Yevgenia Ginzburg
Encyclopedia
Yevgenia Ginzburg was a Russia
n author who served an 18-year sentence in the Gulag
. Her given name is often Latin
ized to Eugenia.
, her parents were Solomon Natanovich Ginzburg (a Jewish pharmacist
) and Revekka Markovna Ginzburg. The family moved to Kazan
in 1909.
In 1920, she began to study social sciences
at Kazan State University, later switching to pedagogy
. She worked as a rabfak (рабфак, рабочий факультет, workers' faculty) teacher. In April 1934, Ginzburg was officially confirmed as a docent
(approximately equivalent to an associate professor in western universities), specializing in the history of the All-Union Communist Party
. Shortly thereafter, on May 25, she was named head of the newly created department of the history of Leninism. However, by the fall of 1935, she was forced to quit the university.
She first married a doctor Dmitriy Fedorov, by whom she had a son, Alexei Fedorov, born in 1926. He died in 1941 during the siege of Leningrad
. Around 1930, she married Pavel Aksyonov, the mayor (председатель горсовета) of Kazan and a member of the Central Executive Committee (ЦИК) of the USSR. Her son by this marriage, Vasily Aksyonov
, born in 1932, became a well-known writer. After becoming a Communist Party member, Ginzburg continued her successful career as educator, journalist and administrator.
), was accused of participating in a "counter-revolutionary Trotskyist group," this one led by Professor N. N. El'vov and concentrated in the editorial board of the newspaper Krasnaya Tatariia [Red Tataria]at which she was employed. After a long fight to keep her party card, she was expelled from the party (officially, she was excluded on February 8, 1937). Then, on February 15, 1937, she was arrested, accused of engaging in counter-revolutionary activity in El'vov's group and concealing this activity. Because she was a party member throughout this alleged activity, she was also accused of "playing a double game.". From the day of her arrest, and unlike most of those around her, she forcefully denied the NKVD's accusations and never accepted any role in the supposed "counter-revolutionary Trotskyist organization."
Her parents were also arrested but released two months later. Her husband was arrested in July, sentenced to 15 years of "corrective labor," and his property was confiscated, under Articles 58-7 and 11 of the RSFSR Penal Code
.
and Butyrka
prisons in Moscow, and the Yaroslavl
"Korovniki". She crossed the USSR on a prison train to Vladivostok
and was put in the cargo hold of the steamer Jurma (Джурма) whose destination was Magadan
. There she worked at a camp hospital, but was soon sent to the harsh camps of the Kolyma
valley, where she was assigned to so-called "common jobs" and quickly became an emaciated dokhodyaga ("goner"). A Crimean German doctor, Anton Walter, probably saved her life by recommending her for a nursing position; they eventually married. Anton had been deported because of his German heritage.
In February 1949, Ginzburg was released from the Gulag
system, but had to remain in Magadan
for five years. She found a position at a kindergarten and began to write her memoirs in secret. However, in October 1949, she was arrested again and exiled to the Krasnoyarsk
region, but (at her request) her destination was changed to Kolyma at the last minute. No reason was ever given for this second arrest and exile.
's death in 1953 and following Ginzburg's repeated, vigorous appeals to various authorities to have her case reconsidered, she was released from the Gulag (on 25 June 1955) and allowed to return to Moscow. She was rehabilitated in 1955, as were millions of those wrongly convicted under Stalin's rule, many posthumously.
She returned to Moscow
, worked as a reporter and continued her work on her magnum opus
, her memoir Journey into the Whirlwind
(English title). She finished the book in 1967 but was unable to publish it in the USSR. The manuscript was then smuggled abroad and translated into many languages. Eventually, her memoir was divided into two parts, whose Russian titles are "Krutoi marshrut I" and "Krutoi marshrut II" -- "Harsh Route" or "Steep Route." She died in Moscow, aged 72.
in 2008. The film features actress Emily Watson
as Yevgenia Ginzburg, with Pam Ferris
and Ben Miller
in other roles. It was released in 2010.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n author who served an 18-year sentence in the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
. Her given name is often Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
ized to Eugenia.
Family and early career
Born in MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, her parents were Solomon Natanovich Ginzburg (a Jewish pharmacist
Pharmacist
Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...
) and Revekka Markovna Ginzburg. The family moved to Kazan
Kazan
Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,546 , it is the eighth most populous city in Russia. Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the...
in 1909.
In 1920, she began to study social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
at Kazan State University, later switching to pedagogy
Pedagogy
Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....
. She worked as a rabfak (рабфак, рабочий факультет, workers' faculty) teacher. In April 1934, Ginzburg was officially confirmed as a docent
Docent
Docent is a title at some European universities to denote a specific academic appointment within a set structure of academic ranks below professor . Docent is also used at some universities generically for a person who has the right to teach...
