Writer-kolymchanin Georgiy Demidov and Kharkiv

Abstract

The article describes the Kharkov period of the life of the repressed physicist and writer Georgiy Demidov on the basis of documentary materials. The Kharkov realities reflected in his works are shown. G. G. Demidov (1908–1987) lived in Kharkov from 1928 to 1938. Information about the writer regarding his stay in Kharkov and given in accessible sources is scarce and inaccurate. Acquaintance with archival materials about Georgy Demidov (the writer's archive transferred by his daughter to the Kharkiv State Scientific Library named after V. G. Korolenko; materials from the archive of the Kharkov Electrotechnical Institute, preserved in the State Archives of the Kharkov Region and the archives of the National Technical University “KhPI”) made it possible to clarify and expand information about his studies and work in Kharkov. In the years 1928–1931 Demidov studied at the Kharkov Institute of Public Education, the Kharkov Institute of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics (the universities into which Kharkov University was consistently transformed; faculties of natural sciences entered the FChMI). A talented student was appreciated by L. Landau. Demidov continued his education at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute and, having graduated from it in 1932, returned to Kharkov. He became a research fellow at the Kharkov Electrotechnical Institute (now – the electrotechnical faculty of NTU "KhPI"). From 1933 to 1936 studied in graduate school at the Department of Electric Power Transmission HETI. After defending his dissertation in 1936, he worked as a senior research fellow at a vacuum laboratory organized at the Department of Electric Power Transmission, and received the title of Associate Professor. In February 1938 he was arrested, received a term, and spent six months in the NKVD dungeons in Kharkov before being sent to Kolyma. The realities of Kharkov were reflected mainly in Demidov’s novel “Orange Lampshade”, as well as in the stories “Decembrist” and “Fonet Kvass”. The third autobiographical novel written in the draft manuscript is also written on Kharkov material.