„პორნოგრაფია ფეხსაცმლის ქარხნის საპირფარეშოში“ და თარჯიმანი ჩეკისტი განსასჯელის სკამზე

Abstract

State sanctioned violence during the repressions in the Stalinist USSR in 1937-1938 provoke fundamental questions about human nature and about how and under what circumstances people can be induced to behave in seemingly inhuman ways. This article will address these questions and attempt to examine the case file of a mid-level investigator in the Georgian NKVD Varlam Odisharia who according to mass of reports, testimonies and appeals was not at the center of the machinery of the terror in Tbilisi in 1937-1938. In spite of this he was arrested and sent to Labour camps for 10 years.

He was a typical Soviet citizen (Sovetski chelovek) who believed and devoutly was serving for Soviet Statehood. He graduated from the university and was serving in different places before starting his job in Georgian NKVD. Here he had access to foreign press and enjoyed privileges. After the arrest he wrote several letters to different people in the NKVD to try to prove his innocence. Based on these letters and on his personal criminal file we shall reconstruct his personal portrait. The case of the Varlam Odisharia demonstrates concept, being loyal to the Soviet ideas and statehood was not enough to survive in the NKBD during the mass violence.

On the other hand, arrested worker of the NKVD could use personal contacts and networks to demonstrate one’s truth. That was the mechanism Odisharia used and in 1943 he was released from prison.