Dan Snow's History Hit - The KGB in Ukraine

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

The KGB was the main security agency for the Soviet Union. Tasked with surveillance and rooting out dissidents, religious practitioners and anti-government organisations, the KGB were feared for their intimidation tactics and brutality. They operated across the soviet countries with a particularly sinister presence in Ukraine.In his desperate attempt to restore the Soviet Union, Putin has silenced critics, historians and organisations that reveal the atrocities committed under the Soviet regime. While the Russian KGB files are completely classified once again, the Ukrainian archives are open for all. Dr Tatiana Vagramenko is currently shedding light on the contents of those archives. She tells Dan that 'what we are witnessing in this current war is the forceful drive to control the pen of Soviet history. This history preserved in Soviet-era archives, is one of the underlying causes of the current war in Europe and peace cannot be achieved without understanding and coming to terms with this past.'She has spent hours pouring over confiscated letters, diaries, interrogation notes and photos to reveal the lives of ordinary Ukrainians suffering under the persecution of the KGB. She tells Dan about their stories, their suffering and their defiance. Her project is called History Declassified: The KGB and the religious underground in Soviet Ukraine.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi everybody, welcome to Downsdale's History. I'm currently heading north through the Southern Ocean, having successfully completed the main aim of Endurance 22, which is find the Endurance shipwreck. Please head back and listen to that podcast. It's going great guns. Lots of people listening to that one, the inside story of how we found Endurance. But we're recording new podcasts all the time. It's the Satellite Link holds up. This one is very special indeed. This one is with Dr. Tatiana Viana vagramenko she is an anthropologist she's a historian she's based at university college cork where she's undertaken a research project called history declassified the kgb in the religious underground in the soviet union she has been pouring through the Ukrainian Soviet secret police records. They give an

extraordinary window into recent Ukrainian history, but actually into Soviet history as a whole. It's the only place you can do that because many of the other Soviet archives are completely shut to researchers. This, as you'll hear, is a source of fury for Vladimir Putin as he seeks to reshape the history of the Soviet Union in a very different way to the people of Russia and its successor states. I've had lots of historians on the podcast, many of them doing important work that helps to shape the world that we live in, and Tatiana surely ranks among the most important voices we've had on this podcast, particularly now. Russian armies are seeking to occupy Ukraine. And one of the first things they'll do is go for the archives. Whoever controls the past controls the future, folks.

Never forget that. It's great to talk to Tatiana. I'll start off by asking her about how her family are faring. Many of them are in Crimea and other parts of Ukraine. So all the very best to them. And thank you very much, Tatiana, for making the time to come on this podcast. Enjoy. Dr. Tatiana, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Thanks for inviting me, Dan. How are you there? Very good, thank you. But first things first, how is your family in the Crimea? Are you able to give me a report? Well, my sister is now on her way trying to escape my mother couldn't make it because she had had

bad pressures too much of stress so the parents are staying there but I hope to get them out thanks the other family somewhere tried already managed to escape from Ukraine some got stuck in different cities because I have family all over Ukraine so I'm trying to every morning to just to find out whether and where are they and how things it must be very difficult being part of the Ukrainian diaspora yeah well Ukrainian diaspora is extended and it's big because this is not the first historical, tragic historical moment that forced Ukrainians to leave their country. And I hope this will be the moment of reconnection and restoration of lost previous ties. Can I ask now about the research you're doing because it's so remarkable for itself and because of the current situation. Tell me what are you particularly working on at the moment?

