С.Д. Димитров – герой не нашего времени

Abstract

Although the fate of S. D. Dimitrov (1904–1938) began to attract the researchers’ attention only recently, it is very demonstrative for the history of our country in the 1920–30s. S. D. Dimitrov was born in Bulgaria into a working-class family; he took part in the revolutionary movement in his early ages, and joined the Communist Party. After taking part in the armed uprising of 1923, he had to leave Bulgaria, and emigrated to the USSR in 1925. He studied at the Communist University and then at the Institute of Red Professors, where he specialized in the history of the revolutionary movement in Bulgaria and the history of the Communist International. After completing his studies, on November 1, 1934, he was admitted to the Institute for the History of Feudal Society at the State Academy for the History of Material Culture (SAHMC). There began his rapid promotion through the ranks. S. D. Dimttrov became a deputy director of the Institute, and the acting director in November 1936. Despite the obvious lack of special knowledge, he was actively involved in the archaeological study of the Crimea, headed the Crimean Commission of the SAHMC and the Eski-Kermen expedition (1936). He was entrusted with the preparation of the Crimean plenum of the SAHMC, which was supposed to unite all the scholarly efforts of the Soviet Union interested in studying the history and culture of the Crimea. This plenum did not take place, and the SAHMC ceased to exist in 1937. S. D. Dimitrov was arrested soon and charged with belonging to an anti-Soviet Trotskyist organization that existed in Leningrad among Bulgarian political emigrants. He was sentenced to death and shot on September 23, 1938; exonerated on April 4, 1956.