Political Repression and Personality: The History of Political Repression against Soviet Astronomers

Copy of memorandum from the Committee on State Security (KGB) of the USSR for the Leningrad Province, 13 October 1989, author's personal archive. This communication came in response to an inquiry from A. G. Sokol'skii, director of the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, concerning the fate of institute staff members who were repressed during the 1930s.

For further information, see Eremeeva A. I. , ‘Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo B. P. Gerasimovicha (k 100-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia)‘ (’Life and work of B. P. Gerasimovich (on the 100th anniversary of his birth)’), Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xxi (1989), 253–301.

See, for example, Perel' Iu. G. , Iubileii otechestvennoi i mirovoi astronomii v 1964 godu (Anniversaries of native and world astronomy in 1964), Astronomicheskii kalendar, peremennaia chast’ (variable part), 1964, 256–8; Razvitie astronomii v SSSR, 1917–1967 (Development of astronomy in the USSR, 1917–1967) (Moscow, 1967), 65 and 215; and Eremeeva A. I. , ‘Osnovnye vekhi zhizni i deiatel'nosti B. P. Gerasimovicha’ (‘Principal landmarks in the life and work of B. P. Gerasimovich’), Committee on the History of Astronomy at the Astronomical Council of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Scientific Seminars, Informational Communication no. 19 (Moscow, 1969), 11–16.

Struve O. , ‘About a Russian astronomer’, Sky and telescope , xvi (1957), 379–81; McCutcheon R. A. , ‘The 1936–1937 purge of Soviet astronomers’, Slavic review , 1 (1991), 100–17; idem, ‘Stalin's purge of Soviet astronomers’, Sky & telescope , Ixxviii (1989), 352–57; and idem, ‘The purge of Soviet astronomy: 1936–37, with a discussion of its background and aftermath’, unpublished M.A. thesis, Georgetown University, 1985.

Bekauri Ivanovich Vladimir (1882–1937) directed the Special Technical Bureau from 1921 and created many types of armaments for the Red Army. See Marshal Tukhachevskii: Vospominaniia druzei i soratnkov (Marshal Tukhachevskii: Reminiscences of friends and comrades-in-arms) (Moscow, 1965), 200, 235.

Bespalov B. P. Orlova N. B. , 13 August 1989, personal archive of Orlova Natal'ia Borisovna N. B. Orlova. is the daughter of the Pulkovo astronomer Orlov B. A. At the time she received this letter, Orlova was researching the work and fate of the repressed Pulkovo astronomers Eropkin D. I. Musselius M. M. . See Orlova N. B. , ‘Maksimilian Maksimilianovich Musselius (1884–1938) i Dmitrii Ivanovich Eropkin (1908–1938)’, Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xxiii (1992), 144–217.

Gerasimovich B. P. , ‘Po Amerikanskim observatoriiam. l. Likskaia observatoria’ (‘Observatories of America. 1. Lick observatory’), Mirovedenie , xxvii, no. 2 (1931), 22.

Gerasimovich B. P. Schlesinger F. , 26 April 1929, Frank Schlesinger Papers, Yale University Archives (on microfilm at the American Institute of Physics).

Tsesevich V. P. Kulikovskii P. G. , 31 January 1967, author's personal archive.

Shapley H. Gerasimovich B. P. , 23 November 1936, Leningrad Division of the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences (LOA RAN), opis' 1 (1936), no. 34, 103.