Well in the last few years the focus of my research was KGB archives. They were eight years ago reclassified fully open in Ukraine and that's I didn't know that actually this research and this Soviet history that I'm researching, that I'm interested in, would be so present right now. Because Putin began his invasion with a surprisingly long and extended history lecture. He justified why he began this war. And there was lots of references to the Soviet era, when Ukraine was one of the republics of the Soviet Union. So he's kind of justifying his invasion. And he's questioning the Ukrainian statehood, saying that it's just a mere mistake of the Soviet project. While I was listening to this lecture, this heartbreaking speech that he was delivering on the eve of the war,

I just realized that what I'm doing is where one of the actors, one of the triggers of war is, the Soviet history and also the archives that hide a lot of historical truth pertained to the Soviet period. Because he began the war actually a long time before the actual invasion. The last decade, what he did, he glorified the Soviet Union, the history of the Soviet Union. He was a KGB officer. He's the former KGB officer himself.

That's his training, and that will stay for life in his mind. And what he did, he basically started to closing all kind of archives that related to, that could hide some historical material about the Soviet period. He repressed many people and many organizations that did research the history of the Soviet Union. That was his consistent preparation to what I think he wants to restore the Soviet Union. He wants this empire back. And of course, what happened in Ukraine is completely the opposite. It must be very irritating for him because, okay, so we have 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Ukraine, for many years since after that, being an independent state,

was under shadow of Russia, of Kremlin, until it was not. And since 2004, there was a move of Ukrainian government, of social movement, people's movement, away from Russia, away from the Soviet legacy, closer to Europe. In 2014, there was a Maidan revolution. Probably many of us read and heard about that, that that was the beginning of the actual war. And that was the year, the following year after the Maidan, when Ukraine adopted the so-called decommunization laws. They also refer to as memory laws. And that was a clear departure from the Soviet legacy.

The laws were saying that any kind of symbol of the Soviet history, like statues of Lenin, you could find everywhere, or flags of the Soviet Union, should be dismantled. And one of the laws was about the opening of the KGB archives and any other Soviet archives. And imagine what was this, the bomb for Putin. And tell me about these archives. The KGB archive, presumably in Kiev or in Ukraine, that was once part of the Soviet Union. Was there any attempt to destroy it when the Soviet Union broke up? Like, for example, when the Brits left Kenya, there was a huge bonfire of archives in Nairobi. Or was it just left? Yes, these archives, the state it, the archives that were related to this kind of some different state Soviet agency, particularly the KGB archive,

let's talk about the KGB archives, were always a kind of the stumbling block for everyone. In 1991, not actually a few years ago, a few years before in 89, when the Stasi archive was captured in Berlin, if you remember, And that was the beginning

when the Soviet Union began to worry that something possible might happen with them. And they began to destroy a lot. They did destroy a lot of materials. And the KGB was a very centralized organization. So whatever I can find in Ukraine is actually, there are lots of materials related to Moscow, to other cities, the republics of the Soviet Union. But all the materials, the research is coming from Russia, from Ukraine, from all over the world. They were coming to the archives and they were rediscovering

or just discovering the history of Soviet oppression because the KGB archive is the biggest database of Soviet crimes. And I'm sure that was very irritating for Putin, something that he would love to destroy, he would love to close forever. Just remind me of the various waves of horror that swept across Ukraine in the period that you study. When do the records begin, as it were? Because you've got the Second World War, you've got famine, you've got Holocaust, and then you've got the period of intense repression after the Second World War as well.

What is the period we're talking about that you're particularly interested in? Well, if we talk about the archives of the solitary, KGB archive, for example, they begin in the year 1918. This is the following year after the revolution, the Bolshevik revolution, when the KGB, with different names, the security police, the secret police, were created. And then, of course, we have devastating years of building the Soviet Union that were built by sacrificing many lives. There were deportations, there were collectivization of villages. So the 20s were hard years of the beginning of this new country

that was violent, very violent. Then we have the 30s, and I must say the 30s is something that I'm not ready to touch myself because that's the great terror, the Stalin's terror, when millions of lives just perished in the Gulag. They were shot. And Ukraine suffered the most because this terror machine was the most craziest in Ukraine. There were cases of mass murder.

