44 Lenin Avenue

A researcher's journey to Siberia

Category: Methodology

Research in the time of Covid-19

27 March 2020 / / 0 Comments

It is a little strange being on sabbatical during this pandemic and the accompanying social distancing. The TRU community is figuring out how to work its shift to on-line instruction. Nova Scotia (where I’m located) has declared a state of emergency, and we’re supposed to go out only for neighbourhood walks (avoiding people) and essentials. Not everyone is following the rules. So far the number of cases in NS is relatively small. Given my job and situation, I’m certainly one of the lucky ones right now.

Of course, my worst work-related news (still not that bad, considering) is almost certainly that my 2.5-month, 3-country trip to Europe, starting in May, will be cancelled. For the month of May, I am officially a Visiting Scholar in Paris at L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and some of my talks have even been advertised. EHESS has cancelled the visiting scholar program for April, but has not yet made a decision for May. Even if it goes ahead (however unlikely that is), TRU has banned foreign travel through April and seems likely to extend that ban. And how wise would it be to go, anyway?

After Paris, I was planning on two weeks of research in England (at the British Library and at Oxford University), followed by one month of research in Russia.

While I’m sad that this trip almost certainly won’t happen, this problem is nothing compared to what many people are going through. I can conduct some of my research through on-line sources (such as the Tomsk NKVD Remand Prison Museum website) and via materials that I’ve already collected and other on-line resources.

With kids at home, and worries about the state of the world, it is certainly difficult concentrating on research and writing. If anyone has tips, those would be greatly appreciated. Mostly though, it seems like a good time to be concentrating on kindness and empathy. Please take care, and thanks for reading!

‘Agents of Terror’

6 December 2019 / / 0 Comments

In looking for an interesting angle to explore the history of 44 Lenin Avenue during the building’s time as OGPU/NKVD headquarters, one possible topic is that of the perpetrator.

In recent years, we’ve learned a lot more about the NKVD agents and bosses who carried out the Great Terror (1937-38), in part due to the crucially important scholarly work of Lynne Viola (Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial) and Alexander Vatlin (Agents of Terror).

I purchased Vatlin’s book at the recent ASEEES convention in San Francisco, so it is fresh on my mind. Translated and edited by Seth Bernstein, Vatlin’s book presents some fascinating stories, relying mostly on documents related to the arrests and investigations of NKVD agents and bosses arrested in the latter part of the Great Terror, after they themselves had presided over many arrests. Vatlin focuses on the small town of Kuntsevo, near Moscow, to recreate a picture of the mass operations and targeted arrests of this period. Some of the stories are clear corruption, for example Karetnikov’s securing of a central Moscow apartment by arresting the occupants. There are no doubt similar stories related to NKVD operatives in Tomsk (for some on the corrupt behaviour of Gulag personnel, see Chapter 4 of my book).

In any case, one encouraging aspect of Vatlin’s book is that he relies heavily on documents located at the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) collection (fond) 10035 («Управление Комитета государственной безопасности СССР по г. Москве и Московской области» … KGB Administration of the USSR for the city of Moscow and Moscow Province). This makes me wonder if there are similar collections for other local administrations. I’ve worked a lot, in the past, with GARF collections 9401 (which includes NKVD operational orders), 9479 (the special settlements), and 9414 (the Gulag), but a collection similar to 10035 (but for Tomsk) would likely include considerable documentation related to the building at 44 Lenin Ave. I’ll need to do a bit of digging.

