Vladimir Nikolayevich Petrov
Vladimir Petrov | |
---|---|
Native name | Владимир Николаевич Петров |
Born | Vladimir Nikolayevich Petrov 1915 Ekaterinodar oblast, Russian Empire |
Died | 1999 Kensington, Maryland, US |
Occupation | Writer, political dissident, factory worker, academic |
Language | Russian |
Citizenship | Russian Empire Soviet Union United States |
Subject | Politics |
Notable works | Escape from the Future |
Vladimir Nikolayevich Petrov (1915 in
Early life
Petrov was born in Russia in 1915 during the last days of the
Petrov's namesake son summarizes the reason for his father's arrest as "for coming to the defense of a rape victim."
The crimes he was charged with were, as related in his autobiography:
1. Writing of anti-soviet character (my diaries).
2. Possession of counter-revolutionary literature (the diaries...)
3. Espionage (correspondence with philatelists in the United States of America and Yugoslavia)
4. Anti-Soviet propaganda abroad (ditto).
5. Fomenting an armed uprising among the Cossacks...
6. Preparations for robbing savings banks and co-operatives...
7. Organization of
8. Anti-Soviet propaganda among the population[4]
An
He was sentenced under Article 58, Paragraphs 10 and 14 of the Soviet legal code. This made him a "contra" or "counter-revolutionary political prisoner," a resident of the Gulag archipelago.[6]
Prison term
During his internment, Petrov's life was one of complex vacillations. He at times had more freedom than many prisoners, including freedom of movement, sufficient food, medical care, private housing, and female companionship. At times he was one of the worst-treated of all prisoners in the GULAG system, living on a bread ration of less than half a kilogram per day and working near-naked in sub-zero waters to mine gold for the NKVD.[7] He constantly lived in hope of having his sentence commuted, and constantly lived in fear of Serpantinnaya, a 'truck stop' north of Magadan which Petrov charges was used by the NKVD to perform summary executions.[8]
He attempted escape numerous times,
Petrov's earthy wit, chess skills and relative youth were keys to his survival of Kolyma. He became friends with many people during his prison term. Among them was a red-haired man known as Prostoserdov, a
Once, by his own admission, he murdered a cruel camp official in cold blood using a pickaxe.[12] On many other occasions he conspired with fellow prisoners or in other ways violated the rules of Dalstroy. Sometimes he was placed on a lower bread ration, but rarely as a direct result of his actual transgressions. He was never severely punished, nor was his prison term lengthened.[13] He at times went on hunger strikes to protest camp conditions, though he like other prisoners, was chronically mal-nourished and afflicted by scurvy.
It has been claimed that much of his account bears similarities to the later semi-fictional account of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.[14] It has also been compared to Papillon by Henri Charrière. It is possible that Petrov's internment overlapped with that of Varlam Shalamov, the Russian writer, whose Kolyma Tales depict the brutality of human nature laid bare in this remote camp of the archipelago.
After prison
Released from prison in the week that
His memoirs give markedly less information concerning his association with Vlasov than they do about almost all his other associations, even those with minor convicts. This has fueled speculation as to how he managed to secure passage to America at the end of the war.
After the war
In 1947 he managed to secure transportation to America through the good offices of the
In the 1950s Petrov participated in emigre politics and was a regular contributor to the newspaper Novoye Russkoye Slovo under a pseudonym. His connections included people as diverse as
Vladimir Petrov died March 17, 1999, at age 83 at his home in Kensington, Maryland, after a brief illness. Among those who doted upon him during those last months was daughter-in-law Patty who had only recently married Vladimir, Jr. but very quickly came to "adore" and form a close bond with the elder Petrov. He was survived by his wife, Jean MacNab, nine children—George, Susie, Lili, Vlad, Sasha, Jane, Anne, Andre and Carol—and seven grandchildren, many of whom work in science, technology, medicine, and the arts. "Live for today, never mind tomorrow", was one of his favorite sayings.
See also
- Gulag
- Dalstroy
- Great Purge
- Moscow Trials
- Andrey Vlasov
References
- ^ Soviet Gold, "Prisons of the City of Lenin" (p. 15)
- ^ Soviet Gold, "The Big House" (p. 31)
- ^ Soviet Gold, "Prisons of the City of Lenin" (p. 31)
- ^ Soviet Gold, "Prisons of the City of Lenin" (p. 63)
- ^ Soviet Gold, "Prisons of the City of Lenin" (p. 67)
- ^ Soviet Gold, "Prisons of the City of Lenin" (p. 71)
- ^ Soviet Gold, "At The Bottom" (p.225)
- ^ Soviet Gold, "Black Times" (p.195)
- ^ Soviet Gold, "On The Way To Freedom" (p.250)
- ^ Soviet Gold, "Magadan: Capital of the Kolyma" (p. 108)
- ^ Soviet Gold, "Hard Time" (p. 225)
- ^ Soviet Gold, "Black Times" (p. 196)
- ^ Soviet Gold, general
- ^ Soviet Gold, "Introduction" (p. vi)
- ISBN 978-1-59420-168-4.
Sources
- Petrov, Vladimir (1949). Soviet Gold, Farrar Straus, New York.
- Petrov, Vladimir (1950). My Retreat from Russia, Yale University Press, New Haven
- Petrov, Vladimir (1973). Escape from the Future: The Incredible Adventures of a Young Russian, ISBN 025320190X.
Note: Escape from the Future is a single-volume combination of the stories Soviet Gold and My Retreat from Russia. Apart from a short preface, it contains no new material.