There was state-sponsored famine by Stalin because he confiscated crops and triggered the famine that took several millions of lives. That is the 30s. And the 30s, I am not ready to touch because that's too much to me. I'd say I intentionally tried not to go that deep. So then we have the beginning of World War II. Ukraine, again, unfortunately, faced the most devastating outcomes of World War II, the Holocaust. We have to understand that one fourth of the victims of the Holocaust lived in Ukraine. Ukraine lost just in the Holocaust, basically just in the extermination of Jews in Rome, lost 1.6 million of people, leaving sometimes entire villages and

towns completely empty. Then Ukraine was nearly fully occupied by the Nazi regime, Nazi army, and of course, there was the hottest battles there. So Ukraine left World War II completely ruined and it took the next several decades to restore to heal these wounds and then we see again that we have Chernobyl again Ukraine is on lock because Chernobyl was situated in Ukraine and that's the biggest ecological

catastrophe that humanity faced up to nowadays and then we see I thought that was the end, but then the war in Europe began. And I must say that this is not the war between Russia and Ukraine. This is the war in Europe.

It's European war. And again, we see, I witness every day and I watch news. I receive photographs from my family. I see the devastating destruction of entire cities, of entire towns where I was walking a few years ago, where I grew up. And that's the history of Ukraine. You listened to Dianne Snow's History. We're talking about the Ukrainian KGB.

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and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. This is a big question, but what have you been finding in those archives? Well, I can say from my point of view, because I'm not even a historian, I have to say I'm an anthropologist. Even a historian, I have to say, I'm an anthropologist. Of course, we've been talking a lot recently in the last few weeks about the political implications, about this kind of the geopolitical giant chessboard and moving.

Some historians are coming to discover the historical truth. When I came first to Ukraine as a researcher, when I entered this KGB archives, my aim was different. I'm an anthropologist and the archives were kind of a fieldwork to me. When I entered these KGB archives, my aim was different. I'm an anthropologist, and the archives were kind of a fieldwork to me. I wanted to see the daily, the normal people's life, not the kind of politician, political games or whatever. I wanted to see, to hear their voices. When I was reading, for example, the files of investigation of different secret operations, what I wanted was to reconstruct people's lives, their motivation. I wanted to hear their life stories. So when I was reading these old yellow pages of archives, I wanted to have a dialogue with them. And it struck me so much, the real voices you could hear in these documents,

how people, just normal person, became a part of this terror machine, how he perished or she perished in the Gulag, in labor camp. But there is some witness of his life or her life, some confiscated material, confiscated photograph, love letter, any correspondence, confiscated manuscript, something that you can still touch and you feel and reconnect with these stories, life stories. And you know what? Against this evidence, there is all this lie and hypocrisy that comes from the Russian media now. Nothing works because you see the real lives destroyed, perished, broken.

Speaking of real lives destroyed and broken, one of the more remarkable stories that you've told me and the team here is about the crumpled paper. I find that very haunting, the woman who tried to destroy the statement that had been beaten out of her. Yes, there were several stories that really sometimes were so heartbreaking that I left the archives crying sometimes, just thinking and talking to those people. Yeah, there were different moments, kind of dramatic, when a woman being interrogated and these kind of interrogation protocols were simply and always just a pure lie. So basically an interrogated person would answer,

but the words would be completely different, you'd find in the interrogation protocols. So one of the arrested women, she just jumped onto a KGB officer and tried to crumple this, she tried to destroy this document. So then the KGB officer had to write a report about that incident. One story that struck me most,

that was the story about 23 from not far from Kiev. They were peasants, simple people who gathered at home and prayed, and that was already a crime for them. So they were arrested, and I managed to find a penal file related to this case. And as I opened it, I found very strange photographs. The photographs were supposed to be normal, you know, these kind of arrest mugshots that's open normally, every file, a person, his photographs, face, profile. And that, the photographs were completely different. The images captured an unusual dynamic.

