The Case of Professor S. V. Voznesenskiy

Abstract

The article is explore the "case" in 1938–1940 of the famous historian Sergei Valerianovich Voznesenskii. Genuine archival materials—investigative case files from the FSB archive for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region—provide reasons for his arrest and circumstances of this scholar’s so-called "confessions" about belonging to a counter-revolutionary terrorist organization, the Leningrad Menshevik Center. The case itself was completely fabricated by investigators from the Leningrad NKVD, who widely used illegal methods of investigation: threats, torture, and the like. Voznesenskii was brought before the court of the Military Tribunal of the Leningrad Military District on September 14, 1939, where he and his “accomplices,” professors S. I. Kovalyov, Ia. M. Zakher, A. N. Shebunin, and others found the courage to resolutely reject their earlier confessions, and on September 15 their case was returned for further investigation. However, because the accused continued to reject their previous testimony, and the investigators did not use the physical measures of the so-called “Beria thaw,” the case did not have any judicial foundations. As a result, as early as January 1940, N. N. Andreev, M. N. Martynov, and S. I. Kovalyov were released and the case against them was dropped. As for S. V. Voznesenskii, A. N. Shebunin, and Ia. M. Zaher, their cases were referred to the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR. The verdict delivered for Zakher and Shebunin was severe: eight years in forced labor camps. There is no doubt that Voznesenskii’s sentence would have been the same; only his unexpected death in a prison hospital saved him from this fate.