Arkadi Iossifowitsch Waksberg

Arkady Vaksberg ( Russian Аркадий Иосифович Ваксберг ., Scientific transliteration Arkady Iosifovič Vaksberg ; also: Arkady Vaksberg, Arkady Vaxberg; Arkadi Wachberg * 11. November 1933 in Novosibirsk , † 8. May 2011 in Moscow ) was a Russian journalist.

Life

Waksberg studied law at Lomonosov University in Moscow and graduated in 1952 with a doctorate. He initially worked as a lawyer. First book publications in 1961. Waksberg wrote from 1973 for the weekly newspaper Literaturnaja Gaseta (German: "literary newspaper "), from 1996 he was its correspondent in Paris. Waksberg was Vice President of the Russian PEN Center . In 1995/96 Waksberg was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin .

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Waksberg was one of the leading figures in Soviet journalism; his essays and articles contributed significantly to the reputation of Literaturnaja Gazeta as a newspaper, if not oppositional, at least not loyal to the line. He became known to a wide audience through his reports on criminal trials. He often took up social grievances or denounced corruption and injustice. This also applies to his scripts, several of which served as models for Soviet feature films with socially critical content. Waksberg wrote his books in the style of "documentary prose" popular in Russia, of which he is one of the leading exponents.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent, meanwhile again severely restricted opening of the state archives, he turned to historical and historical-literary topics. Based on the files of the Soviet secret police GPU , later NKVD , he devoted himself particularly to the fate of artists and writers in the Stalin era, including Lilja Brik , Maxim Gorki , Mikhail Koltsov and Vladimir Mayakovsky , as well as some leading figures in the repressive apparatus, including Andrei Wyschinski and Lew Scheinin . Coming from a Jewish family himself, he published a monograph as well as numerous articles on the repression of Jews in the Soviet Union. He was therefore exposed to attacks from the nationalist camp in Russia. His last work is an interview volume about Russian writers who fled the Bolshevik regime in exile in Paris during the interwar period, including Iwan Bunin and Vladimir Nabokov .

Works (selection)

• Merciless. Andrei Wyschinsky - Stalin's henchman. 1991, ISBN 3-7857-0581-6 .
• The Soviet mafia. Organized Crime in the Soviet Union. 1992, ISBN 3-492-03539-6 .
• The persecuted of Stalin - from the dungeons of the KGB. 1993, ISBN 3-499-19633-6 .
• Stalin Against the Jews. 1997, ISBN 0-517-17915-6 .
• The Murder of Maxim Gorky: A Secret Execution. 2007, ISBN 978-1-929631-62-9 .
• Le laboratoire de poisons: De Lenine à Poutine. 2007, ISBN 978-2-283-02159-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Poslednie izdanija king Arkadija Vaksberga
2. ↑ Arkady Vaksberg, Iz ada v raj i obratno Evrejskij me , November 13, 2013.
3. ↑ Arkady Vaksberg / Rene Gerra: Sem 'dnej v marte. Besedy ob emigracii. St Peterburg 2010.