Mikhail Isaakovich Mukasei (russian: Михаил Исаакович Мукасей; 13 August 1907, Zamostsye,

Minsk Governorate The Minsk Governorate (russian: Минская губерния, Belarusian: ) or Government of Minsk was a governorate ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. The seat was in Minsk. It was created in 1793 from the land acquired in the partition ...

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. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

– 19 August 2008,

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 million ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

spy Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

codenamed Zephyr.

Biography

The son of a Jewish blacksmith, when Mukasei he was 18 he started studying at the Institute of Oriental Languages in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, specializing in Bengali and English. In 1937 he was ordered by the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union "Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspaper ...

to study at the Intelligence School of the

Workers' and Peasants' Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

. In 1939, he and his wife

Elizaveta Elizaveta is a village in the municipality of Bălți in the north of Moldova Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west ...

(née Emelianov, 1912–2009) and their two children, moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

and began gathering military intelligence. Mukasei's parents and other members of his family were killed by the Germans. In 1943, Mukasei, his wife and children returned to Moscow and he was appointed deputy head of the Intelligence School. From the 1940s through the 1970s, Mukasei, along with his wife Elizaveta (codenamed ''Elza''), took part in a number of undercover operations in Western Europe and the United States.Elizaveta Mukasei, Soviet Spy, Is Dead at 97
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''; accessed 16 September 2017. Assigned to the Soviet diplomatic staff in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

as vice consul in

, Mukasei made use of his position to gather information on any threats to the Soviet Union posed by

Imperial Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...

. He continued his work in an undisclosed country in

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

from the 1950s to the late 1970s. In 1977 Mukasei and his family returned to Moscow and began training spies. He wrote training manuals for reconnaissance work and was a professor at the Russian Academy of Security, Defense and Law Enforcement. In December, 2004, Mukasei published a book of their memoirs called Zephyr and Elsa in which they wrote about their thirty years of work and life abroad. In the post-Soviet period, he was honored for his "outstanding contribution to ensuring the security of the Russian Federation".

References

External links

Mikhail Mukasei's obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mukasei, Mikhail 1907 births 2008 deaths People from Slutsk District People from Slutsky Uyezd Belarusian Jews Soviet diplomats Soviet spies against Western Europe Soviet spies against the United States World War II spies for the Soviet Union Belarusian centenarians Men centenarians Russian centenarians Russian memoirists Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Recipients of the Order of Alexander Nevsky 20th-century memoirists