Olga Shatunovskaya

Olga Grigoryevna Shatunovskaya (Russian: Ольга Григорьевна Шатуновская; 1 March 1901, Baku – 23 November 1990, Moscow) was a prominent Old Bolshevik who played an important role in the implementation of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union.[1][2] A survivor of the Gulag, she was a member of Shvernik Commission created by Nikita Khrushchev to investigate the crimes of Joseph Stalin.[3]

Shatunovskaya became a member of the Communist Party when she was 16. A close associate of Anastas Mikoyan, she worked in the party's Baku organization since 1918 under the leadership of Stepan Shaumian.[4] During the 1930-1950s, she was a political prisoner of the Stalinist regime. After the death of Stalin, she became a member of the Soviet Party Control Committee, and head of a special commission on rehabilitations during the Khrushchev Thaw.[4] She was the chief-investigator of the Kirov murder.[3] Shatunovskaya was honored with the highest Soviet medals.

Her memoirs, recorded by her children and grandchildren, were turned into a book by philosopher and essayist Grigory Pomerants under the title Sledstvie vedet katorzhanka [Investigation led by convict], published in 2004.

References
  1. Cohen, Stephen F. (2011). The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag After Stalin. London: I. B. Tauris & Company. pp. 89–91. ISBN 9781848858480.
  2. Shakarian, Pietro A. (12 November 2021). "Yerevan 1954: Anastas Mikoyan and Nationality Reform in the Thaw, 1954–1964". Peripheral Histories. Retrieved 20 December 2021.
  3. Pomerants, Grigory (1 June 2009). "Сталин – заказчик убийства Кирова" [Stalin Ordered the Murder of Kirov]. Novaya Gazeta (in Russian). Retrieved 20 December 2021.
  4. Smith, Kathleen E. (2017). Moscow 1956: The Silenced Spring. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 96–98. ISBN 9780674972001.

Further reading
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