Young Technicians

3 June 2019 / / 0 Comments

Komsomol stamp, on occasion of the 16th Congress of the Komsomol, 1970 (via Wikimedia commons)

One of the difficulties for this project, in terms of the public record, is the period between 1944 and 1989, when 44 Lenin Avenue was mostly residential space. The website of the NKVD Remand Prison Museum contains a 9.5 minute interview with Valida Grigorievna Khairulina-Ivanova, who helped run a “Young Technicians Station” in the basement of the building in the 1970s. In this 2014 interview, Khairulina-Ivanonva mentions that there were several youth clubs (kruzhki) that operated in the basement, including her youth group for radio-technicians. These were part of the Tomsk city Komsomol. She describes these clubs as providing activities to keep young people from getting into trouble. Apparently, there was even a temporary discotheque in the basement, on occasion! She also mentions that one of her friends, who was the daughter of an NKVD officer, grew up in the building. It was from this friend that she learned that there had been a remand prison in the basement. Other clubs seem to have included an astronomy club and a photography club, although from the interview it is clear that Khairulina-Ivanova does not remember all of the details. In any case, some of these avenues might be worth exploring, for a story for the late-Soviet period. Such a story could fit within the growing literature on the Komsomol, for example, or on Soviet youth in general (for one example, see Margaret Peacock’s recent book, Innocent Weapons). It could also link back to stories about the building earlier in the century, when it was an educational institution. In any case, if anyone knows anything about the Young Technicians Station (Станция юных техников) as they existed in the late-Soviet period, please let me know!

On collaborative projects

14 November 2017 / / 0 Comments

While not directly related to the “44 Lenin Avenue Project,” I thought I’d highlight a recent collaborative publication in which I participated with Alan Barenberg, Sean Kinnear, Steve Maddox, and Lynne Viola. At the May 2017 meeting of the Canadian Association of Slavists (Ryerson University, Toronto), we participated in a roundtable discussion on new directions in Gulag studies. Heather Coleman, editor of Canadian Slavonic Papers, attended the discussion, and encouraged us to re-create the discussion in written form. We did so in early September 2017 on a Google Doc, with Alan Barenberg facilitating the discussion. Thank you to everyone involved!

I found the group-writing process quite rewarding. We responded individually to the questions, but directly on to the same document,  making the final result a truly collaborative effort. It has a lot of rich discussion of the current state of Gulag historiography and suggestions for classroom use of certain publications. These types of academic discussions often only appear at conferences if at all, and it is great to see it in print (soon), and available on-line, now. “New Directions in Gulag Studies: A Roundtable Discussion” is available on-line, here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00085006.2017.1384665

I even manage to mention the “44 Lenin Avenue” project a couple of times, briefly, in the discussion. If you have any interest in the Gulag, it’s worth the read!

Records destroyed?

26 July 2017 / / 0 Comments

As should be clear from my posts, one of the key events I’m studying for this project is the murder of the headmaster and monk Ignatii Dvernitskii by two of his pupils in 1909. The case was quickly transferred from the regular courts to a temporary military tribunal, sent from Omsk (The military district court in Omsk covered the military tribunals for all of western Siberia). It was not uncommon, at the time, for especially sensitive cases to be tried by military tribunals, as these courts avoided juries and had less scrutiny. I would love to find the court transcripts of the tribunal for this particular case (took place in October 1909), as such a transcript would be of obvious help in telling the story.

In any case, when I was in Tomsk last summer, I discovered (not surprisingly), that the State Archive of Tomsk Oblast’ did not have the records of the temporary military tribunals. Since then, I’ve been asking around, using connections through friends and colleagues to figure out where these records might be. Could they be in Omsk? Moscow? St. Petersburg? After some back and forth with a colleague at Central European University (CEU) who has many connections with Russian scholars of the pre-revolutionary period, one of these scholars, from Omsk, sent him the following piece of information: “…события гражданской войны привели к массовому уничтожению документов – были разгромлены архивы Акмолинского областного правления, омского военно-окружного суда… уничтожены часть жандармских, полицейских и тюремных архивов” [rough translation: “… the events of the Civil War led to mass destruction of documents: the archives of the Akmolinsk Oblast government [and] the Omsk military district court were destroyed… [also] destroyed were parts of the gendarmerie, police, and prison archives”]. I’m waiting for more information about the source of this information, but the destruction of the Omsk military district court archive likely means that any transcripts or records from the Ignatii Dvernitskii case no longer exist.

