Vitaly Shentalinsky

Vitaly Alexandrovich Shentalinsky (Russian: Виталий Александрович Шенталинский; 7 October 1939 – 27 July 2018)[1] was a Russian writer and journalist. He became internationally known for his books on the fates of Russian writers during the Great Purge under the rule of Joseph Stalin.[2][3][4][5]

Life

Shentalinsky spent his school years in the district Chistopol in the Autonomous Soviet Republic Tatarstan.[6] He graduated from the College of Arctic Maritime Studies (Арктическое морское морское училище) in Leningrad and subsequently studied at the Faculty of Journalism of Lomonosov State University in Moscow. He worked at a polar station on the Wrangel Island, he participated in five scientific expeditions in the Arctic. He worked for state television and several magazines, he was the author of travel reports from Siberia and the Arctic. In the popular magazine Ogoniok he had his own column dedicated to the conservation of nature and cultural monuments. He also wrote several volumes of poetry.[7]

During the Perestroika under Mikhail Gorbachev he was elected to head a commission of the Union of Soviet Writers to investigate the fate of writers persecuted by Stalin‘s secret police NKVD. He then got permission to work in the KGB archives. On the basis of his research, three volumes of documentation were published with extensive commentary. Chapters are devoted to Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Bulgakov, Pavel Florensky, Maxim Gorky, Nikolai Klyuev, Ossip Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak, Boris Pilnyak and Marina Tsvetaeva. They contain longer extracts from snitch reports and interrogation protocols.

He published materials on the NKVD officer Yakov Agranov, who led many of the repressive measures against writers.[8] Shentalinsky's books on the repression of writers were also published in English, French, German, Polish, Serbian and Spanish. Based on his work, several television documentaries were produced. His publications were praised by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Yevgeny Yevtushenko.[9]

In the Tatar community of Yuldus (district Chistopol), where he grew up, the "Shentalinsky Readings" have been taking place since 2013.[10]

Main works

  • Raby svobody v literaturnykh arkhivakh KGB. Parus, Moscow 1995 ISBN 5-900920-01-1 (English edition: Arrested Voices. Resurrecting the Disappeared Writers of the Soviet Regime. With an introduction by Robert Conquest. Free Press, New York 1996 ISBN 978-0684827766).
  • Prestuplenie bez nakazaniya. Dokumentalnye povesti Progress-Pleyada, Moscow 2007 ISBN 978-5-93006-033-1. (English edition: The KGB's Literary Archive. Introduction by Robert Conquest. The Harvill Press, London 1997 ISBN 978-1860460739).
  • Donos na Sokrata. Formika-S, Moscow 2001 ISBN 5-8463-0081-2

References

  1. ↑ «Я - Виталий Шенталинский» Magadanskaya Pravda, 3 August 2018.
  2. ↑ The Deafening Silence of Suppressed Russian Voices Gets a Hearing latimes.com, 23 July 1996.
  3. ↑ Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne nzz.ch, 22 January 2001.
  4. ↑ Vitali Chentalinski elpais.com, 26 January 1995.
  5. ↑ Les lettres noires du KGB lemonde.fr, 6 December 2012.
  6. ↑ Десять дней на родине. Виталий Шенталинский в Чистополе chisto-muzei.ru, 11 May 2017.
  7. ↑ Alexandr Malkin, Otgorivshy „Grobnitsu pamyati“, Zarubezhye, 2.2012.
  8. ↑ Осколки серебряного века. Окончание Novy Mir, 6.1998.
  9. ↑ Умер высоко оцененный Солженицыным и Евтушенко журналист lenta.ru, 27 July 2018.
  10. ↑ В Чистопольском районе в поселке Юлдуз прошли «Шенталинские чтения» tatarstan24.tv, 11 May 2017.
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