Devotional images of a Catholic monk, Ukraine
Item
Title
Devotional images of a Catholic monk, Ukraine
Description
These photographs are of the Catholic monk N. F. Gumenski, who was arrested by the Soviet secret police in 1935. The first image was cropped from a photo icon and in this photograph Gumenski wears a large pectoral cross on his chest and holds his right palm open. The second image is a photo which depicts Gumenski in a white clerical habit with a prayer rope in his left hand and with his right hand holding a cross.
These photographs were attached to a Soviet secret police report from 9 November 1935. The report is signed by Nikolai Sharov, the chief of NKVD department of Kiev oblast, and informs the head of Soviet Ukraine’s secret police, Balitsky, about the arrest of a number of religious leaders. The Catholic monk N. F. Guminski was among the arrested and the leader of the religious movement presented in the report as Apocalypsists (Apokalipsisty in Russian). According to the police report, the Apocalypsists preached the impending collapse of the Soviet regime, which they imagined as “the kingdom of the Apocalyptic Beast”. Sharov attached the two photographs to his report in order to prove to his superior the distinctiveness of this religious movement and the special status of Gumenski.
The police report to which the photo icons are attached is enclosed in the file 16-1-0032 from State Archive Branch of the Security Services of Ukraine. The file does not contain other images or confiscated texts.
For related entries see:
These photographs were attached to a Soviet secret police report from 9 November 1935. The report is signed by Nikolai Sharov, the chief of NKVD department of Kiev oblast, and informs the head of Soviet Ukraine’s secret police, Balitsky, about the arrest of a number of religious leaders. The Catholic monk N. F. Guminski was among the arrested and the leader of the religious movement presented in the report as Apocalypsists (Apokalipsisty in Russian). According to the police report, the Apocalypsists preached the impending collapse of the Soviet regime, which they imagined as “the kingdom of the Apocalyptic Beast”. Sharov attached the two photographs to his report in order to prove to his superior the distinctiveness of this religious movement and the special status of Gumenski.
The police report to which the photo icons are attached is enclosed in the file 16-1-0032 from State Archive Branch of the Security Services of Ukraine. The file does not contain other images or confiscated texts.
For related entries see:
Subject
Material culture--Religious aspects
Communism--Soviet Union--History--Sources
Evidence photographs
Trials (Political crimes and offences)--Soviet Union
Creator
Dumitru Lisnic
Source
State Archive Branch of Security Services of Ukraine (Галузевий державний архів Служби безпеки України ГДА СБУ), 16-1-0032.
Publisher
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme No . 677355
Date
1935
Rights
State Archive Branch of Security Services of Ukraine
Format
image/jpeg
Language
RU
Type
image
Identifier
State Archive Branch of Security Services of Ukraine (Галузевий державний архів Служби безпеки України ГДА СБУ), 16-1-0032.
Bibliographic Citation
Dumitru Lisnic, "Devotional images of a Catholic monk, Ukraine",
Date Created
March 2021