Burning of the Akmolinsk District Court

The same CEU colleague sent a photograph from EtoRetro.ru (included in this post) showing the burning of the district court in Akmolinsk. The dates given in the photo are Feb 27-28, but no year is included.

In any case, I’ll keep up the search, but it looks unlikely that I’ll be able to find the court records. Who said hindsight is 20/20?

CAS Conference, May 27-29

9 May 2017 / / 0 Comments

I’m excited to be presenting, “The 1909 Murder of Ignatii Dvernitskii: A microhistorical approach,” as part of a panel on microhistory approaches to Russian and Soviet history at the annual convention of the Canadian Association of Slavists, part of the larger Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences that will take place at Ryerson University later this month. This paper will expand on the paper I presented at the Dostoevsky conference in the Fall, and follow a few of the threads that, I think, show the significance of the murder for understanding late-Tsarist Siberia: education, the press, conservatism, anti-Semitism, Dostoevsky, and student activism.

There are a few aspects of the panel that are particularly exciting for me. Nigel Raab is chairing the panel, and aside from his work on Russia, he is also the author of the recent, Who Is the Historian?, an excellent book on historical methods that I assigned in HIST 3000, “The Historian’s Craft,” here at TRU in Fall 2016. One aspect of the book I particularly like is its emphasis on the research and writing of history as a collaborative process. On that note, I want to give a shout-out to my excellent research assistants (three in 2016-2017, and four in 2015-2016) who have helped me with the 44 Lenina project so far (I won’t mention their names without explicit permission, so perhaps in another post). Their work has been invaluable, particularly related to issues of memory and memorials, the murder of Dvernitskii, and the topics of religion and punishment in the late Tsarist era. One of these assistants even accompanied me for part of my research trip to Tomsk, last summer. While on the collaborative methodology note, it’s also worth emphasizing that none of this would be possible without the work of the archivists, librarians, and museum staff of the Tomsk research venues, as well as the inter-library loan librarians here at TRU. Funding for the entire project has come directly from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), a research grant I would not have won without the help of TRU’s Office of Research and Graduate Studies. And, of course, I’ve received tremendous support from friends, colleagues, and, most importantly, my family. I’m certainly far from alone on this project! Thank you, everyone!

I’m also excited to be presenting with two amazing panelists. Alison Smith is the author of two great books on Imperial Russia, and was the “internal external” reader on my doctoral thesis at the University of Toronto. My approach to the murder of Ignatii is partially inspired by her incredible blog posts on “Russian History Blog,” including the very engaging series on the death of the cheese master. To me, her posts demonstrate the value of microhistorical approaches to Russia’s history. The other panelist, Alan Barenberg, is a long-time friend and fellow Gulag specialist (author of the excellent, Gulag Town, Company Town), whose work and support over the years have meant a tremendous amount to me, and who has definitely made my own work stronger.

On that last note, I’m also very pleased to be part of a roundtable discussion at the CAS titled, “New Directions in Gulag Studies,” chaired by Lynne Viola (my mentor and dissertation advisor), and also including comments from Alan Barenberg, Steve Maddox, and Sean Kinnear. It should be a great conference!

Finding Compelling Stories

27 February 2017 / / 3 Comments

As touched on in several earlier posts (e.g. here and here), the building at 44 Lenin Avenue, from its humble beginnings as a church-parish school to its role as local NKVD headquarters to its transformation into commercial and commemorative space itself provides a compelling story. This story runs parallel to many of the main trends of Siberia and Russia’s tumultuous 20th century. For the early years and the later years of the building, the specific microhistory stories are themselves rather obvious. For example, the construction of the building connects to threads of education, religion, architecture, and Tomsk’s role in the Russian empire. The architect, V. V. Khabarov, was involved in numerous other projects–including the construction of the enormous Trinity Cathedral a stone’s throw from the parish school–that helped make Tomsk Siberia’s capital in the late-Tsarist period. Another compelling story is the 1909 murder of the school headmaster. In more recent years, the founding of the Memorial NKVD Remand Prison Museum, or the visit of Solzhenitsyn to the building in 1994, also make compelling stories related to post-Soviet reckoning with Stalinist repression.

