Alexander Dyukov (historian)

Aleksandr Reshideovich Dyukov (Russian: Алекса́ндр Решиде́ович Дю́ков), (born October 17, 1978) is a Russian author and blogger.[1] Dyukov is considered by critics to be a historical negationist downplaying Soviet repressions.[2] He is persona non grata in Latvia, Lithuania and other Schengen memberstates.

Aleksandr Reshideovich Dyukov
Алекса́ндр Решиде́ович Дю́ков
Born (1978-10-17) October 17, 1978
Moscow, USSR
OccupationHistorian, Author
NationalityRussian
GenreNon-fiction, history
SubjectRussian history of the 20th century

Career

Aleksandr Dyukov graduated from the Russian State University for the Humanities[3] in 2004. The topic of his dissertation was the Soviet partisan movement in 1941–1943. From 2004 to 2007, Dyukov worked for the ARMS-TASS Agency of Military and Technical Information. He contributed as issuing editor of the weekly Military and Technical Cooperation, later promoted to its editor-in-chief. He has published two books in REGNUM News Agency. However, REGNUM has since ceased cooperation with him following a conflict over Dyukov's statements in the Russian and Estonian media that his Historical Memory Foundation was primarily responsible for these publications.[4]

Dyukov has been featured as an expert historical commentator on Novosti's Russia Today (now RT) channel and on their web site.[5] Dyukov is a member of the working group set up by the Russian State Duma preparing a draft for a law on combating the rehabilitation of Nazism.[6]

Controversy

One of Dyukov's spheres of interest is the history of Soviet repression, mostly in the Baltic states[7] and Ukraine, and more recently, he has written a controversial paper downplaying the massacres at Kurapaty in Belarus. While Dyukov employs open archives such as from the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) and the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI), he also cites the archives of the FSB,[8] to which access by researchers is limited.[9] It is these FSB archives which Dyukov uses, for example, to claim in his recent book, The Genocide Myth, that Estonia's recollection of Soviet repressions including deportations is exaggerated. In regard to the June 1941 deportations, that took place before German invasion of June 22, 1941, Dyukov contends that deported Estonians were mostly German collaborators or were linked to them.[10]

In a 2007 interview with Russia's REGNUM News Agency, Dyukov claimed that some Estonian historians were repeating false claims by the Nazi propaganda and said: "Another example of unfair approach Estonian official historians is that in describing the deportation of 14 June 1941, they always mention that the deportees were transported in stock cars, with each car stuffed to 40-50 people, including women, children and the elderly. Therefore, they say, this deportation caused massive mortality. However, if we turn to the NKVD documents, a fair amount of which has already been published, one finds that, firstly, the transportation of deportees was carried out in passenger cars 'equipped for summer human traffic.' Secondly, each railroad car carried not 40-50, but about 30 deportees. Third, according to railroad documents, mass death was impossible. It can't be ruled out that during this deportation, not a single person died. Estonian historians, by the way, somehow forget that in every echelon of deportees there was an ambulance railroad car, which was accompanied by a doctor, paramedic and two nurses." [11] In reaction to Dyukov's book, the newspaper Eesti Ekspress in Estonia denounced him as a revisionist historian who paints a picture of Soviet political repressions as "little worse than a family picnic".[12]

Irina Pavlova, a historian of the Soviet system under Lenin and Stalin,[13][14] has commented that Dyukov promotes "a new prison guard's concept of Soviet history" based on his "blind faith in the documents provided by the FSB archives".[15]

A. Dykov's name has found mentioning in Estonia's Security Police (Kapo) 2008 yearbook, according to which Dykov, although lacking both post-secondary degree academic degree, has been granted exclusive access to FSB (former USSR's KGB) archive. The yearbook claimed that Mr Dykov's activities are approved by Russia's FSB.[16] As of March 2012, Dykov has been prevented from entering Latvia by the Latvian Government, who cited concerns that Dykov's activities are harming the Latvian state and its citizens. According to spokesperson of Latvian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Dykov has been blacklisted in Schengen memberstates visa database.[17] In August 2014, Dyukov was denied entry into Lithuania.[18]

