Yury A. Dmitriev

Yuri A. Dmitriev, 2007
Yury A. Dmitriev
Native name Юрий Алексеевич Дмитриев
Born Yury Alexeyevich Dmitriev
(1956-01-28)28 January 1956
Petrozavodsk, Karelo-Finnish ASSR, RSFSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Occupation Human rights activist and Gulag researcher
Citizenship  Russia
Notable awards

Golden Pen of Russia (2005) Gold Cross of Merit, Poland (2015)

Honourary Diploma of the Karelian Republic (2016)
Children Son, daughter Katerina (Klodt); adopted daughter "Svetlana"

Yury Alexeyevich Dmitriev (b. 1956 in Petrozavodsk) is a rights activist and local historian in Karelia (Northwest Russia) who has worked since the late 1980s to locate the execution sites of Stalin's Great Purges and identify as many as possible of the buried victims they contain.[1]

As head of the Karelian branch of the Memorial Society, Dmitriev is particularly noted for his part in the discovery of two major burial sites and their subsequent investigation in 1997-1998: Krasny Bor not far from Petrozavodsk, and, on 1 July 1997, with members of St Petersburg Memorial, the massive killing field of Sandarmokh, 12 kilometres from Medvezhyegorsk. The latter contains over 9,000 of Stalin's executed victims of more than 50 Soviet and other nationalities.[2]

As a result of Dmitriev's lengthy and single-minded commitment to this task, Karelia's past is better documented in this respect than almost any other part of the Russian Federation.[3]

On 13 December 2016 Dmitriev was arrested on charges of making pornographic images of his adopted daughter.[4] After months in police custody his trial finally began on 1 June 2017.[5] Neither press nor public (as with other trials in Russia concerning sexual offences against minors) have been admitted to the hearings, which ran throughout June until mid July at the Petrozavodsk City Court.[6]

Childhood and early adult years

Yury Dmitriev's earliest years were spent in a Soviet orphanage. Later he was adopted by an army officer's family and taken to East Germany, where he grew up in Dresden.[7]

On returning to the Soviet Union he began a course at the Northwest Health Department of the Leningrad Medical College, but did not finish his training.[8] During the Gorbachev years, Dmitriev was a member of the Karelian People's Front, and served between 1989 and 1991 as an aide to USSR People's Deputy Mikhail Zenko.

Restoring the Names

Yekaterina Klodt, Dmitriev's daughter by his first marriage, has recently described her father's commitment to his life's work.

"I often asked him why he continually sat at the computer, writing or copying something out," she told Gleb Yarovoi. Dmitriev answered: "I do not know who I was in a past life, but I understand the meaning of my life now and I know that I must do this." As she grew older Yekaterina would frequently tell him to take a break—how much longer would he go on with these lists? "I can't stop," Dmitriev replied, "I must finish the book, people are waiting for it."[9]

At first Dmitriev was junior partner to another local man Ivan Chukhin, then head of Memorial in Karelia, who was driven to the work because his own father had been involved in the acts of repression under Stalin. When Chukhin, a retired police officer, suddenly died in 1997 Dmitriev carried on alone. Journalist Alexander Burtin has described Dmitriev's life as consisting, for year after year, of winters spent in the archives followed by summers scouring the forested areas around particular cities and towns with Witch (Vedma), his Alsatian, hunting for possible burial sites.[10]

According to information from the archives, Dmitriev wrote, about nine thousand men and women were shot at Sandarmokh:[11]

"3,500 were inhabitants of Karelia, 4,500 were prisoners working for the White Sea - Baltic Canal, and 1,111 were brought there from the Solovki "special" prison. Alongside hard-working peasants, fishermen and hunters from nearby villages, writers and poets, scientists and scholars, military leaders, doctors, teachers, engineers, clergy of all confessions and statesmen found their final resting place there."

In 2003, in addition to his Books of Remembrance, Dmitriev also published a collection of documents about the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal and the fate of the numerous convicts engaged in its construction.

Recognition at home and abroad

As a result of Dmitriev's activities he was appointed secretary of the Petrozavodsk Commission for Restoring the Rights of Rehabilitated Victims of Political Repression and became a member of the organisation of the same name at the republican level, covering all of Karelia.

