Litwin
Platinum Member
3/14/19
Russiaās intelligence service has refused to declassify the names of members of Stalinās notorious three-judge panels that issued death sentences without trials, Russian media reported this week. As many as 700,000 people were executed in Stalinās āGreat Terrorā of 1937-38, according to conservative estimates. The Memorial human rights NGO keeps a database of some 3 million victims of Soviet repression. At least two Moscow courts have sided with the Federal Security Serviceās (FSB) refusal to grant gulag historian Sergei Prudovsky access to files containing the names of so-called NKVD Troika judges, Kommersant reported on Thursday. The NKVD was the predecessor of the Soviet KGB. ā[His] position could harm both the living relatives of officials who signed the protocols and the objective assessment of the 1937-1938 historical period,ā senior FSB legal adviser Yelena Zimatkina reportedly told the court in response to Prudovsky calling the judges ābutchers.ā Meanwhile, the head archivist in Novosibirsk region has barred researchers from accessing local NKVD files pending an examination for classified materials, the Znak.com news website reported on Wednesday.
āWe havenāt had blocks of this scale before,ā the outlet quoted researcher Denis Karagodin, who spent years investigating the execution of his great-grandfather in 1938, as saying. Last summer, Prudovsky said the authorities had issued secret orders to destroy gulag prisonersā records once the former convicts reached the age of 80. Russiaās Interior Ministry initially said the files were being digitized, then explained that the destruction affected non-political gulag survivors. Memorial historian Nikita Petrov told Kommersant that the growing trend of restricting access to Soviet archives was a āsad sign of the times.ā Increasingly we see the Putin regime closing archives and then endeavor to create an "alternative history".
Related: Russia Secretly Orders Destruction of Gulag Prisonersā Records, Media Warns
Russiaās intelligence service has refused to declassify the names of members of Stalinās notorious three-judge panels that issued death sentences without trials, Russian media reported this week. As many as 700,000 people were executed in Stalinās āGreat Terrorā of 1937-38, according to conservative estimates. The Memorial human rights NGO keeps a database of some 3 million victims of Soviet repression. At least two Moscow courts have sided with the Federal Security Serviceās (FSB) refusal to grant gulag historian Sergei Prudovsky access to files containing the names of so-called NKVD Troika judges, Kommersant reported on Thursday. The NKVD was the predecessor of the Soviet KGB. ā[His] position could harm both the living relatives of officials who signed the protocols and the objective assessment of the 1937-1938 historical period,ā senior FSB legal adviser Yelena Zimatkina reportedly told the court in response to Prudovsky calling the judges ābutchers.ā Meanwhile, the head archivist in Novosibirsk region has barred researchers from accessing local NKVD files pending an examination for classified materials, the Znak.com news website reported on Wednesday.
āWe havenāt had blocks of this scale before,ā the outlet quoted researcher Denis Karagodin, who spent years investigating the execution of his great-grandfather in 1938, as saying. Last summer, Prudovsky said the authorities had issued secret orders to destroy gulag prisonersā records once the former convicts reached the age of 80. Russiaās Interior Ministry initially said the files were being digitized, then explained that the destruction affected non-political gulag survivors. Memorial historian Nikita Petrov told Kommersant that the growing trend of restricting access to Soviet archives was a āsad sign of the times.ā Increasingly we see the Putin regime closing archives and then endeavor to create an "alternative history".
Related: Russia Secretly Orders Destruction of Gulag Prisonersā Records, Media Warns