Slavists Case

The Slavists Case (russian: Дело славистов, ''Delo slavistov'') or the Russian National Party Case (russian: Дело «Российской национальной партии», ''Delo Rossiyskoy natsional’noy partii'') was a fabricated criminal case during the Stalinist repressions in the Soviet Union. A large number of intellectuals (mainly from Moscow and Leningrad) were accused of “counterrevolutionary activities” in 1933-1934.

Background

As in the earlier Academic Trial, the goals appear to have been the centralization of Soviet science and the suppression of the old academic tradition. The large number of linguists among the detainees is explained by the beginning of invasion of the Communist state in the linguistic science, in particular, the forcible introduction of the japhetic theory. The arrests began in 1933, but the case was fabricated gradually, the "Russian National Party" began to appear in it only in February 1934. Genrikh Lyushkov played the key role in the "investigation".

Stages and persons involved

The defendants can be divided into four groups.

#The first to be arrested on charges of involvement in “the organization of Ukrainian nationalists" were Fyodor Khovaiko and V. G. Shyiko. Their case was investigated independently of the others.
#The second group included Leningrad and Moscow art critics and ethnographers: the head of the Ukrainian department of the Russian Museum B. G. Kryzhanovsky, his colleagues Sychev and Drozdovsky, restorer and architect Baranovsky and Ukrainian ethnographer Lebedeva.
#The third group included Moscow intellectuals from the "G. A. Tyurk circle", where Russian architecture was studied, and a group of people far from Slavic studies (geologist V. M. Chernov and others).
#Finally the fourth and largest group were Moscow-based slavists (Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Nikolay Durnovo (already expelled from the Belarusian Academy), Grigory Ilyinsky, Afanasy Selishchev, Durnovo's son A. N. Durnovo and his fiancée Varvara Trubetskaya, Varvara's father writer Vladimir Trubetskoy, professors Viktor Vinogradov, K. V. Kvitka, P. A. Rastorguev, N. L. Tunitsky, I. G. Golanov, V. F. Rzhiga, etc.).

In September 1933, in parallel with the investigation in Moscow, the "Leningrad case of the Russian National Party" began, in which 37 ethnographers and art critics, as well as chemists and geologists were arrested. Among them, Slavic philologists and Russianists were only five: Academic Secretary of the Slavic studies institute Vasily Korablyov, specialist in Ukrainian literature K.A. Koperzhinsky, employees of the Academy's library Shcheglova and Nikolskaya and literary critic Kulla. The "Leningrad case" involved workers from two of the country's largest museums: the Russian Museum and the Hermitage. Major art critics Neradovsky and Schmitt represented the art department of the Russian Museum.
Founder of the Soviet school of copyists of ancient paintings L.A. Durnovo, a prominent specialist in Byzantine and Russian art N.V. Malitsky and Caucasian studies expert A.A. Miller also worked in this museum.

Chemists and geologists were also involved in "Leningrad RNP case" (Razuvaev, Andreevsky, Valyashko, Lichkov). Andreevsky and Valyashko were closely associated with the largest scientist in inorganic chemistry, Academician Kurnakov, while Lichkov - with Academician Vernadsky, with whom he worked in the Commission for the Study of the productive forces. Kurnakov and Vernadsky were mentioned in the case as the RNP leaders, but were not arrested. A prominent scientist G.A. Bonch-Osmolovsky also was among the arrested. In addition, complaints were received on Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Nikolay Zelinsky, Dmitry Ushakov

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