Yu. B. Rumer and "the case of the physicists" (1938, April - 1940, May)

Based on the documents of the Criminal Archive File R-23711 of theoretical physicist, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics Yuri B. Rumer (1901–1985), the article opens a new page in the history of Great Terror, the period of mass repressions that took place in the USSR on the eve of the Second World War. The topicality of the study conducted with specific reference to the life story of the scientist, who fell victim to the Soviet repressive machine, is attributed to the incomplete investigations in this area. Despite restricted access to the source – the file has been declassified only in part – the author produces a reasonable historical hypothesis that the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) was planning a landmark case over the Soviet and foreign physicists, who were accused of spying for the benefit of fascist Germany and preparation of an international plot designed to undermine and destroy Soviet physics – the so-called «Physicists’ Case». The chronological frames of the Physicists’ Case, April 1938 to May 1940, are supported by documentary record. The materials accessible to us not only provide a fuller picture of the repressive policy of the Soviet state as a whole but give more evidence on the prosecution of scientists. At the personal level of the study, the author has explained the phenomenon of myth-making found in the life story, which manifested itself in the criminal case invented by the NKVD. The chronological frames of the article cover the period from the early 1930s to May 1940.