From Enemy to Hero: Andrei Krems and the Legacy of Stalinist Repression in Russia's Far North, 1964–82.

This article explores the two lives of the Soviet Union's "most famous unknown geologist," Andrei Iakovlevich Krems, the head of Glavneft' who was arrested on September 30, 1938, and sentenced to eight years in Ukhtizhemlag in the Russian Far North. Two years later he was released early and put in charge of the oil mining camp's Geological Survey Department. Despite his tarnished biography, Krems became somewhat of a local icon featured in numerous newspaper articles, scientific journals, books, and even newsreel films that celebrated his successes in the development of the Timano‐Pechora Basin between 1940 and 1973. On the basis of Krems's personal archive, which remains unexplored, part one of this article reconstructs Krems's biography and explores his transition to life after release in Ukhta where he remained for the rest of his life. Part two explores the narratives about Krems, Ukhta's origins, and the discussions they sparked in the local press and Krems's private correspondence with the former boss of Ukhtizhemlag. The public narratives about Krems and the development of Komi's oil and gas industry of the mid‐1960s and 1970s illustrate the complex approaches the Brezhnev regime took in its attempt to deal with the legacy of Stalinist repression in the places where it transpired. I argue that the Communist Party under Brezhnev pursued a politics of memory that was surprisingly forthcoming regarding Stalinist repression in its celebration of Soviet achievements in the Russian Far North, which allowed for the construction of veiled monuments to the victims of Stalinist repression, such as the monument to the "Pioneers of the North" and the Andrei Krems Apartment‐Museum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]