Since 1997 he has also headed the Academy for the Defence of Socio-Legal Rights, a Karelian human rights NGO. As president of that body, in 2002, Yury Dmitriev wrote to the then head of the Karelian republic, Sergei Katanandov, objecting to the proposal by the Karelia Council of Veterans to put up a statue in Petrozavodsk to Yury Andropov. (KGB chairman from 1967 to 1982, Andropov headed the Komsomol in Karelia during the Great Patriotic War, from 1940 to 1944.) Katanandov did not reply to Dmitriev's letter and the 10-foot-high bust of Andropov was erected. The decision, commented Dmitriev, reflected the nation's attitude to its recent history: "We don't know the past, and we don't want to know."[12]

In 2005 Dmitriev was awarded the new "Golden Pen of Russia" prize for his publications.[13]

In 2015 he received the Gold Cross of Merit from Poland for his work in locating mass burials at Sandarmokh and on Solovki, and identifying the victims they contained.[14]

In 2016 Dmitriev was awarded an Honourary Diploma of the Karelian Republic by the administration of the new head of Karelia, Alexander Hudilainen (Худилайнен, Александр Петрович).

Since 1997 Sandarmokh has drawn visitors from many countries, but especially Ukraine since so many Ukrainians were shot there. An annual Day of Remembrance is held on 5 August, the date of the site's discovery, and for many years the event had official support and recognition.

5 August 2016

On 5 August 2016 the Day of Remembrance at Sandarmokh was marked with speeches and a gathering of those who had come from Karelia and beyond to attend the event. The event was opened by Yury Dmitriev and Irina Flige, the director of the Memorial Research and Information Centre in St Petersburg.[15]

For the first time, the opening speakers noted, not a single official was present, whether from the local, republican or federal authorities. No Orthodox priests were in attendance and, another first, there was no solemn religious procession led by the cross. (The Ukrainians had ceased coming to Sandarmokh several years earlier.) This was an opportunity, suggested Dmitriev and Flige, for people to say just what they thought. After they had spoken they invited anyone present to address the gathering on the sole condition that he or she introduce him or herself before speaking.

The speeches that day were recorded and the resulting 28-minute film was posted on the Internet.[16]

The photos—purpose and uses

When charges were brought against the imprisoned Dmitriev in early 2017 it became clear that he had a great many supporters.[17] By early July an Internet petition in his defense had drawn over 30,000 signatures in Russia and elsewhere.[18]

They and his defence team consider the charges to be fabricated, a misinterpretation of what little evidence the investigators have found. There is also concern about the prospects for a fair trial. On 10 January 2017 a programme on a national TV network Rossiya-24 entitled "What does Memorial have to hide?" showed some of the photographs Dmitriev had taken of his adopted daughter. The defence team believes they were leaked to the media by the investigators, although as evidence in a forthcoming trial they were sub judice.[19]

The explanation offered by Dmitriev for the existence of the 140 photographs, 9 of which are claimed by the prosecution to be "pornographic", is that they record the improving health of a neglected and under-nourished little girl from a children's home, whom he and his second wife had taken into their care. He stopped keeping this photographic record in 2015.[20] Today eleven years old, the daughter has recently won the Petrozavodsk city cup for her age-group in a martial arts tournament.

The trial

On 11 July four expert witnesses testified on behalf of the defence, casting serious doubts on the interpretation of the evidence by the prosecution and its experts.

Dmitriev's attorney announced that the hearings had ended for the time being and would resume on 1 August. He expressed the hope that his client could address the court on 22 August and that a verdict would be delivered by 1 September 2017.[21]

Dmitriev's term of custody was extended on 11 May until 22 October this year, i.e. for the expected duration of the trial.[22]

Commenting on the situation, Dmitriev's daughter by his first marriage Yekaterina said, "I just can't process this rubbish. The trial looks like a circus."[23]

The accused was not widely known before he was arrested and charged. The closed nature of the current hearings made it difficult to get information and report freely on the case. Nevertheless, in early July journalist Maria Eismont wrote that the trial of Yury Dmitriev in Petrozavodsk was "the most important thing happening in Russia right now".[24]

Among the many who posted video clips on YouTube and elsewhere, commenting on the Dmitriev case, was the dramatist and poet Alexander Gelman. He remarked:[25]

"This trial has helped us recognise a remarkable man. It is a barbaric way of discovering good people, but in Russian society it has proved very effective. In this sense, the trial has done something worthwhile."

