Margarita Nikolaevna Arsenyeva

Who is Margarita Nikolaevna Arsenyeva?

Margarita Nikolaevna Arsenyeva was the second wife of Vladimir Klavdievich Arsenyev. They had one child named Natalya.

Employed at the Far Eastern Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok, USSR.

The widow of the Russian explorer and ethnographer V.K. Arsenyev was convicted in a drumhead trial of espionage and sabotage, and summarily shot at Vladivostok.

"Closely related to the case of FENU orientalists is the case of FEFA employees. The psychosis in the country, inflamed by the search for internal enemies, expanded every month. DVFAN was no exception. Taking advantage of the opportunity, some scientists began to settle scores with their opponents. More and more often, denunciations have become arguments in disputes. Analysis of archival cases allows us to conclude that often the authors of fictitious crimes were colleagues of the convicted. In Case No. 17013 “On a counter-revolutionary spy-sabotage organization operating in the Far Eastern Branch of the Academy of Sciences,” in the summer of 1937 the following were arrested:

[...] M.N. Arsenyeva. Margarita Nikolaevna was arrested on July 2, 1937 (the arrest order under Article 58 - 6 - 11 of the Criminal Code by the detective of the 4th department of the NKVD POU, junior lieutenant Tcherezov, was signed on June 28, 1937). They were kept in prison for more than a year. All of them were charged with being “members of a right-wing Trotskyist organization and carrying out counter-revolutionary work.”

"For example, this is how Arsenyeva’s interrogations took place. Investigator of the NKVD Directorate for the Primorsky Region, who through torture obtained testimony from her immediate superior, geologist B.V. Vitgeft, close friends I.N. Savich (wife of V.I. Savich) and L.V. Gernet, who were in prison like her, and wrote down in the protocol:

“... they expose you as a member of the right-wing Trotskyist organization DVFAN. Stop hiding yourself. Tell the truth.” The next line of the interrogation protocol read: “Yes, I decided to tell the truth. I admit that until 1936 I was an active member of the Primorsky counter-revolutionary organization, headed by my husband, after his death, Professor Savich, and led a decisive struggle against Soviet power.” At what price was this recognition received by M.N. Arsenyeva?

Maybe the investigator used “bracelets,” self-clamping handcuffs that were specially purchased in the United States for the investigation, or maybe he had something else in his arsenal. "