From arrest to arrest: experiences of the re-convicted victims of Stalinist terror in the USSR, 1930-1953

从被捕到被捕：1930-1953 年苏联斯大林主义恐怖活动重新定罪受害者的经历

• 批准号: 2720892
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Nottingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2720892
• 关键词: arrest; experiences; re; convicted; victims

The most important documents about the terror in the Soviet Union became accessible after its dissolution in the 1990s. However, the central question of the exact number of victims of Stalinism is still widely debated (Khlevniuk, 2022; Wheatcroft, 2022; Zhuravskaya et al., 2021). This is, not least, because for precise estimation researchers still need to identify the number of so-called 'repeaters' ('povtorniky'), i.e. people arrested multiple times during Stalin's rule. Most declassified statistics describe the numbers of year-by-year arrests or convictions. It is not possible to establish a total simply by adding up all these figures because many people would be counted twice. Some researchers have estimated that 10-15% of Gulag prisoners were re-arrested (Khlevniuk, 2022). However, these estimations are based on selected judicial statistical data that describe not only political but also 'ordinary' criminals. The proposed research will offer a more precise estimation of the number of people arrested two or more times by the authorities for 'political' reasons. The case of 'repeaters' will also tell a lot about the long-term strategies for survival under totalitarianism. The unique history of over 20 years of Stalinism provides abundant material for a longitudinal study. Did people released from prison move (intentionally or forcedly) to another place, or change their workplace? How did their family status and relations change? Finally, the study will enrich the historiography of the state security agencies. According to the testimonials of former perpetrators of terror, they used card-indexes of 'suspicious' persons ('repeaters' were counted among these) for the different campaigns of terror (Hagenloh, 2009; Shearer, 2009). Did the waves of arrests of 'repeaters' coincide with general waves? Were specific ethnicities or social or gender groups disproportionately targeted? The research is based on several archival sources, both digitised and analogue. I will analyse a large-scale online database, Victims of Political Terror in the USSR (Memorial, 2017), which includes more than 3 million short biographies. Additionally, I will examine a collection of digitised documents from terror victims' investigative files from the Moscow Region, held by the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). To contextualise the massive repression campaigns and explore available statistics on 'repeaters', I will conduct research at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford, USA, which contain a large collection of copies from major Russian archives. For a broader regional perspective, I will work at the National Archive of the Republic of Moldova (NARM), which holds archival collections on the repressions of the 1930s and 1940s inherited after 1991 from the former Moldovan KGB archive. Furthermore, I will investigate a collection of copies from the Archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, also located at the Hoover Institution Archives.Methodologically, this research project will use complex data-analytics tools to identify within the database subsequent arrests of the same person with a high degree of probability. For example, machine-learning algorithms will be used to classify victims' social profiles, and georeferencing for tracking changes in victims' places of birth and residence.This research project will elucidate important features of Stalin's dictatorship, including the total number of victims of political repression, their experiences and strategies for survival, and the functioning of the state security agencies. Stalinism was one of the longer-lasting and largest-scale dictatorships and this makes a deeper exploration of the Soviet penal system and the experiences of repressed citizens of the utmost value for identifying, understanding and addressing the conditions and prospects of present-day political prisoners under authoritarian regimes across the world.

关于苏联恐怖的最重要文件在1990年代解散后就可以使用。然而，斯大林主义受害者确切人数的核心问题仍在广泛争论中（Khlevniuk，2022； Wheatcroft，2022； Zhuravskaya等，2021）。尤其是，这是因为为了确切的估计，研究人员仍然需要确定所谓的“中继器”（“ povtorniky”）的数量，即在斯大林统治期间，人们多次被捕。大多数解密的统计数据描述了逐年逮捕或定罪的数量。不可能简单地将所有这些数字加起来，因为许多人被计算两次。一些研究人员估计，有10-15％的古拉格囚犯被重新逮捕（Khlevniuk，2022年）。但是，这些估计基于选定的司法统计数据，这些数据不仅描述了政治，而且描述了“普通”罪犯。拟议的研究将出于“政治”原因对被当局逮捕两次或更多次的人数进行更精确的估计。 “中继器”的案例还将讲述极权主义下生存的长期策略。超过20年的斯大林主义的独特历史为纵向研究提供了丰富的材料。人们是从监狱搬迁（故意或强迫地）释放到另一个地方还是更改工作场所？他们的家庭状况和关系如何改变？最后，该研究将丰富国家安全机构的史学。根据前恐怖肇事者的证词，他们使用了“可疑”人的卡索引（在其中计算在其中）进行了不同的恐怖运动（Hagenloh，2009; Shearer，2009）。 “中继器”的逮捕浪潮是否与一般浪潮相吻合？特定种族或社会或性别群体的目标是不成比例吗？该研究基于数字化和类似物的几个档案资源。我将分析一个大规模的在线数据库，即苏联政治恐怖的受害者（纪念馆，2017年），其中包括超过300万个短传记。此外，我将研究由俄罗斯联合会国家档案馆（GARF）持有的恐怖受害者调查档案中的数字化文件。为了使大规模的压制运动与“中继器”的可用统计数据进行环境，我将在美国斯坦福大学的胡佛机构图书馆和档案馆进行研究，其中包含来自主要俄罗斯档案馆的大量副本。从更广泛的区域角度来看，我将在摩尔多瓦共和国国家档案馆（NARM）的国家档案馆工作，该档案是关于1930年代和1940年代在1991年后从前摩尔多瓦KGB档案馆继承的档案收藏的。此外，我将研究佐治亚州内政部档案中的一系列副本，该副本也位于胡佛机构档案馆。从学学上讲，该研究项目将使用复杂的数据分析工具来识别数据库随后在同一人中具有高度可能性的人。例如，机器学习算法将用于对受害者的社会概况进行分类，并为跟踪受害者出生地和居住地的变化而进行地理发行。这项研究项目将阐明斯大林独裁统治的重要特征，包括政治抑制的总数，其经验和策略，他们的生存和职能范围的安全性。斯大林主义是持久和最大规模的独裁政权之一，这使得对苏联刑事制度以及压抑公民的经验进行了更深入的探索，以识别，理解和解决世界各地专制政权领导下的当今政治囚犯的条件和前景。