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37-558: First Circle may refer to: In the First Circle , a novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn The First Circle (miniseries) , based on the novel The First Circle (1992 film) , a Canadian-French television drama film The First Circle (1973 film) , an English-language drama film First Circle (album) , a 1984 album by the Pat Metheny Group 1st Circle, Amman ,

74-480: A Dramatic Program or Series, awarded to Ron Orieux . Directed by Larry Sheldon, it received nominations for best dramatic miniseries, best actor, best actress, and best writing in the category. It starred Victor Garber as the protagonist, Christopher Plummer , Robert Powell and Dominic Raacke , with F. Murray Abraham as Stalin. It was released on DVD. In January 2006, the Rossiya Telekanal aired

111-517: A Zionist and of plotting to turn the Crimea in a separate Jewish state. When she denied the accusation, he shouted: "Why you old whore!" Stern replied: "So that's the way a minister talks to an academician." In March 1951, an elderly Jewish doctor, Yakov Gilyarievich Etinger died in custody after being subjected to interrogations lasting up to 12 hours a session by a junior officer, Mikhail Ryumin . Ryumin claimed that Etinger had confessed to murdering

148-530: A bright young man who was dutifully carrying out his orders, but actually Abakumov was reporting to Stalin what Beria had told him Stalin wanted to hear". He used his position to enrich himself. He took over a 'splendid' apartment, whose previous occupant, a soprano, he had arrested, and "stashed his mistresses in the Moskva Hotel and imported trainloads of plunder from Berlin." In 1946, Stalin appointed Abakumov Minister of State Security ( MGB ). Although

185-640: A large traffic circle in Amman, Jordan The First Circle of Hell, in Dante's Inferno Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title First Circle . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=First_Circle&oldid=892958620 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

222-474: A miniseries directed by Gleb Panfilov . Solzhenitsyn helped adapt the novel for the screen and narrated the film. Viktor Abakumov Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov (Russian: Виктор Семёнович Абакумов ; 24 April 1908 – 19 December 1954) was a high-level Soviet security official who from 1943 to 1946 was the head of SMERSH in the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense , and from 1946 to 1951 of

259-547: A system that is the cause of so much suffering. As Lev Rubin is given the task of identifying the voice in the recorded phone call, he examines printed spectrographs of the voice and compares them with recordings of Volodin and four other suspects. He narrows it down to Volodin and one other suspect, both of whom are arrested. By the end of the book, several zeks, including Gleb Nerzhin, the autobiographical hero, choose to stop co-operating, even though their choice means being sent to much harsher camps. Volodin, initially crushed by

296-680: Is a Roman Catholic, while in the short version his faith is not described. Shortly after One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was published, Solzhenitsyn submitted his "lightened" version for publication in the USSR, but it was never accepted. This version was first published abroad in 1968. An English version was first published in Great Britain by Collins and the Harvill Press in 1968. A paperback edition, still consisting of 87 chapters

333-547: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages In the First Circle The novel depicts the lives of the occupants of a sharashka (a research and development bureau made of Gulag inmates) located in the Moscow suburbs. This novel is highly autobiographical. Many of the prisoners ( zeks ) are technicians or academics who have been arrested under Article 58 of

370-479: Is taped and the NKVD seek to identify who has made the call. The sharashka prisoners, or zeks, work on technical projects to assist state security agencies and generally pander to Stalin's increasing paranoia. While most are aware of how much better off they are than "regular" gulag prisoners (some of them having come from gulags themselves), some are also conscious of the overwhelming moral dilemma of working to aid

407-769: The Don Cossack region of south Russia. His father was an unskilled labourer and his mother a nurse. At the age of 14, Abakumov joined the Soviet Red Army in spring 1922 and served with the 2nd Special Task Moscow Brigade in the Russian Civil War until demobilization in December 1923. He then joined the Komsomol . He became a candidate member of the Communist Party in 1930, and worked in

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444-597: The GULAG . This was a clear demotion; Abakumov was a compulsive womanizer, and his superior, M.P. Shreider ( ru ), regarded Abakumov as unfit to be a Chekist . In 1934, after the reorganization of the security apparatus (the OGPU was joined to the NKVD as a GUGB ), Abakumov started his work in a 1st Section of Economics Department (EKO) by the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of NKVD. On 1 August 1934, he

481-812: The People's Commissariat of Supplies until 1932, while being responsible for the Military Section of the Communist Youth League in the Moscow area ( raion ). In early 1932, recommended by the Party to join the security services ( OGPU ), he was assigned to the Economic Department and possibly to the Investigation Department. In 1933, he was dismissed from the Economic Department and assigned as an overseer to

