Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Tuchkov (Russian Евгений Александрович Тучков; 1892, Suzdal,

Vladimir Governorate {{Commons cat, Governorates of the Russian Empire Subdivisions of the Russian Empire Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. I ...

– 15 April, 1957,

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

state security officer and the head of the anti-religious department of the Soviet OGPU. Tuchkov was born in 1892 in the village of Teliakovo near Suzdal. He finished four years of primary education after which he worked as a baker and also in a leather shop. He then served in the

Russian Imperial Army The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...

as a secretary. In 1917, after the Russian Revolution, Tuchkov joined the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

and in 1918, the Cheka. From 1922 to 1929 Tuchkov headed the sixth secret department of the OGPU which targeted the

Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...

during the 1920s. During this period, Tuchkov orchestrated a campaign of persecution against the church which included the mass arrests and executions of clergy. He personally led the questioning of

Patriarch Tikhon Tikhon of Moscow (russian: Тихон Московский, – ), born Vasily Ivanovich Bellavin (russian: Василий Иванович Беллавин), was a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). On 5 November 1917 ( OS) he was ...

. He had also begun supporting the liberal and modernist Living Church movement, seeking to make it a replacement for traditional Russian Orthodoxy. In 1928, Tuchkov enrolled in

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

but dropped out a year later. In 1939, Tuchkov was fired from the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

, whereupon he began working as a lecturer for the society "Knowledge". He died in early 1957.

References

* http://www.krotov.info/spravki/persons/20person/1957_tuchkov.htm * http://www.solovki.ca/camp_20/butcher_tuchkov.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Tuchkov, Eugene Cheka NKVD officers 1892 births 1957 deaths Persecution of Eastern Orthodox Christians