The book about the victims of repressions of the 1930s

On October 30, Pridnestrovie remembers the victims of political repressions of the 1930s. A mourning rally was held at the Pridnestrovian State University on this memorable day. It was attended by the Chairman of the Supreme Council Committee on Education, the leader of the Heirs of Victory movement Igor Buga.

Representatives of PSU, teachers, students and invited guests observed a minute of silence for the victims of political repressions, sentenced to death and shot in the 1930s. Then the rally participants laid flowers at the memorial plaque placed on the facade of the building of PSU building No. 1. It immortalizes the names of the first five leaders of the Moldavian Pedagogical Institute, now PSU, shot in 1937-1938 on the bastion of the Tiraspol fortress.

A presentation of the book "Name on the Stone. The Last Bastion" was held in the conference hall of the university immediately after the laying of the plaque. It is dedicated to the victims of the repressions of the 1930s. The monograph is the third volume in a series of books dedicated to the innocently killed.

Mass executions almost 100 years ago took place on the territory of the St. Vladimir bastion of the Tiraspol fortress in Tiraspol. The excavations were carried out by members of the Heirs of Victory movement together with Igor Chetverikov, a senior researcher at the Archaeology Research Laboratory at PSU.

The exhumation work began in 2017 and was completed in the spring of 2023. The search lasted 6 years, the execution pits were not studied only for one year, when there was an unfavorable situation with the coronavirus. The territory of the bastion has been explored almost 100% thanks to the volunteers.

More than 4200 remains of the murdered were found and buried during all this time. Volunteers of the Heirs of Victory movement were able to restore the names, surnames, reasons for execution, and even find relatives of 90% of those exhumed. Among them there were directors of enterprises, military personnel, intellectuals, collective farm chairmen, and ordinary peasants. Most of them were arrested on fabricated denunciations.

The circulation of the book is 1 thousand copies. The monograph contains 370 pages, 130 of which contain the names of those shot on the territory of the Tiraspol Fortress. You can read the book in the libraries of your city.

The book was co-authored by Igor Chetverikov, a senior researcher at the Archaeology Research Laboratory of PSU, and Rodion Romanov, the head of the Heirs of Victory search team. The book uses photographs by the famous photographer Alexander Palamar, who passed away in June 2023. There are three names on the cover of the book, but, as one of the co-authors noted, the monograph was the result of long, painstaking work by almost fifty people.

Igor Chetverikov said that the book was rewritten three times so that the text would not reflect the emotions of the search participants; their feelings from what they saw are difficult to convey in words. The monograph presents dry facts without assessing political decisions, so that the reader can draw his own conclusions. Those present in the conference hall expressed gratitude to everyone who took part in the search work and in the creation of the book. Mikhail Tolbatsky, a first-year student of the Institute of Public Administration and Social and Humanitarian Sciences, addressed the participants of the event. He began participating in exhumation work at the age of 13, when he was a student at the Suvorov Military School. It was Mikhail who was trusted to go down into the execution pit, since due to his light weight he could not harm the remains of the murdered. During these 6 years of excavations on the territory of the Tiraspol Fortress, Mikhail, like all young volunteers of the movement, quickly grew up. Conducting search work was difficult morally and physically, it was noted at the event. The book "Name on the Stone. The Last Bastion" was published with the support of the President of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic Vadim Krasnoselsky and the Pridnestrovian State University.