Add MS 78755

.Transcripts of 92 letters and postcards in Russian written by Vladimir Grigor’evich Zaitsev (1892-1964) between 13 September 1943 and 16 March 1948 from Soviet prison camp. Russian. Zaitsev and his family lived in the town of Konotop in the Ukrainian SSR. He was a book-keeper. He served as an artillery officer in the First World War and fought on the side of the Whites in the Volunteer Army during the Civil War. By bribing a Soviet official he obtained a false document saying that he had been a rural schoolmaster during the Civil War. He was sentenced by the NKVD of the Chernigov Region (Ukrainiam SSR) to 10 years in the ‘Vodostroi Camp’ in the town of Rybinsk (Russia, USSR) for ‘Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism’ (although he was not Ukrainian). Zaitsev was in camp from September 1937 until 1952, then in exile in the village of Kurinaia Oshma in the Krasnodar region until April 1956. While he was in camp he and some of his friends were re-sentenced for discussing an article in the official Soviet press about German shelling of London (‘for praising the technology of the enemy’). The letters are addressed to his wife, Evgeniia Mikhailovna Nedel’kina-Zaitseva (1902-1986), his son, Viktor Vladimirovich Zaitsev, his wife’s father, Mikhail Ivanovich Nedel’kin (1873-1946), his wife’s mother, Natal’ia Isaakovna Nedel’kina (1873-1945) and his wife’s sister, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Nedel’kina (1900-1950). While some letters were sent through official channels others were passed from hand to hand and delivered unofficially. The letters describe life in camp, convey news for passing to the families of others from Konotop who were in the camp (sometimes news of their deaths), and ask for and respond to family news. Included is a reproduction of a portrait sketch of Zaitsev done in the camp in 1938, f.83. Donated by Viktor Vladimirovich Zaitsev (see letter f. 84) autumn 2001. 84 ff.