518-678: The RSFSR Penal Code in Joseph Stalin 's purges following the Second World War . Unlike inhabitants of other Gulag labor camps , the sharashka zeks were adequately fed and enjoyed good working conditions; however, if they found disfavor with the authorities, they could be instantly shipped to Siberia. The title is an allusion to Dante 's first circle , or limbo of Hell in The Divine Comedy , wherein

555-538: The Central Committee from exposing the undoubtedly real conspiratorial group of doctors" who were supposedly foreign agents intend on murdering leaders of the communist party. This fabrication became known as the Doctors' plot . Abakumov was dismissed on 11 July, and arrested the following day. For three months, he was held in a freezing cell, whilst being interrogated by Ryumin, a vicious torturer. Most of

592-549: The Minister of State Security or MGB (ex- NKGB ). He was removed from office and arrested in 1951 on charges of failing to investigate the Doctors' Plot . After the death of Joseph Stalin , Abakumov was tried for fabricating the Leningrad Affair , sentenced to death and executed in 1954. Abakumov was an ethnic Russian. Recent scholarship suggests that he was born in Moscow, though he was previously said to be from

629-448: The USSR, so he produced a "lightened" version of 87 chapters. In the long version, the diplomat Volodin's phone call (chapter 1) was to the US embassy, warning them of a Soviet attempt to get atomic bomb secrets. In the short version this call is to an old family doctor warning him not to share a new medicine with some French doctors he will visit. Another difference, in the long version Sologdin

666-553: The additional detail that he was now accused of being "an accomplice in the crimes of Beria". The most serious charge against him was that he had been involved in fabricating the charges against Nikolai Voznesensky and other victims of the ' Leningrad affair '. During a meeting of Leningrad party members, on 6 May 1954, the USSR Procurator General, Roman Rudenko described Abakumov as "a criminal, falsifying criminal cases, an adventurer, ready to commit any crimes for

703-519: The case against Polina Zhemchuzhina , Jewish wife of the Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov , who had been arrested as a suspected Zionist in 1948. On 26 May, Beria submitted another memorandum, accusing Abakumov of fabricating the case against the former Minister of Aviation, Aleksey Shakhurin and other leaders of the air force, who were released after seven years in prison. The case against Abakumov continued after Beria's arrest, with

740-657: The chief of the 4th Department in the 1st Directorate of the NKVD. From 29 September to 1 November 1938, he was an assistant to Pyotr Fedotov , the head of the 2nd Department (Secret Political Dep – or. SPO) of GUGB of the NKVD. Until the end of 1938, he worked in the SPO GUGB NKVD as a head of one of the sections. Abakumov survived the Great Purge by participating in it. He executed each order without scruple, probably saving him from facing an execution squad himself. Near

777-441: The day come to shoot him yet ?" The novel addresses numerous philosophical themes, and through multiple narratives is a powerful argument both for a stoic integrity and humanism . Like other Solzhenitsyn works, the book illustrates the difficulty of maintaining dignity within a system designed to strip its inhabitants of it. Solzhenitsyn first wrote this book with 96 chapters. He felt he could never get this version published in

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814-612: The defeats experienced by the Red Army, on Stalin's order he led the purges of RKKA commanders accused of betrayal and cowardice. In 1943, from 19 April to 20 May 1943, Abakumov was one of Stalin's deputies, when he held the post of People's Commissar of Defence of the USSR. In April 1943, when military Counterintelligence Main Directorate of the People's Commissariat of Defence of the USSR (or GUKR NKO USSR) better known as SMERSH

851-454: The early stages of the anti-semitic campaign that Stalin ordered, as the second pro-Arab phase of Stalin's Middle East plans following the enormous military support he had given to help establish the state of Israel, involving the arrest and torture of numerous prominent Jews, including an Old Bolshevik, Solomon Lozovsky . When the eminent scientist, Lina Stern , was arrested and brought before Abakumov, he shouted at her, accusing her of being

888-513: The end of December 1938, Abakumov was moved from Moscow to Rostov-on-Don , where he became the head of the UNKVD of the Rostov Oblast (the head of the local NKVD Office). Abakumov returned to Moscow HQ on 12 February 1941 as a Captain of State Security (he acquired this rank 12.28.1938 bypassing the rank of senior lieutenant of State security) and, after the reorganization and creation of

925-422: The former leader of the Moscow communist party, Aleksandr Shcherbakov , but neither Abakumov nor his deputy, Mikhail Likhachev , believed his story, and Likhachev proposed that Ryumin be disciplined for mishandling the case. Ryumin retaliated by writing to Stalin alleging that Abakumov and Likhachev were covering up Shcherbakov's 'murder'. A Politburo commission backed Ryumin, and ruled that Abakumov had "prevented