(approximately equivalent to an associate professor in western universities), specializing in the history of the All-Union Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
. Shortly thereafter, on May 25, she was named head of the newly created department of the history of Leninism. However, by the fall of 1935, she was forced to quit the university.
She first married a doctor Dmitriy Fedorov, by whom she had a son, Alexei Fedorov, born in 1926. He died in 1941 during the siege of Leningrad
Siege of Leningrad
The Siege of Leningrad, also known as the Leningrad Blockade was a prolonged military operation resulting from the failure of the German Army Group North to capture Leningrad, now known as Saint Petersburg, in the Eastern Front theatre of World War II. It started on 8 September 1941, when the last...
. Around 1930, she married Pavel Aksyonov, the mayor (председатель горсовета) of Kazan and a member of the Central Executive Committee (ЦИК) of the USSR. Her son by this marriage, Vasily Aksyonov
Vasily Aksyonov
Vasily Pavlovich Aksyonov was a Soviet and Russian novelist. He is known in the West as the author of The Burn and Generations of Winter , a family saga depicting three generations of the Gradov family between 1925 and 1953.-Early life:Vasily Aksyonov was...
, born in 1932, became a well-known writer. After becoming a Communist Party member, Ginzburg continued her successful career as educator, journalist and administrator.
Persecution
Following the assassination of Sergei Mironovich Kirov on December 1, 1934, Ginzburg, like many communists (see the Great PurgeGreat Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
), was accused of participating in a "counter-revolutionary Trotskyist group," this one led by Professor N. N. El'vov and concentrated in the editorial board of the newspaper Krasnaya Tatariia [Red Tataria]at which she was employed. After a long fight to keep her party card, she was expelled from the party (officially, she was excluded on February 8, 1937). Then, on February 15, 1937, she was arrested, accused of engaging in counter-revolutionary activity in El'vov's group and concealing this activity. Because she was a party member throughout this alleged activity, she was also accused of "playing a double game.". From the day of her arrest, and unlike most of those around her, she forcefully denied the NKVD's accusations and never accepted any role in the supposed "counter-revolutionary Trotskyist organization."
Her parents were also arrested but released two months later. Her husband was arrested in July, sentenced to 15 years of "corrective labor," and his property was confiscated, under Articles 58-7 and 11 of the RSFSR Penal Code
Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)
Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. It was revised several times...
.
Trial
On August 1, 1937, although Ginzburg still did not recognize her supposed guilt (despite the NKVD's repeated, ruthless interrogations), a closed meeting of the Military College of the Supreme Court of the USSR (in Moscow) sentenced her to 10 years imprisonment with deprivation of political rights for five years and confiscation of all her personal property. The judgement was declared to be final with no possibility of appeal. Ginzburg later wrote, in a letter to the chairman of the Presidium of the USSR's Supreme Soviet, that her entire "trial" took seven minutes, including the questioning and reading of the judgement: "My judges were in such a hurry that they did not answer any of my questions and declarations." Interestingly, in one of the most revealing chapters of her autobiography, Ginzburg expressed great relief upon hearing the verdict, because she had feared up to that very moment that she would be condemned to death:
"To live! Without property, but what was that to me? Let them confiscate it -- they were brigands anyway, confiscating was their business. They wouldn't get much good out of mine, a few books and clothes -- why, we didn't even have a radio. My husband was a loyal Communist of the old stamp, not the kind who had to have a Buick or a Mercedes.... Ten years!... Do you [the judges], with your codfish faces, really think you can go on robbing and murdering for another ten years, that there aren't people in the Party who will stop you sooner or later? I knew there were -- and in order to see that day, I must live. In prison, if needs be, but I must at all costs live!... I looked at the guards, whose hands were still clasped behind my back. Every nerve in my body was quivering with the joy of being alive. What nice faces the guards had! Peasant boys from Ryazan or Kursk, most likely. They couldn't help being warders -- no doubt they were conscripts. And they had joined hands to save me from falling. But they needn't have -- I wasn't going to fall. I shook back my hair curled so carefully before facing the court, so as not to disgrace the memory of Charlotte Corday. Then I gave the guards a friendly smile. They looked at me in astonishment."
Imprisonment and exile
Yevgenia experienced at first-hand the infamous LefortovoLefortovo prison
Lefortovo prison is a prison in Moscow, Russia, which, since 2005, has been under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. It was built in 1881...
and Butyrka
Butyrka prison
Butyrka prison was the central transit prison in pre-Revolutionary Russia, located in Moscow.The first references to Butyrka prison may be traced back to the 17th century. The present prison building was erected in 1879 near the Butyrsk gate on the site of a prison-fortress which had been built...
prisons in Moscow, and the Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historical part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It is one of the Golden Ring cities, a group of historic cities...
