Metadata: Latvia's KGB Archives online collection
Collection
- Country:
- Latvia
- Holding institution:
- National Archives of Latvia
- Holding institution (official language):
- Latvijas Nacionālais arhīvs
- Postal address:
- Šķūņu iela 11, Rīga, 1050
- Phone number:
- +371 20 043 706
- Web address:
- https://www.arhivi.gov.lv ; https://kgb.arhivi.lv/
- Email:
- lna@arhivi.gov.lv
- Title:
- Latvia's KGB Archives online collection
- Title (official language):
- LPSR VDK dokumentu arhīvs
- Creator/accumulator:
- Latvia's KGB Archives
- Date(s):
- 1940/1991
- Date note:
- Bulk 1953/1991
- Language:
- Russian
- Latvian
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection contains documents from Latvia's KGB Archives (https://kgb.arhivi.lv/ ) that was discovered when the former USSR collapsed. The Latvian National Archives was published on 20 December 2018. Later, this collection was supplemented and additional documents may be published in future.
On 30 June 2020 the collection of documents included: а list of the heads of the KGB departments, their biographies and some personal documents; KGB phone book; KGB file of non-staff operational officers (75 cards); KGB agent card index in alphabetical order (7,998 cards); an additional file of KGB agents (447 cards); KGB agents statistical file (4,141 cards - the same names in this file cabinet as in the alphabetical file, but they are grouped differently); a statistical card index of excluded agents (688 cards); KGB agent registration books; KGB excluded registries; KGB operational affairs; conclusions of the court and the prosecutor's office on cooperation with the KGB; list of commanders of fighter battalions, their personal files and documents; an inventory of archive fonds No. 101 of the Latvian State Archive "Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Latvian SSR"; documents on the training of employees of the 1st department (foreign intelligence) of the KGB of the Latvian SSR, etc. For example, the collection contains several documents on Semyon Shustin, the head of the State Security Directorate of the NKVD of the Latvian SSR (from 11 September 1940), and the People's Commissar of State Security (from February 1941). The questionnaire of the district party conference of 11 December 1940 states that Shustin Semyon Matveevich was born in 1908, he was a soldier, a Jew, a member of the Communist Party since 1930, has an incomplete higher education, deputy people's commissar of internal affairs of the Latvian SSR. The biggest scandal in Latvia was caused by the publication of a file of KGB agents, including some known personalities. However, this card index only gives the names of people who were considered recruited but does not describe the nature of the cooperation or whether there was in fact cooperation at all. For example, on the card of Evgeny Gomberg, now a famous Latvian millionaire, it says: Gomberg Evgeny Yakovlevich, was born on 25 December 1952 in Riga, lives on 11-1 Rikshotayu Street in Riga, a researcher at the State Civil Aviation Research Institute, non-party, Jew, USSR citizenship, higher education. The pseudonym is "Eugene", an agent, who was recruited on 19 October 1976, the last name of the recruiter is "Tereshko", Division 2 of the 2nd branch of the KGB. The case of Mikhail Davidovich Broitman was also examined by a Latvian court for suspected cooperation with the KGB. The court ruled that Broitman was not an agent or a KGB informant. This collection will be of interest to political scientists, historians and researchers of repression during the Soviet period in Latvia.
- Archival history:
- The National Archives of Latvia is an institution under the supervision of the Minister of Culture that implements governmental policy in the field of records and archives management. The National Archives of Latvia include: the State Historical Archives of Latvia, the State Archives of Latvia, the Latvia State Archive of Audiovisual Documents, the State Archives of Personnel Records of Latvia, 11 regional state archives, the Department of Institutional Records and Archives Management, and the Department for the Preventive Preservation and Administration. Latvia's KGB Archives published by the National Archives of Latvia are known colloquially as the 'Cheka bags', because they were discovered stashed inside cloth bags. They were found in the KGB building on Brīvības street 61 in 1991. The building currently houses the Stūra māja (“Corner House”) KGB museum. The Latvian National Archives, tasked with publishing the documents, intends to publish them with the goal of "informing the public about the totalitarian regime that ruled Latvia during the occupation, the total social control and the mechanisms and instruments employed by this regime, as well as to inform the public of the consequences of this regime, to overcome them and to continue to develop Latvia as a democratic state."
- Administrative/biographical history:
- According to rough estimates, from 1941 to March 1953 there were between 8,000 and 12,000 agents in the State Security structures of the Latvian SSR. In March 1953, all agents were re-registered in accordance with the new order and most wartime agents were expelled. Between 1953 and August 1991, approximately 24,000 agents were recruited. All of the most valuable information, including a full list of "cases of cooperation" of a person with special services, was recorded in a "personal file". During the collapse of the USSR, KGB officers managed to transfer all personal files from Latvia to Russia.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Broitman, Mikhail
- Gomberg, Evgeny
- Shustin, Semyon
- Subject terms:
- Communism
- Law enforcement
- Statistics
- Access, restrictions:
- There is a digital database of the KGB "Delta" and many other KGB documents that are not publicly available on the site. They can be examined in the reading room of the Latvian State Archive by historians, lawyers, journalists and other specialists after receiving permission from the archive management.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People
- Author of the description:
- Jana Makarova, Riga