962-518: The full version was published by Harper Perennial in October 2009, entitled In the First Circle rather than The First Circle . The Polish director Aleksander Ford made an English language film based on the novel in 1973, The First Circle . While it adhered closely to Solzhenitsyn's plot, the film was a critical and commercial failure. The 1992 TV movie based on the novel, The First Circle , won Canada's Gemini Award for Best Photography in

999-413: The leading Jewish officers who had worked with Abakumov were dismissed, and several were arrested. Ryumin planned to build a case in which Abakumov and Lev Shvartzman were at the head of a Zionist plot. Shwartzman 'confessed' not only to being part of a Zionist plot, but to having had homosexual relations with Abakumov, and his son. In March 1953 Stalin died, Beria regained control of the police, Ryumin

1036-535: The ministry was under the general supervision of Beria, Stalin hoped to curb the latter's power. Beria was said by Vsevolod Merkulov to be "scared to death of Abakumov" and tried to "have good relations" with him. In his capacity in the MGB he was in charge of the 1949 purge known as the " Leningrad Affair ," in which the Politburo members Nikolai Voznesensky and Aleksei Kuznetsov were executed. He also carried out

1073-574: The new NKGB , he became one of the deputies of Lavrentiy Beria , who was the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs (head of the NKVD). On 19 July 1941, he became the head of newly Directorate of Special Department's ( UOO ) of the NKVD which was responsible for Counterintelligence and internal security in the RKKA (Red Army). In this position, after the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union and

1110-403: The ordeal of his arrest, begins to find encouragement at the end of his first night in prison. The book also briefly depicts several Soviet leaders of the period, including Stalin himself, who is depicted as vain and vengeful, remembering with pleasure the torture of a rival, dreaming of one day becoming emperor of the world, or listening to his subordinate Viktor Abakumov and wondering: "...has

1147-403: The philosophers of Greece, and other virtuous pagans , live in a walled green garden. They are unable to enter Heaven, as they were born before Christ, but enjoy a small space of relative freedom in the heart of Hell. Innokentii Volodin, a diplomat, makes a telephone call to an old family doctor (Dobrumov) he feels obliged by conscience to make, even though he knows he could be arrested. His call

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1184-470: The sake of his careeristic, enemy goals, a bourgeois degenerate." Abakumov and five others were brought to a six-day trial in December 1954, accused of falsifying the 'Leningrad Affair' and other charges. Abakumov and three former deputy heads of the MGB Section for Investigating Specially Important Cases, Aleksandr Leonov, Vladimir Komarov and Mikhail Likhachev , were sentenced to death and shot after

1221-638: The trial ended on 19 December. Two others, Yakov. M. Broverman and I.A. Chernov were sentenced, respectively, to 25 years and 15 years in the GULAG. In 1970, it was reported that Yakov Broverman was enjoying a relatively privileged position as a trustee in a labour camp. He was released in 1976. Abakumov was deprived of all titles and awards on November 14, 1955. Abakumov is portrayed as a cunning courtier, not altogether trusted by Stalin, in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 's novel, The First Circle . In

1258-621: Was arrested, and the Doctors' plot was declared to have been a fabrication, but Abakumov and his associates remained in prison. On 2 April, Beria sent a note to the Praesidium of the Central Committee saying that Abakumov had been questioned about the suspicious death of the actor, Solomon Mikhoels , and had confessed that he was murdered on Stalin's orders. On 12 May, Beria sent another note, accusing Abakumov of having fabricated

1295-711: Was created, Abakumov was put in charge of it, in the rank of Commissar (2nd rank) of State Security, and held the title of vice-Commissar of Defense. During the war, he reported directly to Joseph Stalin , and appears to have been able to bypass Beria. For example, Beria disclaimed responsibility for the arrest in 1941 of the Red Army Marshal, Kirill Meretskov , for which he blamed Stalin and Abakumov. However, Nikita Khrushchev – who later denounced Stalin and had both Beria and Abakumov executed – did not believe him. He claimed that Stalin "thought he had found in Abakumov

1332-671: Was published in 1988, translated from the Russian by Max Hayward, Manya Harari and Michael Glenny. The complete 96 chapter version (with some later revisions) was published in Russian by YMCA Press in 1978, and has been published in Russia as part of Solzhenitsyn's complete works. Excerpts from the full 96 chapter version were published in English by The New Yorker and in The Solzhenitsyn Reader . An English translation of

1369-524: Was transferred to the Chief Directorate of Camps and Labour Colonies (GULAG), where he served until 1937, mainly as an operative officer in the 3rd Section of Security Department of GULAG of the NKVD. In April 1937, Abakumov was moved to the 4th Department (OO) of GUGB of the NKVD where he served until March 1938. After the next reorganization of NKVD structure in March 1938, he became assistant to

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