As the photos were being taken, we could see that old or young men and women intentionally closed their eyes. They are turning their head away. In some images, we see kind of grimacing faces that tell that either the arresters were crying or yelling. And as I read later, the documents enclosed in this file, I found out that they were praying. And as they were praying and as they were trying to resist the arrest photographs, basically they were captured by the police. But nine photographs out of 23 were visibly altered. Something was scratched out from the photographs.

And I couldn't understand why, why the policeman was scratching something from the photographs. And I found in a small envelope, a smaller original photographs. And you know what he, the person, whoever was scratching, what he was trying to hide? The hands of policemen that tried to restrain and kind of violently hold the neck of these people. Sometimes it's the hands, sometimes the hand in the black gloves. This is what the person tried to scratch out, kind of these visible signs of violence. And it struck me so much. And then I decided to read carefully the story of these peasant believers who were illiterate, who were very poor.

Some of them went on hunger strike during this pre-trial investigation. Three died shortly before the court that gave them 25 years in prison. And it was really heartbreaking to read this, but there was one more document in this story, in this file, that was enclosed 50 years later after this happened. So the trial was in 1951. And then in 1998, 50 years later, when Ukraine was already an independent state, one person wrote a letter. And the letter was enclosed to this file. So this person who was named Miron, I'm not sure whether he's alive or not. I wanted to find him and to talk to him. Basically, he was a son of two arrested people, two out of this group.

And he wrote a letter to the Ukrainian Security Services. And he wrote the following, that actually gives us the story that didn't make it to the file. So he wrote, My parents, and he named the parents, both were repressed and sentenced for 25 years in prison with the confiscation of all the property. All I know that my father went on a hunger strike in prison and shortly died there. My mother served her sentence in different labor camps. I and my sister, they were aged 9 and 11 by the time, were sent to an

orphanage. In a new birth certificate, it was stated, parents unknown. My mother returned home very ill in 1956. She was amnestied after the Stalin's death. But the following year, 1957, she was arrested again and sentenced to 10 years. This time, she fully served her sentence. arrested again and sentenced to 10 years. This time she fully served her sentence. My parents and my brother, who was also his elder brother, was also arrested as part of this case,

were repressed for no justifiable reason, for they committed no crimes. They all were religious, honest and hardworking people. That's what Miron wrote in his letter. His only intention of this letter, he wanted to find where his father was buried, but he never managed to find out because the archive kept no record in this regard. And stories like this one, that's what is to me the real truth. And this is no any comparison with all this ideology that is full of lie

and full of hypocrisy that we see and we can listen from what's developing now in Russia, about the glorification of the Soviet Union. That's what Mr. Putin, a former KGB officer, wants to restore. What did the KGB have to gain from persecuting almost illiterate country people in the 1940s. What did you learn about the KGB itself, as well as its victims, during your studies? The history of KGB and the history of Soviet oppression are very different periods. Let's say if we talk about the beginning of the Soviet Union.

In a few years, the Soviet Union was created as a giant empire. It occupied one-sixth of the territory of the earth with many different people, with many different ideas. And in order to make them Soviet, because the idea was that there is no any nationality, there should not be any nationality, there should not be any ethnic group, there shouldn't be any Russian, Ukrainian, Kyrgyz, that are, they all should be Soviet. And that's ideological background. In order to accomplish that, the Soviet secret police was created to keep under control any signs of dissent, any expression of opposition. And it gained an enormous power. The KGB was considered to be a state within a state. It was a kind of independent organization that had enormous power within the Soviet political system.

That, in a way, made possible, let's say, the Great Terror of Stalin's of the 30s, 1937, 1938, when the KGB turned into a crazy machine. Basically, they became a competition, how many people would be shot, how many people would be sentenced to labor camp. And it went so crazy and so out of hand that even Stalin had to stop itself. And he cleans, there was a kind of a purge of the KGB itself, late 30s, before the beginning of the war, when Stalin basically said, guys, are you crazy? There's already 1 million people in labor camps. But at the same time, the system was not destroyed. This machine was working in order to unify, as they thought, the population,