In response to the Dyukov's critique on "The Soviet Story", the American photographer of Russian origin Sergey Melnikoff, expresses an opinion that Dyukov is associated with the Russian Federal Security Service.[19]

Published works

Books

References
  1. Александр Дюков (in Russian). Scepsis Magazine. Archived from the original on 25 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-17.
  2. Rathkolb, Oliver; Sooman, Imbi (2011). Geschichtspolitik im erweiterten Ostseeraum und ihre aktuellen Symptome – Historical Memory Culture in the Enlarged Baltic Sea Region and its Symptoms Today. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 144. ISBN 9783862348039.
  3. Дюков, Александр. "User profile". A. Dyukov's blog "Актуальная история" (in Russian). LiveJournal. Archived from the original on 28 December 2009. Retrieved 15 April 2009.
  4. "ИА REGNUM: Фонд "Историческая память" не участвовал в издании книги "Второстепенный враг. ОУН, УПА и решение "еврейского вопроса""" (in Russian). REGNUM News Agency. 30 October 2008. Retrieved 15 April 2009.
  5. For example, in a website news story: "Latvian documentary causes controversy". Russia Today. 9 April 2008. Retrieved 15 April 2009. As a commentator on the current events programme "Spotlight": "Estonia: Genocide that never was". Russia Today. 28 May 2008. Retrieved 15 April 2009.
  6. Argo Ideon (22 April 2009). "Loodav Vene natsiseadus ähvardab naabreid". Postimees (in Estonian). Archived from the original on 25 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-29. Lay summary.
  7. "Кузницы исторических мифов (Русский Проект. June 2007)". Archived from the original on 2008-09-26. Retrieved 2008-06-17.
  8. e.g., Миф о геноциде; "Милость к падшим", passim.
  9. Khlevniuk, Oleg (2003). "Review of Jansen and Petrov, Stalin's Loyal Executioner" (PDF). Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 4 (3): 763. Retrieved 19 June 2008. The FSB Archive (along with, for example, the Presidential Archive) can be categorized as a "partially open" Russian archive. Access to its documents has typically been irregular and arbitrary, often dependent on politics, personal ties, joint projects with other archives, etc.
  10. "If only Baltic nationalists had not cooperated with German special services and had not prepared for acts of sabotage, there would have been no need for the deportation. It was the activity of nationalists and of Nazi agents that provoked the deportations—and Estonian historians prefer to keep silent about it." Translated from Estonian rendering in Eesti Ekspress;
  11. Эксперт: Эстонские историки повторяют измышления нацистской пропаганды (in Russian). REGNUM. 26 March 2007. Archived from the original on 26 June 2008. Retrieved 22 July 2008.
  12. Reported in: "Deportations were like a family picnic - claim". The Baltic Times. 15 November 2007. Retrieved 15 April 2009.
  13. Tucker, Robert C. (1999). "Introduction". Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. p. xii. ISBN 0-7658-0483-2. OCLC 39189838. Retrieved 15 April 2009.
  14. Павлова, Ирина (15 August 2006). Миг свободы (in Russian). grani.ru. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
  15. Павлова, Ирина (17 March 2009). Кризисные направляющие (in Russian). grani.ru. Archived from the original on 15 April 2009. Retrieved 15 April 2009. И умудренные опытом специалисты, поддерживающие председателя недавно созданного фонда "Историческая память" Александра Дюкова. Этот молодой человек с завидным задором продвигает в жизнь новую вертухайскую концепцию советской истории, основанную на слепой вере в предоставленные ему документы из архива ФСБ.
  16. KAPO AASTARAAMAT 2008 Archived 2012-03-05 at the Wayback Machine
  17. Российских историков Дюкова и Симиндея внесли в "черный список"
  19. Melnikoff, S. Bitches of Russia: USSR and Russian Federation as a system of crimes (Суки России: СССР и Российская Федерация, как система преступлений). IPV News. April 2008
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