Voronov Mikhailovich Nikolai (1913–??) began his career in the 1920s as an amateur astronomer in Novgorod Nizhnii , and in 1932 he joined the staff of the Tashkent Astronomical Observatory as a computer. Then, in the autumn of 1934, he delivered papers at Pulkovo about the motion of the minor planet Vesta and on improvements to the orbital theories of Jupiter and Saturn. According to Idel'son N. I. , Voronov delivered these papers with great erudition, and he made ‘an amazingly strong impression’ even on the country's leading specialists in theoretical astronomy. As a result of these papers, Voronov transferred from Tashkent to Pulkovo on 1 January 1935 and joined the staff of Idel'son's Theoretical Department on 1 April 1935. Voronov's ‘theory of Vesta’ was published abroad in the Astronomische Nachrichten, and this brought him international recognition. But after Voronov gave a presentation at a conference on theoretical astronomy in May 1935, Idel'son began to have doubts that were brought on by too close an agreement between observations of Vesta and Voronov's ‘theoretical’ results. The director's politic manner, on the one hand, and Voronov's energy and cunning, on the other, were such that Idel'son's suspicions did not immediately develop further. (Indeed, Voronov deftly eluded detection by constantly changing from one research topic to another.) It was left to V. F. Gaze to renew doubts about Voronov when she discovered too close an agreement between theory and observations in Voronov's new work on the motion of the minor planet Egeria. Such close agreement could only be the result of forgery, and thus Voronov was dismissed from Pulkovo on 9 March 1936. (Idel'son later proved that the same kind of forgery had taken place in Voronov's work on Vesta.) Subsequently, on 31 November 1936, Voronov's candidate of science degree was revoked, although Voronov himself continued to work for a short time under Tsesevich at the Tadzhik Astronomical Observatory. Arrested, released, and arrested again on several occasions, Voronov ultimately left astronomy for good. His later fate is unknown. See LOA RAN, fond 703, opis' 1 (1936), no. 58, 5–11 (from reverse side). See also Gnevyshev M. N. , ‘Sversheniia i trevogi Pulkova’ (‘Happenings and disquiet at Pulkovo’), Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xxi (1989), 350–1; Pal'chikov N. B. , ‘Pis'mo mame (letniaia praktika TadzhAO v 1936g.)’ (‘Letter to my mother (1936 summer practice at the Tadzhik Astronomical Observatory)’), Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xxiii (1992), 489–91; and Bronshten V. A. , ‘Nikolai Voronov’, Zemlia i vselennaia (Earth and universe), 1992, no. 2, 71–77.

For information about D. O. Sviatskii see Bronshten V. A. , ‘Razgrom Russkogo Obshchestva Liubitelei Mirovedeniia’ (‘Destruction of the Russian Amateur Astronomy Society’), Priroda , 1990, no. 10, 122–6; and Bronshten V. A. , ‘D. O. Sviatskii’, Zemlia i vselennaia (Earth and universe), 1991, no. 4, 68–74.

For information about Ter-Oganezov V. T. , see Bronshten V. A. , ‘Zhurnal ‘Mirovedenie’ v moskovskii period’ (‘The journal Mirovedenie during its Moscow period’), Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xx (1988), 373–96. See also article by Bronshten V. A. McCutcheon R. A. elsewhere in this volume.

Drozd A. D. Bubnov A. S. (Commissar of Enlightenment), 29 March 1931, Archive of the October Revolution, f. 762, delo 2, page 100. See also Martynov D. Ia. , ‘Pulkovskaia observatoriia v gody 1926–1933’ (‘Pulkovo Observatory in the years 1926–1933’), Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xvii (1984), 425–50.

Martynov , op. cit. (ref. 14), 447–8.

Private communications to the author from Nemiro A. A. Zverev M. S. , 1987. See also Gnevyshev , op. cit. (ref. 11), 342–68.

Gerasimovich B. P. Gorbunov N. P. , February 1936, LOA RAN, fond 703, opis' 1 (1936), no. 25, 25.

In fact, Pulkovo did procure and use several high quality domestic standard coronagraphs for the eclipse. The foreign instrumentation in question was a spectrohelioscope built specially for Pulkovo under the personal supervision of Walter Adams, director of Mount Wilson Observatory. At Gerasimovich's request, the instrument's inventor, George E. Hale, tested the instrument personally.

See ref. 17.

Educated as a chemist-technologist, Gorbunov Petrovich Nikolai (1892–1938) became a prominent figure in the first Soviet government, where he served as secretary of the Sovnarkom (Soviet of Peoples Commissars) and as Lenin's V. I. personal secretary. A full member of the Academy of Sciences, in 1935 he became the Academy's permanent secretary. The target of repeated denunciations during the Great Terror, Gorbunov was removed as permanent secretary in the summer of 1937. Expelled from the Party (and later briefly reinstated) in December, he was arrested by the NKVD on 19 February 1938, and was sentenced and executed on 7 November 1938. He was completely rehabilitated in 1954. See Logunov V. , ‘Upadok serdechnoi deiatel'nosti’ (‘Collapse of cardiac function’), Moskovskaia pravda , no. 204, 7 September 1988.

Slaventantor D. , ‘Lestnitsa slavy’ (‘The ladder of fame’), Leningradskaia pravda , 4 June 1936 3; Slaventantor D. , ‘Rytsari rabolepiia’ (‘Knights of servility’), Leningradskaia pravda 18 July 1936, 3; and Nezhdanov A. Slaventantor D. , ‘Eshche raz o pulkovskikh nravakh’ (‘Once again concerning Pulkovo customs’), Leningradskaia pravda 27 August 1936, 3.

Favorskii was a newcomer to Pulkovo. He had been appointed to replace B. A. Shigin, who had been dismissed in August 1936 for expressing the opinion that the Party should not interfere in scientific questions. Arrested later for Trotskyism, he did, fortunately, survive.