in order to suppress any kind of difference. Ukraine was one of the most disturbing areas in the Soviet Union because it was a territory with very strong anti-Soviet sentiments, particularly in Western Ukraine. In Western Ukraine, there were armed Ukrainian nationalist groups that were really fighting against the Soviet authorities and for Ukrainian independence throughout the entire Soviet Union. And I don't know any other cases in the Soviet Union that would be so strong anti-Soviet sentiments. So the KGB had to work hard in Ukraine in order to suppress any kind of opposition, any kind of political, cultural, religious,

whatever way to express the disagreement with the Soviet ideology. This is something that you've grown up with because your father was a distant as well. Can you say a little bit about whether that impacted your life choices and your work? Well, sure. I think that was one of the personal motives to start that research, to go to Ukrainian archives and to try to find something about my dad. My dad was the dissident. He was a journalist. Well, he's still alive and he still can tell me these stories. He was a journalist in the 60s. And because of his disagreement with the Soviet ideology, he never wanted to join the Communist Party. They fired him. His life was in many ways broken because he is a very talented

person. He's a writer, but he never had an opportunity to fully develop himself. And this kind of bitterness that he had towards the Soviet system was part of my childhood. He was telling me stories, how he was ordered, for example, to write an article about a young Pentecostal guy who refused to join the army because he is a pacifist, because his faith did not allow him to hold a weapon. And as a journalist, the party sent him to write an article blaming this guy as an enemy of the people. And he talked to this guy and he said that he was a nice guy, very kind, and he couldn't write anything about him. He wrote the truth. Of course, this article was not published. The following day,

he was fired and he had to leave his job. He has to leave this town, look for a different place. So that's another human life that was, of he didn't perish thanks god he didn't perish in the library camp he was never arrested but this life was broken and i could see this kind of the sadness when he was telling about his passion to write and isn't it no less important history than anything else? Tatiana, whenever I talk to people whose research areas are particularly traumatic, be it the Holocaust or other areas, in your entire professional life you spent reading, going through these accounts of extraordinary suffering and injustice.

How do you keep yourself as a historian, as an anthropologist, from getting too depressed, from getting too traumatized? That's very difficult. But, you know, maybe I would sound a little bit too dramatic. But at the moment, this is my war. I mean, this is the way I participate in the war. And this is the truth that I want to process because this moment of traumatic history, and I am part of this history because I'm the Soviet project myself. I'm Ukrainian, russified by Soviet education. So kind of this is something that probably I want to process myself.

This is the way of healing wounds, that the historical trauma that should be healed. And I think this is the way how I'm reading, how I'm reconnecting with people, this is the way how I try to heal probably my historical wounds. I've talked to so many historians over the years on this podcast, but few of them, it seems, have got such an important role to play in current events.

What do you think people can learn from your research? How should it be shared? And what impact can it have? Difficult and maybe at the same time, simple question, thanks. But again, as an anthropologist, I want us to see history, not as something like a reified fetish and something boring that we are tired of reading at school. I want us to revise history as something as part of our life, of our everyday life, and to look at history through people's lives, through normal people's lives, through their tragedies, through their love, through their death, when we will humanize our vision of history,

when we see it not as the political party made this move or big politician delivered that speech that brought to war. No, history is actually us or my grandmother or my great-grandmother who lived through the Great Terror, who lived through war. And I want to see history like this through the people's life. And you know what, I believe that type of history, that vision of history will never lie to us. It will be honest, and it will help us understand what's going on right now. Thank you very much indeed, Tatiana, for coming on the pod. How can people learn more about your work? Well, follow my project, History Declassified

at University College Cork, and I'm sure you'll find many of my articles about the KGB secret operations in Ukraine online, including open access. Thanks, Dan, for inviting me. Thank you very much and all the best to you and your family and the wider community. Thanks. Thanks, folks, for listening to this episode of Dan Snow's History. As I say all the time, I love doing these podcasts. They are the best thing I do professionally. I feel very lucky to have you listening to them.

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