ibid., bk. 13 (September 2, 1940), 10 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 119]; (September 10, 1940), 16 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 126].

  47. Ibid., (October 10, 1940), 21 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 131].

  48. Ibid., (November 9, 1940), 28 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 140]

  49. Ibid., (December 25, 1940), 40 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 153].

  50. Ibid., (December 29, 1940), 45 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 159].

  51. Ibid., (December 27, 1940), 41–42 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 155].

  52. Ibid., (December 30, 1940), 47 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 161].

  53. Ibid., 48–49 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 163–64].

  54. Ibid., 50–51 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 165–66].

  55. Ibid., 52 [Lev Fedotov, Dnevnik, 167].

  56. Ibid. [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 168].

  57. Ibid., 53–54 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 169–70].

  58. Ibid., 55 [Fedotov, Dnevnik, 171].

  23. THE TELEPHONE CALL

  1. N. S. Khrushchev, Vremia, liudi, vlast’ (vospominaniia) (Moscow: Moskovskie novosti, 1999), 1:91.

  2. AOM, fond. 2 (memoir collection), V. V. Bogutskii, Vospominaniia, p. 2.

  3. I. A. Gaister, interview with author, September 30, 1997; Khrushchev, Vremia, liudi, vlast’ (vospominaniia), 1:84.

  4. Agnessa Mironova-Korol’, Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory: A Voice from Stalin’s Russia, trans. Rose Glickman (Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2012), 71; M. M. Iakovenko, Agnessa: Ustnye rasskazy Agnessy Ivanovny Mironovoi-Korol’, Memorial: Istoricheskie programmy, “Nasha zhizn’ s Miroshei,” http://www.memo.ru/history/agnessa.

  5. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2003), 682, n13; Anatoly Granovsky, I Was an NKVD Agent (New York: Devin-Adair, 1962), 24. On the Kirov murder and the beginning of the Great Terror, see Matthew E. Lenoe, The Kirov Murder and Soviet History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010).

  6. Lev. 16:6–10.

  7. Walter Burkert, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical (Oxford: Blackwell, 1885), 82–84; René Girard, The Scapegoat (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly, ed., Violent Origins (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987); Walter Burkert, Homo Necans: Interpetationen altgriechischer Opferriten und Mythen (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1972), esp. 60–85.

  8. Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957), 43–49, 163–86, and passim (the quotation is from 46).

  9. Ibid., 35–43, 206–23.

  10. Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994), esp. 144–84; Wolfgang Behringer, Witches and Witch-Hunts: A Global History (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), 4–5, 12–13, 113–31 and passim; David Frankfurter, Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Ritual Abuse in History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).

  11. George L. Burr, ed., The Witch Persecutions in Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, 6 vols. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania History Department, 1898–1912), vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 23–24, http://history.hanover.edu/texts/bamberg.html, scanned by Mike Anderson, May 1998. Proofread and pages added by Jonathan Perry, March 2001.

  12. Ibid., 26–28.

  13. Ibid., 28.

  14. James Davidson Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle for America (New York: Basic Books, 1990); Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker, Satan’s Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt (New York: Basic Books, 1995), 2–3, 53–103; Lawrence Wright, Remembering Satan (New York: Knopf, 1994), 73–75; Mary de Young, The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004), 152. See also Sex Offender Laws Research, http://www.solresearch.org/~SOLR/rprt/bkgrd/FalsAcCases.htm.

  15. Wright, Remembering Satan, 3–11, 23–27, 37, 48, 59–62, 75–76, 86, 163–64 and passim (the Ingram quotation is from 7, the Braun quotation is from 83); Jeffrey S. Victor, Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend (Chicago: Open Court, 1993), 104 and passim; Rev. 16:19–20.

  16. Wright, Remembering Satan, 74; Nathan and Snedeker, Satan’s Silence, 11–50; Frankfurter, Evil Incarnate, 58; Victor, Satanic Panic; Philip Jenkins and Daniel Maier-Katkin, “Occult Survivors: The Making of a Myth,” in James T. Richardson et al., eds., The Satanism Scare (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991), 127–44.

  17. Quoted in de Young, Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic, 80–81.

  18. Frederick Crews, The Memory Wars: Freud’s Legacy in Dispute (New York: New York Review of Books, 1995), 18–23, 185–87, 219–22; Sherrill Mulhern, “Satanism and Psychotherapy: A Rumor in Search of an Inquisition,” in Richardson et al., Satanism Scare, 145–72; Victor, Satanic Panic, 104; Wright, Remembering Satan, 78 (the California poll quotation). The Malleus Maleficarum of the campaign was Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (first published in 1988 by HarperCollins).

  19. Wright, Remembering Satan, 8, 58, 59.

  20. Nathan and Snedeker, Satan’s Silence, 160–61; Mark Pendergrast, Victims of Memory: Sex Abuse Accusations and Shattered Lives (Hinesburg, VT: Upper Access, 1996), 367. For Thomas McEachin’s “Pennsylvania Sex Offender Archive Record,” see http://www.google.de/imgres?client=safari&sa=X&rls=en&biw=1100&bih=485&tbm=isch&tbnid=41Gt9t5rfyLu7M:&imgrefurl=http://www.sexoffenderrecord.com/citydirectory/PA/Brookhaven/Thomas_Mceachin_536231&docid=lfgvhmitWoqJWM&itg=1&imgurl=http://www.sexoffenderrecord.com/fullsize/14/91/149136605a26abb91748b1aed180da9e11dd121d.jpg&w=319&h=400&ei=waGcUvrAHonEtQbv6IGICA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=650&page=1&tbnh=156&tbnw=118&start=0&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:86&tx=59&ty=82.

  21. Wright, Remembering Satan, 134–92. The quotation is from 188. See also “Listing of information on 159 cases,” in Sex Offender Laws Research, http://www.solresearch.org/~SOLR/rprt/bkgrd/FalsAcCases.htm.

  22. de Young, Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic, 71; Ileana Flores, interview with Frontline, July 2001, in “Did Daddy Do It?” PBS Frontline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fuster/interviews/ileana.html; Na
than and Snedeker, Satan’s Silence, 173–74 (Rappaport quotation).

  23. Nathan and Snedeker, Satan’s Silence, 175.

  24. Ibid., 175–77.

  25. “Ileana Flores’s 1994 Deposition,” in “Did Daddy Do It?,” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fuster/frank/94recant.html; Ileana Flores, interview with Frontline, “Did Daddy Do It?” transcript, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fuster/etc/script.html.

  26. Frank Fuster, interview with Frontline, in “Did Daddy Do It?” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fuster/interviews/fuster.html.

  27. Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Sexual offender/predator flyer, http://offender.fdle.state.fl.us/offender/flyer.do?personId=58857.

  28. Behringer, Witches and Witch-Hunts, 213–14; Joanna Ball, “The Ritual of the Necklace,” publication of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, March 1994, http://www.csvr.org.za/index.php/publications/1632-the-ritual-of-the-necklace.html; Philip S. Gorski, The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 121.

  29. Ruth Scurr, Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), 182.

  30. Exod. 32:26–29.

  31. 2 Pet. 2:20–22.

  32. Num. 16:3, 19; 12:2, 10; 16: 32; Deut 9:20; Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 64, 111.

  33. 2 Pet. 2:4–9.

  34. 2 Pet. 2:12.

  35. N. I. Bukharin, Ekonomika perekhodnogo perioda, in Bukharin, Problemy teorii i praktiki sotsializma (Moscow: Politizdat, 1989), 163.

  36. Ibid., 165–66.

  37. 2 Pet. 3:8–9, 17.