It's been over two years since my last post. This may repeat some information. The NKVD mentioned below is the predecessor to the KGB (secret police).
Part I
Those who work with the archives of the NKVD leave with a heartache. It is impossible to watch with impunity how a terrible machine crushes and sweeps society under itself, how without looking back it destroys ordinary people and geniuses, right and left…
These words were written by Serhii Bilokin, a Ukrainian historian with a website I’ve used as a source. Because of his passionate commentaries I was a little suspect of his information, but there are lots of citations for his sources. Unfortunately, computer translation does a poor job with his writing style.
Years ago I had scoured his website and I thought I uncovered all the places he mentioned my grandfather, Valentin Shugaevsky (Shuhayevsky in Ukrainian). Unfortunately, internet searches do not yield their bounty so easily. They offer what is popular rather than prioritizing my requests.
And so now, in another attempt to create a coherent story out of the thousands of files in my computer gathering digital dust, I returned to Bilokin’s website to find some dates and gather supporting material. Here I found the following NKVD dossier on the art restoration specialist Mykola Kasperovych, who worked with my grandfather in Chernihiv and later on in Kyiv.
Kasperovych was imprisoned in March 1938, and while he denied any political activity, he quite unnecessarily admitted coming from a noble family and being hostile to the Soviet system. Then he gave incriminating evidence against others. This only a small sample of his confession. I apologize for the poor translation. The commentary is by Bilokin.
[Kasperovych exposed] not only himself, but [also others]… for his Chernihiv period - the numismatist Valentin Shugaevsky and the artist Boris Pylypenko, a native of Solovka, .… Kasperovych said verbatim: "In 1918, while working on restoration work in the Chernihiv museum, I met people who held the same ideological positions as me. These people hated the Soviet system as much as I did."
This was really too much to reveal, but Kasperovych continued: "I often met with Shugaevsky and Pylypenko, and each of us expressed dissatisfaction with the Soviet system."
Immediately after this Bilokin wrote:
Very little is known about Valentin Andreyovich Shugaevsky, and I dream of finding his daughter in America - he himself was imprisoned [by the Soviets] and [later, emigrated and] died in New York.
I was heartbroken. Just a few minutes earlier I had decided to send Bilokin some documents relating to my grandfather’s time in prison. I couldn’t understand how to do it on the website, so I did a general internet search (in Ukrainian). Serhii Bilokin passed away last year (May 2023). He was a respected historian and even visited the United States and Canada. He did some research in the archives of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in New York City to which my grandfather belonged and which has some of his writing.
Side note: Here in this testimony I have the only written evidence of what my grandfather thought of the Soviet system. Later, as museum workers became the targets of repression, he would be much more tight lipped.
Part II
So what was the result of Kasperovych’s confession. First I will fill in some details.
Kasperovych was born in 1885, one year after Valentin, and also grew up in Chernihiv Province. He was also from a noble family but they must have been much wealthier; he was able to study art in Krakow, exhibit his works in Paris, and tour Italy.
Both eventually lived and worked at the All-Ukrainian Museum Town (Lavra) in Kyiv where my mother grew up. Kasperovych did restoration work at the museum that my grandfather ran in Chernihiv before relocating to Kyiv. Like my grandfather, he also sang.
The interrogations continued over the following months, and Kasperovych’s testimony became more and more incriminating to himself and others. Not much harm was done. The ethnographer Pylypenko had already been shot the previous year. Most of the others he mentioned had already been executed as well. Kasperovych was shot in May 1938. By the way, Pylypenko also grew up in Chernihiv and attended the same gymnasium as my grandfather.
The question remains, How did my grandfather survive? He lost his job in May 1938 but wasn’t arrested. The documents state that he was “fired” by his own request, but that may have been a privilege offered by a compassionate supervisor. The family story is that he was out of work during the purges so that he slipped through he cracks of the Soviet meat grinder. This doesn’t make sense, so both the family story and my grandfather’s survival remain a mystery.
Because of his expertise, my grandfather Valentin, was able to find contract work. He taught a course in numismatics for researchers, translated two historical texts (one from Polish and one from French), and worked with museum near and far identifying and systematizing their coin collections.
Historical Context
The Great Purge, 1936-1938, affected the entire Soviet Union, not just Ukraine. First Stalin eliminated any real or perceived threats to his complete power from Communist Party officials using contrived evidence and forced confessions. Then the officer corp of the Red Army was decimated, leaving it unprepared for WWII. The intelligentsia, professionals, and others eventually became targets as well.
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