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Makarenko (Mikhail Ianovich) papers
2016C24
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Title: Mikhail Ianovich Makarenko papers
Date (bulk): 1961-1998
Collection Number: 2016C24
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material:
Russian
Physical Description:
109 manuscript boxes, 26 oversize boxes
(96.5 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Correspondence, speeches and writings, memoranda, reports, personal documents, printed matter, and audiovisual material relating
to forced labor, political prisoners, civil rights, and dissent in the Soviet Union, and to human rights activities of Resistance
International.
Creator:
Makarenko, Mikhail Ianovich, 1931-2007
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Boxes 119-133 closed. Box 135 may not be used without permission of the Archivist. The remainder of the collection is open
for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual or digital media
material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Materials were acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 2014.
[Identification of item], Mikhail Ianovich Makarenko papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library &
Archives.
Soviet dissident and human rights activist; founder, Resistance International.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Mikhail Ianovich Makarenko papers document the life and work of human rights activist and Soviet dissident Mikhail Makarenko
through memoirs, oral history interviews, correspondence, and video and sound recordings. The collection also contains records
of human rights organizations founded by Makarenko and his comrades-in-arms: the Memento and Radonezh societies, as well as
Resistance International.
After initial dissident activities, in 1965 Makarenko established a non-conformist art gallery in Novosibirsk-Academgorodok.
He managed to introduce freedom of art and legalize modern art that had been forbidden by the Soviet government for many years.
He showed Russians the brilliant paintings of Filonov, Grinevich, Lisssitskiĭ, and others. Materials reflecting his activities
in promoting the Russian avant-garde are in the Subject File; Speeches and Writings; Photographs, Slides, and Negatives; and
Motion Picture Films series. In the Sound Recordings series there are recordings of Makarenko's phone conversation with Marc
Chagall regarding a future exhibit, to which the French painter agreed to come. However, this show never happened, as Mikhail
Makarenko was arrested in 1968.
Makarenko spent eleven years as a political prisoner in jails, psychotherapeutic institutions, and labor camps. The Biographical
File documents his political trials and prison terms. His prison uniform and items allowed in labor camps are found in the
Memorabilia series. In January 1978, Makarenko escaped from prison for the third time. On April 22nd, 1978 a secret burial
took place at the Kremlin Wall in Moscow as a political protest. The remains of deceased prisoners of the Gulag from the Belomor
region - the "great construction project of the century," cheaply and quickly built at the cost of immense suffering and blood
from one to two hundred thousand people - were exhumed from a mass grave and brought to Moscow by Makarenko and his associates.
All the prisoners of the Gulag had died without any blessing.
The symbolic reburial ceremony for all of the victims of the Red Terror began at Makarenko's apartment. Separate memorial
services were conducted by Orthodox priests, Jewish rabbis, and Muslim clerics. The whole event was documented by Makarenko
in memoirs, photographs, slides, films, and thirteen memorial banners in Russian, Ukrainian, Farsi, Hebrew, and Georgian,
all of which are included in this collection.
Suspecting more political agitation, the KGB issued Makarenko an ultimatum: leave the country or return to the Gulag. Later
in 1978, he was encouraged to immigrate to West Germany.
Arriving in the United States in 1980, Makarenko's life as an immigrant, as a natural extension of his dissident activities,
was dedicated to protecting human rights. He began collecting evidence to present to the U.S. government comprehensive documentary
proof that the Soviet Union was operating a "concentration camp industry."
Hundreds of documents, including letters, reports, memoranda, affidavits, photographs, and documentary films, as well as an
impressive range of newspaper, radio, and television coverage of the slave labor issue, are presented in the Subject File,
Correspondence, and Sound Recordings series. This information became a credible source in hearings before the Subcommittee
on International Finance and Monetary Policy of the U.S. Congress. The documents reflecting Makarenko's assistance to former
political prisoners wishing to come to the U.S., and his protests at the Soviet Embassy in New York alongside Soviet Jews,
Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and Georgians, are documented in the Subject File; Resistance International File; Georgian Dissident
Movement File; Evgeniĭ Esaulenko Papers; Photographs, Slides, and Negatives; and Oversize Material series.
Materials documenting Soviet communist crimes against humanity, including Makarenko's articles and books, interviews, presentations,
appeals, testimonies, and press conferences, can be found in the Speeches and Writings, Subject File, Printed Matter, Sound
Recordings, and Video Recordings series.
Acknowledgments: The Mikhail Makarenko papers were processed with the contributions and expertise of Makarenko's long time
assistant, translator, and close friend, Gregory Burnside.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Audiotapes
Video tapes
Forced labor -- Soviet Union
Motion pictures
Dissenters -- Soviet Union
Political prisoners -- Soviet Union
Civil rights -- Soviet Union