Grigory Lvovich Kirdetsov (; Luga,

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, 1880 – presumably

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, not before 1940) was a

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and Soviet writer, journalist, and translator. Of

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extraction, his real name was possibly Lev (Leyba) Dvoretsky () or Dvorzhetsky (), and he was also known by the pseudonym J. E. Fitz Patrick (). He was initially a supporter of the

White movement The White movement,. The old spelling was retained by the Whites to differentiate from the Reds. also known as the Whites, was one of the main factions of the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. It was led mainly by the Right-wing politics, right- ...

, being an active propagandist in Yudenich's short-lived Regional Government of Northwest Russia, before moving on to Berlin, where he threw his lot with the ''

smenovekhovtsy The Smenovekhovtsy ( rus, Сменовеховцы, p=smʲɪnəˈvʲexəftsɨ) was a political movement in the Russian émigré community, formed shortly after the publication of the magazine ''Smena Vekh'' ("Change of Signposts") in Prague in 192 ...

'', eventually returning to Soviet Russia. At some point in his early life Kirdetsov moved to Italy, studying law in Rome and also teaching Russian at the Berlitz School in Turin. From 1906 he became the St. Petersburg correspondent for ''

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'', being briefly arrested during the aftermath of the

Revolution of 1905 The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...

. Shortly after his release he returned to Italy, where he translated a number of works from Italian into for Russian publishing houses, among them

Antonio Labriola Antonio Labriola (; 2 July 1843 – 12 February 1904) was an Italian Marxist theoretician and philosopher. Although an academic philosopher and never an active member of any Marxist political party, his thought exerted influence on many pol ...

's ''Reformism and Sindicalism''. From 1910 and during the First World War he was a correspondent for the newspaper ''Birzhevye vedomosti'' ("Stock exchange journal") in Copenhagen. Kirdetsov also worked for a variety of publications in pre-revolutionary

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, including '' Mir Bozhiy'', '' Vestnik Evropy'', '' Russkaya volya'' and the ''

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''. In the fall of 1917, with the outbreak of the

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, he evacuated his stepson, Count Konstantin Pavlovich Borodin (20 October 1907, Saint Petersburg – 28 March 2007, Brussels, Belgium) from Saint Petersburg. In the spring of 1918, he left Bolshevik-held territory himself, moving to Revel, where from July 1918 he edited ''Svobodnaya Rossiya'' ("Free Russia"), the official organ of the North-Western Government of general Yudenich. In 1919–1920, together with Aleksandr Kuprin he was the editor of the newspaper ''Svoboda Rossii'' ("Freedom of Russia" or "Russia's Freedom"), and in 1920–1921 the newspaper ''Za svobodu Rossii'' ("For Russia's Freedom"). In 1919–1920 he simultaneously occupied a key role in the press and propaganda department of Yudenich's army. Of this period, as well as from his own role in the administration of general Yudenich, he wrote a memoir, ''U vorot Petrograda'' ("At the gates of Petrograd"). In 1921 he emigrated once again, and joined the ranks of the social and political movement known as '' smenovekhovstvo''. From 26 March 1922 to 1 October 1923 he edited ''Nakanune'' ("On the eve"), the main printed organ of the group in Berlin, which advocated for reconciliation with the

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and was subsidised by the

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. He went on to head the press department of the USSR embassy in Germany (from 1 October 1923), and was in March 1924 posted as press-attaché of the Soviet embassy in Italy. He left this position in October 1925 and relocated to the USSR, where he was employed by the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, writing articles for the periodical ''Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn'' ("International Life"), especially about Italy. In 1933 he edited a bulletin for the People's Commissariat for Agriculture, and the following year he joined the editorial staff of the ''

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

''. On 28 August 1936 he was arrested by the

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in the city of Kislovodsk, then in the

North Caucasus Krai North Caucasus Krai (, ''Severo-Kavkazskiy kray'') was an administrative division (''krai'') within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union. It was established on 17 October 1924. Its administrative center was Rost ...

, after an accusation of "active participation in a counter-revolutionary group and anti-Soviet agitation" was levied against him in a special meeting of the NKVD dated 28 March 1936. He was sentenced to internal exile in the city of Turukhansk,

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, in

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. However, on 7 February 1938 Kirdetsov was again arrested by the NKVD of Krasnoyarsk Krai and sentenced to serve 8 years in

for "taking part in the anti-Soviet right-Trotskyite organization". His exact death date is unknown, but the last documents regarding his imprisonment are from 1940. Kirdetsov was rehabilitated on 25 November 1957.

References

Grigoriy Kirdetsov
peoples.ru {{DEFAULTSORT:Kirdetsov, Grigoriy 1880 births 1938 deaths 20th-century Russian journalists Norillag detainees