Conscience on trial
Subtitle: the fate of fourteen pacifists in Stalin's Ukraine, 1952-1953
By: Hiroaki Kuromiya
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Toronto; Buffalo
Language: eng
Number of pages: 212
ISBN-13: 9781442644618
Subjects: Politics and government; Procès (Crimes et délits politiques); Trials (Political crimes and offenses); Pacifists; Histoire; Adventistes; Pacifistes; Persécutions; Politique et gouvernement; Vie religieuse; Adventists; History
Description: "Conscience on Trial reveals the startling story, kept secret for sixty years, of ordinary citizens caught up in the elaborate machinery of political terror in Stalinist Ukraine. In 1952, fourteen poor, barely literate Seventh-Day Adventists living on the margins of Soviet society were clandestinely tried for allegedly advocating pacifism and adhering to the Saturday Sabbath. The only written records of this trial were sealed in the KGB archives in Kiev, and this harrowing episode has until now been unknown even within the Ukraine. Hiroaki Kuromiya has carefully analyzed these newly discovered documents, and in doing so, reveals a fascinating picture of private life and religious belief under the atheist Stalinist regime. Kuromiya convincingly elucidates the mechanism of the Soviet secret police and explores the minds of non-conformist believers--precursors to the revival of dissidence after Stalin's death in 1953"--Publisher's website.
Notes: Trial records translated from the Russian and the Ukrainian.

Includes bibliographical references and index.