Executed in Stalin’s Great Terror in Georgia
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Between 1937 and 1938, Soviet leader Josef Stalin carried out his most severe purge in Georgia.
Known as the Great Terror, thousands of political rivals, intellectuals and ordinary citizens were executed without trial and buried in mass graves.
Dan Hardoon speaks to Levan Pesvianidze in Tbilisi, Georgia, whose grandfather Viktor and uncle Giorgi were both executed.
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.
Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.
(Photo: Viktor Pesvianidze with colleagues in Georgia in the 1930s. Credit: Levan Pesvianidze)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before you listen to this BBC podcast I'd like to quickly tell you about some others. |
| 0:05.0 | My name's Andy Martin and I'm the editor of a team of podcast producers at the BBC in Northern Ireland. |
| 0:11.0 | It's a job I really love because we get to tell the stories that really matter |
| 0:15.1 | to people here, but which also resonate and apply to listeners around the world. |
| 0:19.6 | And because the team is such a diverse range of skills and strengths. We have trained journalists, people who love digging through archives, we've got drama and even comedy experts. We really can do those stories justice. |
| 0:31.3 | So if you like this podcast, head to BBC Sounds where you'll find |
| 0:34.9 | plenty more fascinating stories from all around the UK. You're listening to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service with me Dan Hardoon. |
| 0:49.0 | I'm bringing you a story from Georgia in the 1930s when the country was under Joseph Stalin's |
| 0:55.7 | control as part of the Soviet Union. So I've come to a high-rise apartment block in |
| 1:02.3 | Georgia's capital Tbilisi and I've come to a high-rise apartment block in Georgia's capital Tablise, and I'm here to speak to Levin Pestvianice about his family's history. |
| 1:08.0 | His grandfather, Victor, and Uncle Georgi, were both executed without trial during Stalin's great terror of 1937 to |
| 1:16.0 | 1938, which targeted tens of thousands of Georgians. |
| 1:21.2 | But Leavans only recently been finding out more about what happened to them. |
| 1:25.0 | As you can see, there is three signatures and it says to execute by firing squat. |
| 1:32.0 | There was no appeal, there was nothing like that. He was just executed. |
| 1:39.0 | Hello. Hi, nice to meet you. |
| 1:42.0 | We're looking now at the only surviving photo of your |
| 1:46.2 | grandfather. He's in his late 30s he looks very well dressed wearing a smart |
| 1:51.7 | jacket, a flat cap and a very prominent moustache. |
| 1:56.5 | How do you feel when you look at that photo? |
| 2:00.6 | I feel pride because he never stopped fighting. |
| 2:04.0 | And of course the anger that I feel about this part of our family history |
... |
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