Pavel Trofimovich Morozov (November 14, 1918 - September 3, 1932), better known as Pavlik or Pavka, was a Soviet youth glorified by the Soviet Union as a martyr.
Born to poor peasants in Gerasimovka , a small village near Yekaterinburg, Morozov was a dedicated communist who led the Young Pioneers at his school, and a supporter of Stalin's collectivization of farms.
In 1932, at age 13, Morozov reported his father to the NKVD. Supposedly, Morozov's father had been forging documents, selling them to rich peasants. The elder Morozov was sentenced to ten years in a labor camp, and although his fate thereafter is unknown, it is thought that he did not long survive.
However, Pavlik's family did not take kindly to his activities: on September 3 of that year, his uncle, grandfather, grandmother and a cousin murdered him, along with his younger brother. They were rounded up by the NKVD and convicted at a show trial.
Thousands of telegrams from all over the Soviet Union urged the judge to show no mercy for Pavlik's killers.
The Soviet government declared Pavlik Morozov a glorious martyr who had been murdered by reactionaries. Statues of him were built, and numerous schools and youth groups were named in his honour. An opera and numerous songs were written about him.
Gerasimovka's school, which Morozov attended, became a shrine and children from all over the Soviet Union came on school excursions to visit it.
Fabricated?
It has been suggested since the collapse of the Soviet Union that Pavlik Morozov may not have been as perfect as it was supposed.
The one surviving photograph of him shows a malnourished child, who bears almost no resemblance to the statues and pictures in children's books.
It has also been said that he was nearly illiterate and was coerced to inform on his father by his mother, after Pavlik's father deserted the family.
There is, however, no doubt that Pavlik was a real person.
According to Dmitry Prokupyanko, an 86-year-old war veteran, who went to school with Pavlik, "he was a hero, very brave, very clever. He was perfect. We used to pick mushrooms and catch fish together. Now everybody just wants to spit on his memory."
Yuri Druzhnikov performed an investigation, met with surviving eyewitnesses, and wrote a documentary book about Pavlik in mid-1980s. It was printed by samizdat and translated into several languages. (Юрий Дружников, Доносчик 001, или Вознесение Павлика Морозова)
Reference
- Yuri Druzhnikov , Informer 001: The Myth of Pavlik Morozov, Transaction Publishers, 1996.
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