In her article about Eropkin D. I. Orlova N. B. ( op. cit. (ref. 6)) mistakenly dates the creation of the Pashukanis Commission as September 1936, and incorrectly associates the commission's founding with the appearance of the articles in Leningradskaia pravda.

LOA RAN, fond 703, opis' 1 (1936), no. 8, 20–21.

Oral history interview with Academician (then of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences) P. V. Slavenas in Vilnius in November 1987. Author's personal archive (tape recording).

Moscow Division of the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences (MOA RAN), fond 411, opis' 6, no. 721 (outline biography of Gerasimovich B. P. ), 29–30.

In 1954, Krzhizhanovskii together with Shain G. A. came to the aid of Gerasimovich's widow, whose many years of prison and exile had finally come to an end only to be replaced by the torments of trying to start a new life with the stigma of a conviction for political crimes. Krzhizhanovskii and Shain successfully campaigned for the restoration of her civil rights.

Ter-Oganezov V. T. , ‘Za iskorenenie do kontsa vreditel'stva na astronomicheskom fronte’ (‘For the eradication of all wrecking on the astronomical front’), Mirovedenie , xxvi, no. 6 (1937), 373–7.

Private communication (late 1960s) to the author from the scientific secretary of the Commission on the History of Astronomy, A. T. Zil'berbord. (In a private communication to the translator on 6 August 1986, S. Chandrasekhar reported that G. A. Shain, who came to see Chandrasekhar in the late 1940s, confirmed that Ambartsumian had escaped arrest by going to Simeis.).

L'vov V. E. , ‘Na fronte kosmologii’ (‘On the cosmological front’), Pod znamenem marksizma (Under the banner of Marxism), 1938, no. 7.

V. E. L'vov to Korneev (a member of the PZM editorial board), without date (1938), MOA RAN, fond 1515, opis' 2, no. 123, 4.

Morford V. K. to the editors of Pod znamenem marksizma (Under the banner of Marxism) ( Maksimov A. A. Korneev Kol'man E. ), 9 October 1938, MOA RAN, fond 1515, opis' 2, no. 123, 2.

The person who found the letters was not an historian and quoted them for reasons having nothing to do with political events at Pulkovo in the 1930s. See Sonin A. S. , ‘Grustnaia sud'ba velikogo otkrytiia’ (‘The sad fate of a great discovery’), Priroda , 1993, no. 1, 94–99.

Ambartsumian V. A. to the editors of Pod znamenem marksizma (Under the banner of Marxism), without date (November 1938), MOA RAN, fond 1515, opis' 2, no. 123, 8 (reverse side).

Ambartsumian V. A. to the editors of Pod znamenem marksizma (Under the banner of Marxism), 17 October 1938, MOA RAN, fond 1515, opis' 2, no. 123, 3.

Ambartsumian , op. cit. (ref. 33).

Ambartsumian V. A. to the editors of Pravda 18 November 1938, MOA RAN, fond 1515, opis' 2, no. 123, p.7.

See ref. 33.

Fesenkov V. G. gave his reminiscences during celebrations in the Academy's Astronomical Council marking the eightieth anniversary of Gerasimovich's birth. These celebrations had been organized on the initiative of the Committee on the History of Astronomy (CHA).

Haramundanis K. (ed.), Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, an autobiography and other recollections (Cambridge, 1984), 195.

Struve , op. cit. (ref. 4).

Gerasimovich B. P. to H. Shapley, telegram received on 19 March 1937, Shapley papers, Harvard University Archives.

Struve , op. cit. (ref. 39), 381. (Translator's note: Unfortunately, the original copy of this letter does not appear to have been preserved in the papers of the Yerkes Observatory Archives).

MOA RAN, fond 411, opis' 6, no. 721, 18 and 27.

Bulletin de l'Observatoire Central à Pulkovo , xv, no. 4 (1937), paragraph 127, 9.

Version 1 (30 June): LOA RAN, fond 703, opis' 1 (1937), no. 14, 13. Version 2 (29 June): Gerasimovich O. M. to Academician Kapitsa P. L. , 1 November 1939, Archive of Kapitsa P. L. . Version 3 (28 June): Reply from the Directorate of the KGB USSR for the Leningrad Province, 10 February 1989 (published in Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia (Historical-astronomical investigations), xxii (1991), 482). This latter date is not unlikely because B. P. Gerasimovich's last letter (to Barabashev N. P. in Khar'kov), in the Pulkovo Observatory archives, is dated 28 June 1937. See Ran LOA , fond 703, opis' 1 (1937), no. 40, 32.

