Pyotr Ionavich Yakir was a Soviet historian who survived a childhood in the Gulag, and became well known as a critic of Stalinism, though ultimately he denounced dissident activity in the Soviet Union.
12 Facts About Pyotr Yakir
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Pyotr Yakir was born in Kiev, the son of the renowned Red Army commander, Iona Yakir, and Sarah Yakir, nee Ortenberg.
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Pyotr Yakir's mother was arrested, and his brother was sent to a children's home.
4.
Pyotr Yakir suffered from frostbite when held in a punishment cell for refusing to work.
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Pyotr Yakir was released from the camps in 1953, after the death of Joseph Stalin, but remained in exile in Krasnoyarsk, where he worked in the timber industry.
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In 1961, after Khrushchev had referred to Iona Yakir's execution during a speech to the 22nd party congress, Pyotr became one of 'Khrushchev's zeks'.
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Pyotr Yakir met the Soviet leader, and was allocated a good apartment in Moscow, and a post in the History Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
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Pyotr Yakir was involved in producing the Samizdat publication A Chronicle of Current Events, which was the main contemporary source of information about political repression in the USSR, and he signed protests against the arrests of dissidents such as Andrei Amalrik, Vladimir Bukovsky and many more.
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Pyotr Yakir frequently passed information to foreign correspondents based in Moscow.
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Pyotr Yakir was arrested for the last time on 21 June 1972.
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Pyotr Yakir was pardoned in September 1974, and lived in his daughter's flat for the rest of his life, but had to leave the room, or the flat, whenever she met fellow dissidents.
12.
Pyotr Yakir started drinking heavily, and died of a ruptured artery after an accident while he was out walking.