Robyn Dixon10:14, May 10 2021
Courtesy of Denis Karagodin
Stepan Karagodin, centre, was a prosperous peasant farmer and village leader who resisted the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution.
As cold cases go, Denis Karagodin s mission was as bleak as the winter in his native Siberia. For nine years, he has been digging into Russian and Soviet archives to find out who killed his great-grandfather Stepan Karagodin in 1938, during the purges and iron-fist rule of Joseph Stalin. The Karagodin family had long believed that Stepan, a peasant farmer, died of tuberculosis in a Soviet prison camp in 1943, serving time for anti-Soviet activities. Karagodin uncovered the real story bit by bit: Stepan was shot by Stalin s secret police five years earlier on the false charge that he was spying for Japan. He was posthumously exonerated in the 1950s.
His Great-Grandfather Was Executed By Stalin s Secret Police Now He s Being Sued rferl.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from rferl.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.