Ibid. , version 1.

Astrosoveta Oktiabr'skoi Sessii Protokoly (Protocols of the October session of the Astronomical Council), LOA RAN, fond 703, opis' 1 (1937), 7–20. Note that in July–August 1937, Tikhov G. A. very briefly served as acting Pulkovo director following Gerasimovich's arrest.

Vavilov S. I. Shain G. A. Mikhailov A. A. to Commissar of Internal Affairs Beria L. P. , without date (but not earlier than 1945), MOA RAN, fond 596, opis' 2 (correspondence of Vavilov S. I. , 1913–1951), Khraneniia Edinitsa (ed. khr.) 17, 1–2.

Vavilov S. I. Shain G. A. to Procurator of the USSR Ia. Vyshinskii, January–February 1939, MOA RAN, fond 596, opis' 3, ed. khr. 17, 2–3. See also Shain G. A. Gerasimovich O. M. , 26 February 1941; Shain P. F. Gerasimovich O. M. , without date (1951); Shain G. A. Krzhizhanovskii G. M. , 28 September 1954; Shain G. A. Gerasimovich O. M. , 18 October 1954 (telegram regarding restoration of civil rights through the efforts of Acad. Krzhizhanovskii) — all from the private archive of Gerasimovich T. B. (daughter of Gerasimovich B. P. ). See also ‘Iz vospominanii T. B. Gerasimovich o G. A. i P. F. Shainakh’ (‘From T. B. Gerasimovich's reminiscences of G. A. and P. F. Shain’), a presentation to a 1991 conference at Shternberg State Astronomical Institute dedicated to the 100th anniversary of G. A. Shain's birth, author's personal archive (tape recording).

Private communications from Sitnik Professor G. F. , 12 May 1989 and April 1995, author's personal archive. See also ‘Otchet o deiatel'nosti GAISh MGU za 1937’ (‘Annual report of Shternberg State Astronomical Institute MGU, for 1937’), A. zh. 15, no. 3 (1937), 262.

‘V Akademii nauk SSSR’ (‘In the Academy of Sciences of the USSR’), Pravda 16 December 1937, 6. See also op. cit. (refs 20 and 27) and ‘V Prizidiume akademii nauk SSSR’ (‘In the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR’), Izvestiia 16 December 1937, 4.

‘Informatsionny biulleten’ Gruppy astronomii Akademii nauk‘ (’Information bulletin of the Astronomy Group of the Academy of Sciences’), Astronomicheskii zhurnal (Soviet astronomical journal), xv, no. 3 (1938), 302–4.

Fesenkova L. V. , ‘Vospominaniia ob ottse’ (‘Reminiscences of my father’), Zemlia i vselennaia (Earth and universe), 1989, no. 1, 34–39, p. 38.

Ibid. .

Private communication from Pskovskii Professor Iu. P. , assistant director of GAISh (December 1993).

Monich N. D. (Gerasimova), ‘Vtoroe rozhdenie (1941–1952)’ (‘Rebirth (1941–1952)‘), Part 1: ’Za zheleznoi reshetkoi‘ (’Behind the Iron Curtain’) (Memoirs of a former GULag prisoner, written in the mid-1960s), typewritten manuscript, 66–67, author's personal archive. Fragments from these memoirs will be published in Volia: Zhumal uznikov totalitarnykh sistem (Freedom: Journal of prisoners of totalitarian systems) (Moscow, in press). (Nina Dmitrievna Monich was a specialist in Germanic languages who before the war had taught at the Academy for Chemical Defence. In the 1970s and '80s she did much work together with the author on the history of astronomy and in meteoritics as a translator).

Private communication from Piaskovskaia-Fesenkova E. V. (wife of Fesenkov V. G. ).

Liubarskii K. A. , ‘Memuary stukacha’ (‘Memoirs of an informer’), Moskovskie novosti (Moscow news), 1994, no. 3, 16–23 January, A8.

Perel' , Iubileii otechestvennoi i mirovoi astronomii v 1964 godu (ref. 3).

Razvitie astronomii v SSSR, 1917–1967 (ref. 3), 65, 215.

Eremeeva , ‘Osnovnye vekhi zhizni i deiatel'nosti B. P. Gerasimovicha’ (ref. 3). Not surprisingly, this publication led to the author's dismissal, and it was only thanks to the intervention of Academician Fesenkov and several others that the author was able to continue her work on the history of science from a new position on the Academy's Committee on Meteorites.

Gerasimovich O. M. Eremeeva A. I. , 16 April 1970, personal archive of the author.