Metadata: V. P. Nekrasov
Collection
- Country:
- Ukraine
- Holding institution:
- Central State Archive and Museum of Literature and Art of Ukraine
- Holding institution (official language):
- Центральний державний архів-музей літератури і мистецтва України
- Postal address:
- 01001, м. Київ-01, вул. Володимирська, 22-a
- Phone number:
- 380 (044) 278-44-81
- Web address:
- csam.archives.gov.ua
- Email:
- cdamlm@arch.gov.ua
- Reference number:
- F. 1185
- Title:
- V. P. Nekrasov
- Title (official language):
- Некрасов В.П.
- Creator/accumulator:
- V. P. Nekrasov
- Date(s):
- 1930/1997
- Language:
- Russian
- Hebrew
- French
- Extent:
- 54 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Scope and content:
- Included are manuscripts of works by Viktor Nekrasov that in one way or another deal with Jewish themes: the novella The Personal File of Iufa the Communist (1976); an article titled “The Beilis Case” (on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of M. Beilis’s death); and op-ed commentaries on antisemitism. Also housed in the fond is a collection of materials from the personal papers of the Israeli writer and translator Sh. Even-Shoshan, including Israeli newspaper and journal clippings containing this writer’s fictional works and articles by Viktor Nekrasov devoted to the memory of the Babi Yar victims and to discussion at the Kiev Architects’ House of a plan for a memorial at Babi Yar; an interview with Nekrasov conducted by D. P. Markish titled “An Honorary Jew”; articles on him by Sh. Even-Shoshan titled “Babi Yar – the Song and the Singer” and “Three Hours with Nekrasov”; and articles on him by S. Neigof and G. Kipnis; copies of Viktor Nekrasov’s letters to Sh. Even-Shoshan (1963-84), as well as letters to him from Yigal Allon, Israeli foreign minister and vice-PM; and from I. Cohen, head of the Israeli Writers’ Organization; group photographs (with Sh. Even-Shoshan); etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Russian writer Viktor Platonovich Nekrasov (1911-87) was born in Kiev. He spent his early childhood in France. He graduated from the Kiev Engineering and Construction Institute in 1936 and the theatre studio of the Kiev Russian Drama Theater (now the Lesia Ukrainka Theater) in 1937. Prior to the Second World War, he worked as an architect, theatre artist, and actor. In 1941-44, he served at the front, as an engineer in sapper units and as a battalion commander. He was demobilised after getting wounded and returned to Kiev. He began his literary activity in 1945. In 1946, his novella In the Trenches of Stalingrad was published in the journal Znamia; it was awarded the Stalin (State) Prize in 1947 and became widely known in the USSR and abroad. In the postwar years he published several novellas and travelogues written under the impression of his travels abroad; these elicited harsh criticism in the Soviet press, wherein Nekrasov was accused of “servility before the West.” In 1959, he published articles in Literaturnaia gazeta on the need to memorialise those who perished at Babi Yar; and on 29 September 1966, he took part in an unauthorised demonstration there, following which he was accused of organising “Zionist mobs.” In 1963, he was subjected to harsh criticism from Nikita Khrushchev, and thereafter to a smear campaign in the press; and he was expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the USSR Union of Writers. The authorities were also irritated by his contact with Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his involvement in protests against the persecution of dissidents. In 1974, after his apartment was searched and he was interrogated at the KGB, he left the country and settled in Paris. He worked at Radio Liberty and wrote several books: Notes of an Idler (1974), Stalingrad (1981), and others. He was a member of the PEN Club and the Bavarian Arts Academy. He died in Paris in 1987.
- Access points: locations:
- Babi Yar
- Access points: persons/families:
- Allon, Yigal
- Cohen, I.
- Even-Shoshan, Sh.
- Kipnis, G.
- Markish, D. P.
- Neigof, S.
- Nekrasov, V. P.
- System of arrangement:
- The fond includes a single inventory systematised by document type (literary genre) and chronologically (with letters arranged alphabetically by correspondent name).
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
