РАДЯНСЬКІ РЕПРЕСІЇ ПРОТИ ЮДЕЙСЬКИХ ВІРЯН КИЄВА В 1939 РОЦІ
SOVIET REPRESSION AGAINST THE JEWISH BELIEVERS OF KYIV IN 1939

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of the article is to consider the repressions carried out in 1939 against the Jewish clergy and believers of the city of Kyiv. The scientific novelty of the article is determined by the lack of special publications on this topic. The author examines the repressions in the context of the anti-religious policy of the authorities and the actions of the repressive and punitive system against the clergy as a whole in Soviet Ukraine. The research summarizes the conclusions that the arrests made in March 1939 were a new wave of repressive actions of the authorities against the Jewish clergy and believers in the city of Kyiv after a short break in repressive activities since November 1938. The case was opened against 7 people – a rabbi, two money changers and four believers, was actually a massacre of people who continued to gather for prayers. The authorities could not agree to the believers' stay at large. Those arrested were accused of organizing an «anti-Soviet clerical underground and carrying out counter-revolutionary work», creating committees, educating young people in a religious anti-Soviet spirit. Without questioning the desire of believers to maintain religious traditions in everyday life, we still believe that the indictments were fabricated, the defendants could not have conducted large-scale and organized church activities at the time of their arrest. The fear of exposure, the atmosphere of general terror, diseases are the factors that limited the believers’ observance of religious traditions to a private space. Even the Chekists, taking about 25 people into the «development», could not attract them to this case. At the same time, similar cases with identical accusations of creating a clerical underground were brought against rabbis, butchers, and ordinary believers in Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnytsia, and Zhytomyr regions, where Jews made up a significant part of the population. The analysis of these cases allows us to assert that they are fabricated and warns against simplistic conclusions about the organized resistance of those arrested to anti-religious policies. The total terror of the authorities, the industry of educating the «new Soviet man» in an anti-religious spirit significantly limited the activities of Jewish communities. Observance of religious traditions in the late 1930s could only take place in the circle of family and closest friends.

• Details
• Contents