"Korovniki". She crossed the USSR on a prison train to Vladivostok
Vladivostok
The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...
and was put in the cargo hold of the steamer Jurma (Джурма) whose destination was Magadan
Magadan
Magadan is a port town on the Sea of Okhotsk and gateway to the Kolyma region. It is the administrative center of Magadan Oblast , in the Russian Far East. Founded in 1929 on the site of an earlier settlement from the 1920s, it was granted the status of town in 1939...
. There she worked at a camp hospital, but was soon sent to the harsh camps of the Kolyma
Kolyma
The Kolyma region is located in the far north-eastern area of Russia in what is commonly known as Siberia but is actually part of the Russian Far East. It is bounded by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Sea of Okhotsk to the south...
valley, where she was assigned to so-called "common jobs" and quickly became an emaciated dokhodyaga ("goner"). A Crimean German doctor, Anton Walter, probably saved her life by recommending her for a nursing position; they eventually married. Anton had been deported because of his German heritage.
In February 1949, Ginzburg was released from the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
system, but had to remain in Magadan
Magadan
Magadan is a port town on the Sea of Okhotsk and gateway to the Kolyma region. It is the administrative center of Magadan Oblast , in the Russian Far East. Founded in 1929 on the site of an earlier settlement from the 1920s, it was granted the status of town in 1939...
for five years. She found a position at a kindergarten and began to write her memoirs in secret. However, in October 1949, she was arrested again and exiled to the Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. It is the third largest city in Siberia, with the population of 973,891. Krasnoyarsk is an important junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and one of Russia's largest producers of...
region, but (at her request) her destination was changed to Kolyma at the last minute. No reason was ever given for this second arrest and exile.
Rehabilitation and later life
After Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's death in 1953 and following Ginzburg's repeated, vigorous appeals to various authorities to have her case reconsidered, she was released from the Gulag (on 25 June 1955) and allowed to return to Moscow. She was rehabilitated in 1955, as were millions of those wrongly convicted under Stalin's rule, many posthumously.
She returned to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, worked as a reporter and continued her work on her magnum opus
Masterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
, her memoir Journey into the Whirlwind
Journey into the Whirlwind
Journey into the Whirlwind is the English title of the critically acclaimed memoir by Eugenia Ginzburg. It was published in English in 1967, some thirty years after the story begins....
(English title). She finished the book in 1967 but was unable to publish it in the USSR. The manuscript was then smuggled abroad and translated into many languages. Eventually, her memoir was divided into two parts, whose Russian titles are "Krutoi marshrut I" and "Krutoi marshrut II" -- "Harsh Route" or "Steep Route." She died in Moscow, aged 72.
Film
A Ginsburg biopic, titled, Within the Whirlwind was filmed by director Marleen GorrisMarleen Gorris
Marleen Gorris is a writer-director from the Netherlands. Gorris is known as an outspoken feminist and supporter of gay and lesbian issues which is reflected in much of her work....
in 2008. The film features actress Emily Watson
Emily Watson
Emily Watson is an English actress. She gave an acclaimed debut film performance in Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves.- Early life :...
as Yevgenia Ginzburg, with Pam Ferris
Pam Ferris
Pamela Ann "Pam" Ferris is a German-born Welsh actress. She is best known for her starring roles on television as Ma Larkin in The Darling Buds of May, as Laura Thyme in Rosemary & Thyme, and for playing Miss Trunchbull in the movie Matilda...
and Ben Miller
Ben Miller
Bennet Evan "Ben" Miller is an English comedian, actor and director. He is perhaps best known as one half of comedy double act Armstrong and Miller, along with Alexander Armstrong. Together the pair wrote and starred in Channel 4 sketch show Armstrong and Miller, and the more recent BBC television...
in other roles. It was released in 2010.
Books by Ginzburg
- 1982. Within the Whirlwind. Harvest/HBJ Book. ISBN 0156976498.
- 2002. Journey into the Whirlwind. Harvest/HBJ Book. ISBN 0156027518.
See also
- SamizdatSamizdatSamizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
- Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. It was revised several times...
- Aleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was aRussian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his often-suppressed writings, he helped to raise global awareness of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system – particularly in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of...
- Khrushchev ThawKhrushchev ThawThe Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were partially reversed and millions of Soviet political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps, due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and...
- Vasily AksyonovVasily AksyonovVasily Pavlovich Aksyonov was a Soviet and Russian novelist. He is known in the West as the author of The Burn and Generations of Winter , a family saga depicting three generations of the Gradov family between 1925 and 1953.-Early life:Vasily Aksyonov was...
(her son)
External links
- Eyvgenia Ginzburg's works at Lib.ru (in original Russian)
- Excerpts from Ginsburg's "Journey into the whirlwind" (translated into English) can be found in Section 4.2 of L. Kowalski's book on Stalinism: http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/stalinism.html