Aleksandr Arosev

HOME

TheInfoList

Click Here for Items Related To - Aleksandr Arosev

OR:

Aleksandr Arosev on: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Amazon]

Aleksander Yakovlevich Arosev (Russian: Алекса́ндр Я́ковлевич Аро́сев; 6 June O.S. 25 June">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 25 June1890 – 10 February 1938) was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet Union">Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

diplomat and writer.

Biography

Revolutionary career

Arosev was born in to the family of a tailor. His mother was the daughter of the Narodnaya Volya member August Johann Goldschmidt (of Baltic Germans, German Baltic descent); his father was the son of former serfs. In 1905 he joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party, Party of Socialist Revolutionaries and participated in the 1905 Russian Revolution, 1905 Revolution. In 1907, under the influence of his old friend Vyacheslav Skryabin (later Vyacheslav Molotov), he joined the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

faction of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

. After he joined the Bolsheviks, Arosev was repeatedly arrested until he fled abroad in 1909. He then studied at the Faculty of Philosophy in the

University of Liège The University of Liège (), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium founded in 1817 and based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French (language), French. History The university was foun ...

. In 1911 he met

Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...

Capri Capri ( , ; ) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. A popular resort destination since the time of the Roman Republic, its natural beauty ...

and later returned to Moscow and was again arrested. He served his sentence and was mobilised in the Imperial Russian Army in 1916 as a warrant officer until and served there until the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

. During the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

he was a member of the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee and commanded Bolshevik detachments. It was on his order that shelling was fired at the

Kremlin The Moscow Kremlin (also the Kremlin) is a fortified complex in Moscow, Russia. Located in the centre of the country's capital city, the Moscow Kremlin (fortification), Kremlin comprises five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Mosco ...

, which was in the hands of the

Cadets A cadet is a student or trainee within various organisations, primarily in military contexts where individuals undergo training to become commissioned officers. However, several civilian organisations, including civil aviation groups, maritime o ...

. In 1918, he became Commissar of Glavvozdukhflot. On September 18 of the same year, in Spassk,

Kazan Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...

Provence, his mother, Maria Avgustovna Vertynskaya, who was a Socialist-Revolutionary, was shot by the White Czechoslovak Corps. In 1919, he was the commissar of the headquarters of the 10th Army of the Southern Front.

Soviet official and diplomat

In 1920 he was appointed the Chairman of the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal of Ukraine. From 1921 he worked as deputy director at the Institute for the History of the Party and the October Revolution, which in 1924 was renamed the Lenin Institute. Until 1927, Arosev was also active in the Soviet state security forces of the

Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...

and the

OGPU The Joint State Political Directorate ( rus, Объединённое государственное политическое управление, p=ɐbjɪdʲɪˈnʲɵn(ː)əjə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əjə pəlʲɪˈtʲitɕɪskəjə ʊprɐˈv ...

. In 1927 Arosev was the Soviet ambassador to

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

, from 1929 to 1933, the plenipotentiary ambassador in Czechoslovakia, then he worked in the Soviet embassy in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. From 1934 to 1937, Arosev was the Chairman of the Society of Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries ( VOKS). He was a Delegate of the 1st All-Union Congress of Writers. In 1935 he acted as an interpreter at a meeting between

Romain Rolland Romain Rolland (; 29 January 1866 – 30 December 1944) was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and Mysticism, mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915 "as a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary pro ...

and

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

during a visit to the USSR by the writer. Arosev was a resident of the famous apartment complex House on the Embankment.

Arrest and execution

Arosev was arrested during the height of the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

on 3 July 1937 after he went to see

Nikolai Yezhov Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov ( rus, Николай Иванович Ежов, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ (j)ɪˈʐof; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940), also spelt Ezhov, was a Soviet Chekism, secret police official under Joseph Stalin who ...

, whom he knew since the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

. During the investigation, in order to avoid torture, he signed all the confessions that the investigators demanded from him, but during the trial he retracted them, saying that he had given confessions under pressure. Arosev wrote multiple letters to his old friend Vyacheslav Molotov during this period pleading for him to intervene in his trial, however he never got any response. In 1938 he was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. On 10 February 1938 he was shot, together with

Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko Vladimir Alexandrovich Antonov-Ovseenko (; ; 9 March 1883 – 10 February 1938), real surname Ovseenko, party aliases 'Bayonet' () and 'Nikita' (), literary pseudonym A. Galsky (), was a prominent Bolshevik leader, Soviet statesman, mili ...

. Aleksander Arosev was rehabilitated in 1956.

Literary career

Arosev started his writing career during his exiles. He made his debut in 1916 with the story "The Carpenters" and the poem "Beloshveyk". In 1917, Tvorchestvo magazine published several stories. In 1919 he became the editor of the provincial newspaper ''Znamya Revolyutsii'', where he published his essays and stories. Most of his writings were about the revolutionary struggle against tsarism and Bolshevik heroism. He also wrote some children's books. Arosev worked with Alexander Voronsky in his magazine '' Krasnaya Nov'' and later for the magazine ''

Novy Mir ''Novy Mir'' (, ) is a Russian-language monthly literary magazine. History ''Novy Mir'' has been published in Moscow since January 1925. It was supposed to be modelled on the popular pre-Soviet literary magazine ''Mir Bozhy'' ("God's World"), w ...

.'' Arosev was considered to be one of the most prominent proletarian writers in the RSFSR and many of his works were published widely in magazines until his arrest. However, after his rehabilitation, only one of his books was published,''The White Ladder.''

Family and memory

He was father of actresses Elena (1923–2016) and Olga Aroseva. His oldest daughter, Natalia Aroseva (1919–1990) was one of the leading translators of the USSR of the Czech language, the author of the novel ''Footprint on the Earth'', which was dedicated to her father. From his second marriage with Greta Freund, he had a son, Dmitry (1934). In her latest book, "Who Lived Twice," released shortly before her death, actress Olga Aroseva published her father's diaries. His cenotaph is in the Golovinsky cemetery in Moscow. Streets in

Donetsk Donetsk ( , ; ; ), formerly known as Aleksandrovka, Yuzivka (or Hughesovka), Stalin, and Stalino, is an industrial city in eastern Ukraine located on the Kalmius River in Donetsk Oblast, which is currently occupied by Russia as the capita ...

and Kryvyi Rog (renamed Krasnobalkovskaya street in 2016) in Ukraine were named after him.