Informer 001: The Myth of Pavlik Morozov / Edition 1

by Yuri Druzhnikov

Overview

When Russia was in the throes of Joseph Stalin's campaign for the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture, a young boy named Pavlik Morozov informed the OGPU (later called the KGB) that his father was an enemy of the regime. As a result, Pavlik's father was arrested and disappeared in a Soviet concentration camp. Enemies of the party later killed the boy, whereupon people proclaimed him a hero. After that, Pavlik Morozov's glory surpassed the fame of many Russian heroes. Hundreds of works have been published about the boy in various genres; his portrait has graced galleries, postcards, and postage stamps; ships and libraries have been dedicated in his honor.

Informer 001 is the first independent study of the Morozov affair. Yuri Druzhnikov examined documents, visited museums, and interviewed everyone who knew Morozov during his short lifetime. In book after book, he discovered inconsistencies in every fact, from where Morozov was born to how old he was at the time of his death.

As Druzhnikov pieced together the story about Morozov's life, death, and legacy, it became clear that the campaign to keep Morozov a hero was centrally directed. Informer hero number 001 remained a fearful reminder to all; to those who inform, and those who become the victims of denunciations. Informer 001 offers Western readers a unique glimpse into the behind-the-scenes operations of Soviet political history and will be fascinating for the general public, as well as for sociologists, historians, and Russian studies specialists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781560002833
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	11/30/1996
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	222
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

Preface: A Dangerous Subject
Cast of Characters
1.A Scripted Trial
2.How a Son Informs on His Father
3.Morozov's Other Feats on Paper and in Real Life
4.Was He Ever a Pioneer?
5.The Family as a Terrorist Organization
6.Posthumous Rehabilitation of the Innocent
7.Who was the Real Murderer?
8.The Myth: An Example of the New Man
9.Authors and Victims of Heroization
10.Hail to the Informers!
11.How Many Pavliks Were There?
12.Pavlik Morozov and Comrade Stalin
13.Pilgrimage to Gerasimovka
14.To Inform, or Not to Inform?
Epilogue: What Has Happened to Informer 001 Now that the Soviet Union Has Collapsed
Russian Periodicals Mentioned in the Book
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Pavel Morozov's official Soviet title was "Hero-Pioneer of the Soviet Union Number 001." He earned that title in November 1931 by denouncing his father to the Soviet authorities for falsifying documents. His father was tried and exiled. Less than a year later, his trial would be followed by a second, at which Pavel's grandparents, cousin and two uncles were tried for the murder of Pavel and his eight-year-old brother, Fyodor. Druzhnikov, a onetime Soviet dissident who is now vice-president of International PEN for writers in exile, does a commendable job of chasing down the loose ends of Pavel's life. He discovers that Pavel could not have been a Pioneer when he fingered his fathereven though he would later be used as a model for the organization. He carefully examines the documents that exist (including an intriguing secret document dated two days prior to the discovery of the boys' bodies) and offers conjectures on why a suspiciously large number of other documents are missing. What emerges from these details is a complicated tale of a nasty teenager who wants to punish his father for leaving his mother and, discovering he enjoys his new-found power, continues to fink on villagers until someone knifes (or bayonets) him. The more important story, though, is one that Pavel can't even begin to understand, that of Stalin's plans for collectivization, the need of the government to subdue the frontier spirits in Siberia and to undermine the peasant family, the primary source of strength and resistance. Pavel Morozov and his murder, provided a repressive regime with a symbol of the absolute loyalty to the state and the supposed brutishness of the state's enemies. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The story of Pavlik Morozov was one of the enduring myths of the Soviet Union… [A] very striking story and should be essential reading for any student of the Soviet phenomenon.” —Richard Ware, Slavonica “[A]uthor Yuri Druzhnikov unravels for an English-speaking audience the perplexing and often convoluted tale of Pavlik Morozov, the Soviet Union’s legendary child-informer… As a uniquely Soviet version of the murder-mystery, Druzhnikov’s book appeals to a wide and popular readership that takes pleasure in filling in the gaps the author uncovers in the historical record. Druzhnikov’s meticulous and passionate detective work makes Informer 001 an engaging and exciting read.” —Julie A. Cassiday, Slavic and East European Journal "This extraordinary book is much more than simply an exposure of the scanty and garbled factual foundation of the papier-mache Soviet myth of Pavlik Morozov... It reveals the whole clumsy and relentless machinery of the Soviet myth-making, the centrality of the, alas, one-sided struggle between loyalty to traditional human values on the one hand and to the bogus future vouchsafed by a powerful regime on the other. It shows as well how even people of genuine talent and considerable personal courage—not only Tikbonov and Gorky, but Babel and Eisenstein and Shklovsky—allowed themselves to be caught up in the'machinery, to their ultimate sorrow. The official tale of Pavlik Morozov in its many, often contradictory versions, for, decades brought tears to the eyes of millions of Young Pioneers, erected monuments in thousands of towns and villages, created a children's, and also an adult publishing industry, and had as its foundation little more than a handful of sordid lies. The difficulty and complexity of Druzhnikov's research is matched by the artful simplicity of his narrative unraveling." —Sidney Monas, professor emeritus, Department of Slavic Languages, University of Texas at Austin “Druzhnikov is a brilliant storyteller... He has unraveled a mystery, and like an experienced detective, he leads us from event to event, from witness to witness, never stretching his evidence or passing off a hypothesis as a final solution...The story Druzhnikov has told is a parable and exemplum...required reading for all who study Soviet history, the methods of mass propaganda, and the growth of modem myths.” — Anatoly Liberman, professor of Russian, University of Minnesota "Yuri Druzhnikov's landmark study debunks the Soviet myth of Pavlik Morozov once and for all. This well-researched study will be required reading for anyone interested in the cultural construction of the Soviet Union." —Daniel Rancour-Laferriere, professor of Russian, University of California, Davis “This profound work of scholarly investigation, meticulously researched and thoroughly documented, is an unprecedented look into the creation (in fact, ‘fabrication’ is a more appropriate word) of one of the most hideous myths of Soviet propaganda . . . Through a series of twists of the truth and deliberate misrepresentations, the true story of a troubled boy was made into a myth about a young martyr who willingly sacrificed his life . . . “for the ‘bright future of mankind.’ This myth helped the Communists corrupt the souls of seven generations of Soviet people and institutionalize political denunciation.” —Emil A. Draitser, Hunter College

From the Publisher