Letter from St Petersburg: family secrets

“The truth is with us! We will be victorious!” Few people outside Russia seem to have picked up on the fact that Vladimir Putin chose to end his speech to the United Russia congress last Sunday with a version of Stalin’s famous challenge to Germany at the start of the second world war.

This week the human rights organisation Memorial held a press conference in St Petersburg, discussing the government’s efforts to restrict access to the truth of the Stalin Terror. The conference concerned the Archangel Affair—the criminal case brought by the Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2009 against historian Professor Mikhail Suprun and Police Colonel Alexander Dudarev for compiling a “Book of Memory” about victims of Soviet repression.

Mikhail Suprun, who is a lecturer at Pomorsky University, is accused of exposing “the personal or family secrets” of victims without their consent, which violates Article 137 of the Criminal Code. Alexander Dudarev, who headed the Internal Ministry archives of Archangel (or Arkhangelsk) Region, is said to have exceeded his authority in giving Suprun access to the material.

The material in question is basic biographical details of ethnic Germans deported to the Arkhangelsk Region in the 1930s and 40s. It is a completely normal process, Mikhail Suprun told journalists. Such books commemorating victims of Soviet repression have been published all over Russia since the 1991 “Law on the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression,” including by departments of the FSB.

The case caused an international outcry when the charges were first brought and then it disappeared from view. No one imagined that it would go to court. But two years later, in September this year, the trial began in closed session. It was due to have finished by now. But, according to Memorial spokesperson Tatyana Kosinova, the court has adjourned until Monday. The authorities don’t want negative news leaking before the elections, she said.

Mikhail Suprun maintains that, from the start, the case has had the fictional spin of a detective novel. “I was arrested at one o’clock on the 13th September 2009, supposedly in response to complaints to the FSB from victims’ relatives. Yet, the first statement of complaint is registered as taking place at four o’clock on the same day—three hours after my arrest.” The FSB went through Suprun’s life with a fine-tooth comb, investigating his visits abroad and his university days in Leningrad, where he wrote for an underground journal. His phone was tapped, his car was followed, his students were interrogated. “They tried to compromise me in any way they could,” he said.

Suprun’s lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, petitioned the Constitutional Court to clarify Article 137. “A personal or family secret” remains undefined in the Criminal Code and has never been used in this context before. But the petition was turned down—a new ruling prevents applications being made before the verdict. The judge could have applied for clarification but refused, without explanation.

Although the trial has not ended, the case has already had an impact on access to archives in St Petersburg and elsewhere. Kosinova said that Memorial researchers had faced increasing restrictions in regions throughout the former Soviet Union. In Magadan, where many of the gulags were situated, the Suprun-Dudarev case has been cited directly as a reason for refusing access to material on soviet deportees.

Ivan Pavlov told journalists that they were expecting a guilty verdict but they are prepared to take the case as far as the European Court, if necessary. “This will be the case for freedom of access to the archives,” Pavlov said.

Kosinova said the case was central to the work of Memorial. Investigating the truth of Soviet repression is the only way to enable Russian society to move beyond its past.