Archival documents of state archive of the administrative agencies of the Sverdlovsk Region as a source for the study of national operations of the NKVD in 1937–1938

Abstract

The article analyzes the archival and investigative files of the victims of mass political re pressions, convicted in 1937–1938 within the framework of the “National” operations of the NKVD. Despite the large number of published documents directly and indirectly related to the repressions of the Great Terror era, a large number of documents of the SAABSR remain out of the researchers’ field of vision, the study of which will help to eliminate gaps in the re search of the regional history of the Sverdlovsk Oblast in 1937–1938. On the basis of the researched materials, the author concludes that the archival-investigation files of the victims of political repressions have a great research potential and allow us to consider the NKVD national operations through the prism of their individual victims. The documents make it possible to see that the most common charge against those arrested was their involvement in carrying out counter-revolutionary crimes in favor of foreign countries. Most often, the ac cused were sentenced to capital punishment and later subjected to posthumous rehabilitation.State Archive of Administrative Bodies of the Sverdlovsk Region, National Operations, NKVD, repressions, rehabilitation