Translated material
Arseny Roginsky died
He was a man of calm and intelligent courage. Not a common combination
A professional historian, he studied the Russian liberation movement and internalized its best and noblest features.
In the dark seventies of the Soviet years, he was engaged in what was perhaps the most important thing - historical education. Together with several associates, he collected in the USSR and published abroad collections of archival historical materials on Russian history, “Memory.” It was both purely scientific and - inevitably in specific conditions - political work. Gradually, a wide circle of sympathizers and contributors formed around this group, among whom were famous and extraordinary people.
The study of the liberation movement was not in vain. Roginsky knew what conspiracy was. And the KGB was unable to either discover the Pamyat archive or bring a substantive charge against Roginsky. He was tried on absurd charges. The “crime” threatened, at most, with expulsion from the Public Library, in the manuscripts department of which Roginsky carried out research. But this guilt was not proven during the five-day (!) trial.
I happened to attend several political trials in the seventies and early eighties. Including at the trial of Roginsky. His case was unique. He refused to give any evidence. In fact, he did not talk to the court at all, answering only questions - first name, patronymic, last name... He saved those who were associated with the publication of “Memory”. There was not a single confrontation during the investigation.
He understood what this meant for him. And the Soviet secret police took revenge on him. He received four years and served them very hard - he spent a significant part of the term in prison. He was transferred from camp to camp
He remained true to himself all his life. One of the founders and leaders of Memorial, the most important organization for the health of our public consciousness, calmly and unbendingly persistently continued the same work - education, offering people the historical truth that is so necessary at all times. I repeat - calmly and unbendingly persistent.
I took it upon myself to write about Arseny Roginsky for one reason. I won’t risk using the too important word “friendship”. But for many years - we met in 1965 at the University of Tartu, where Senya studied, we had a kind and trusting human relationship. During the “Memory” they became even closer and stronger. Among other things, one episode brought us closer together. I published in “Memory” a fragment from the memoirs of my uncle, Arnold Moiseevich Gordin, my father’s older brother. There, in particular, it was said about his friend of the twenties, Bar (Boris) Roginsky, whom the author characterized as a brave, straightforward, noble man. In the late twenties, Ber Roginsky hid the author, an illegal oppositionist, in his apartment from the GPU. Which was deadly.
My uncle survived twenty years of camps and exile. Bar Roginsky died.
When I showed Sena this text, it turned out that it was about his father, whom he practically did not know. He was born in 1946, in the North, in exile, and soon his father was arrested and died in 1951...
Arseny Borisovich did not know his father, but completely inherited his human qualities. Including a high sense of self-esteem, which in Soviet times made a person dangerous to the system. There is such a tradition in Russia.
Arseny Roginsky, smart, calm, courageous, who understood so much and did so much, died.
This is not the first time we have to say that the world is becoming empty.
Yakov GORDIN, historian, publicist, writer, editor-in-chief of Zvezda magazine