Nikolai Klyuev. Photo via Wikimedia commons. Public domain.

Even though the building’s infamy today largely derives from its role as local NKVD headquarters and remand prison during the height of Stalin-era repression, finding a specific, compelling story is proving somewhat difficult. Several famous prisoners spent time there, including philosopher Gustav Shpet and poet Nikolai Klyuev. It is even quite possible authorities shot Kluev in the basement of the building, or in the underground passageway underneath the building’s small square. So, the story could move to biography at this point. Several NKVD bosses who spent time in Tomsk achieved infamy either there or elsewhere, including Ivan Ovchinnikov (the “local Beria”), Ian Krauze (better known for his NKVD work in Leningrad), and Ivan Maltsev. The stories linked to the building seem so male dominated (the basement murder, Solzhenitsyn’s visit, and so on), and biographical stories related to the building during its NKVD incarnation risk continuing a trend. In any case, as a historian, it is my job to find a story that is both compelling but also representative, or, perhaps, exceptional, but exceptional in a way that leads to important information and analysis of the time in question. I wonder what NKVD stories will fall along these lines?

Storytelling and narrative devices

15 February 2017 / / 0 Comments

Historians tell stories. That’s our job, or part of it. Unlike the novelist or filmmaker, however, historians are limited–at least in part–by available evidence on a given topic. We cannot, in other words, just make things up. This limitation aside, however, there remain almost countless ways that historians can tell stories, and almost countless methods by which historians access the past. For the “44 Lenin Avenue” project, I am trying a new type of storytelling, at least for me: a series of small stories, almost vignettes, of events that all took place within the same building, but in different eras. The story of the building, then, is the narrative thread that holds together the other stories (murder in 1909, Solzhenitsyn’s visit to the building in 1994). While unusual for academic publishing, this type of storytelling is not unique. Here’s a list of a few influences and/or similar types of storytelling projects:

  • Timothy Brook, Vermeer’s Hat. In this book, Brook examines the increasingly globalized world of the 17th century through a series of paintings by the Dutch painter Jan Vermeer, all painted in his studio in the town of Delft. Brook uses these paintings as windows into broader currents of global history. The paintings are thus a fun and useful narrative device to tell stories as far apart as a shipwreck of a Portuguese vessel off the coast of China, to Champlain’s search for a waterway that would take him through North America.
  • Ivo Andric, The Bridge on the Drina. Andric’s book is historical fiction, but follows the history of Bosnia and the Balkans from the 16th century to World War I by examining the life of the bridge, and the stories of those who were impacted by it. Andric paints a vivid picture of the importance of place, both how a place can affect the broader world, and how the broader world affects that particular place.
  • Francois Girard, dir., “The Red Violin.” I really loved this movie when it came out in 1998, a series of vignettes all based around the many owners of a mysterious red violin. Like The Bridge on the Drina, this story spans several centuries.
  • In the end, my method of storytelling in “44 Lenin Avenue” will hopefully resemble a layered microhistory, in which the story of the building is one such microhistory, and each event is its own microhistory. In this I am influenced both by Natalie Zemon Davis‘s classic, The Return of Martin Guerre, as well as Jill Lepore’s definition of microhistory as contrasted with biography (below), although I make no claim to even a tenth of their storytelling abilities.

If biography is largely founded on a belief in the singularity and significance of an individual’s life and his contribution to history, microhistory is founded upon almost the opposite assumption: however singular a person’s life may be, the value of examining it lies not in its uniqueness, but in its exemplariness, in how that individual’s life serves as an allegory for broader issues affecting the culture as a whole


– Jill Lepore, “Historians Who Love Too Much: Reflections on Microhistory and Biography,” Journal of American History 88.1 (2001): 129-144, quotation on page 133.

© 2024 44 Lenin Avenue

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