I will not ask for the jurors’ pity…: How Leonid Chertkov was arrested

Abstract

The article examines the formation process and activities of the so-called “Chertkov’s group”, one of the first informal post-war poetic associations in Moscow founded in the 1950s. Differences are discussed between the group itself and a wider circle of visitors to Galina Andreeva’s apartment, which was named “An attic with windows facing West”. The author traces the chain of events that led to the arrest of the leader of the group, Leonid Chertkov, by the KGB in January 1957. Several documents related to this arrest are published here for the first time. They help us to reveal the method of transferring Chertkov’s poems abroad: they were published in the émigré press in early 1958 as “poems by a Moscow student”. The addendum contains previously unpublished texts of the group members from various private and state archives.

Keywords

• russian poetry of the 1950s
• chertkov’s group
• leonid chertkov
• stanislav krasovitskii
• galina andreeva
• valentin khromov
• andrei sergeev
• nikolai shatrov
• political repressions in the soviet union
• channels for transferring materials abroad