Publications

Author and editor

Interviews

Articles about Dmitriev

See also

References

  1. ↑ Returning the Names: Russia's Books of Remembrance website (Возвращенные имена.Книги памяти России), Search: "Sandarmokh", "Kniga pamyati Karelii", 4,974 names (accessed 7 August 2017).
  2. ↑ Anna Yarovaya, "The Dmitriev Affair", The Russian Reader, 10 March 2017. See passage where Irina Flige describes how she, Dmitriev and Venyamin Iofe discovered the site.
  3. ↑ Alexander Daniel, "He roused the Dragon", Rights in Russia, Weekly Update, No. 23 (256) 12 June 2017. Russian source: Zoya Svetova, "The Dmitriev Case and the Dragon of the Great Terror", Open Russia.
  4. ↑ Yekaterina Fomina, "'Papa said he'd sort everything out': Karelian historian Yu. Dmitriev is accused of making pornography using his own daughter", Novaya gazeta, 21 December 2016, in Russian.
  5. ↑ "The head of Memorial in Karelia has gone on trial, accused of preparing child pornography", Meduza daily news brief, 1 June 2017, in Russian.
  6. ↑ Andrew Osborn, "Hunter of Stalin's mass graves on trial: friends say he's been framed", Reuters, World News, 13 July 2017.
  7. ↑ "Yury Alexeyevich Dmitriev", The commemorative museum of the NKVD investigative prison, Tomsk (Siberia), (in Russian).
  8. ↑ See Meduza daily news brief, 1 June 2017 (in Russian).
  9. ↑ Anna Yarovaya, "The Dmitriev Affair", The Russian Reader, 10 March 2017. (Russian source, 7 x 7 website, 1 March 2017.)
  10. ↑ Shura Burtin, "The case of Khottabych", Russian Reporter weekly, 30 May 2017, in Russian.
  11. ↑ "The Solovki transports, 1937-1938", Returning the Names website.
  12. ↑ David Satter, It was a long time ago, and anyway it never happened: Russia and the Communist Past, Yale University Press, 2011.
  13. ↑ The Golden Pen of Russia, a national literary prize, "Prize-winners, 2005 onwards", in Russian. Dmitriev was among the first 23 authors to receive the new prize.
  14. ↑ Polish Consultate-General, St Petersburg, "Days of Remembrance for the Victims of Political Repression", 20 August 2015, in Russian and Polish.
  15. ↑ "Sandarmokh, The Day of Remembrance of the Victims of State Terror", a 28-minute film on YouTube, in Russian.
  16. ↑ See preceding note.
  17. ↑ "Yury Dmitriev's supporters", Rights in Russia Weekly Update, No (258), 21 June 2017.
  18. ↑ Change.org - «Мы требуем восстановления законности в деле Дмитриева» (We demand that the laws be respected in the case of Yury Dmitriev!)
  19. ↑ "Yury Dmitriev should be acquitted", Rights in Russia Weekly Update, No 23 (256) 12 June 2017, Zoya Svetova interviews Dmitriev defence attorney Victor Anufriev.
  20. ↑ Alexander Gnetnev and Yelizaveta Maetnaya, "People trust him", Radio Svoboda, 1 June 2017, in Russian.
  21. ↑ Anna Yarovaya, "Four more experts testify in defence of Dmitriev", 7x7: Horizontal Russia news website, 11 July 2017.
  22. ↑ Anna Yarovaya, 7 x 7, 11 July.
  23. ↑ Howard Amos, "Anti-Stalin historian is accused of paedophilia", The Times (London), 18 July 2017, p.38.
  24. ↑ Maria Eismont, "The Dmitriev case in the most important thing happening in Russia right now", The Russian Reader website, 8 July 2017, Russian original Vedomosti newspaper.
  25. ↑ Nikolai Podosogorsky, "Alexander Gelman has recorded a video address in defence of the historian Yury Dmtriev", Live Journal, 25 July 2017 (Retrieved 9 August 2017.)
  26. ↑ "New books by Yury Dmitriev", Rights in Russia, Weekly Update No. 22 (255), 5 June 2017.
  27. ↑ Mentions of Yury Dmitriev on Rights in Russia.
  28. ↑ Articles on Rights in Russia from a variety of sources, translated and original.

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Ukrainian

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