Lev Kopelev

The Russian scientist, journalist, and writer Lev Kopelev, who would go on to become a renowned dissident, was born in Kiev in 1912, in a middle-class Jewish family. His father, Zinoviy (Zalman), was an agronomist. The home language was Yiddish. In 1917, during the Russian Revolution, the family went through hard times. At that time, power in Ukraine passed from hand to hand, resulting in a breakdown in law and order, and an upsurge of antisemitism. Because of the fear of pogroms, the children had to conceal their Jewishness.

In his childhood, Kopelev tried, but failed, to learn Hebrew. As he would recall: “The arbitrary power of memory <…> helped me even in childhood to forget instantly everything not to my liking”1. As an adolescent, he did not care much for Jewish history, philosophy, or religion, nor for Zionist ideology. Conversely, he acquired a passion for contemporary politics and communist ideas very early on. Lev closely followed the events of the Russian Civil War. By the age of fifteen, he had read the classics of Marxism, and come to regard Trotsky as his personal hero. He quickly became an idealistic communist and an active Party member. In 1926, the family moved to Kharkiv, which was then the capital of Soviet Ukraine. There, Kopelev began to write poems and articles in Russian and Ukrainian, and some of them were published in local newspapers. In March 1929, after Trotsky's deportation from the USSR and the increasing repressions against the supporters of Nikolai Bukharin, he was arrested for "consorting with the Bukharinite and Trotskyite opposition" (he had actually distributed leaflets in support of arrested "Trotskyites"), but was quickly paroled, because his father had vouched for him. In 1933, he began to study at the Philosophy Department of Kharkiv University, and in 1935 he transferred to the Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages (the Faculty of German). While still a student, he began to work at an evening school for illiterate people, teaching classes in Russian, Ukrainian, arithmetic, and natural science. Later, he edited the local newspaper and the radio news broadcasts at a locomotive factory. In 1932, as a press correspondent, Kopelev witnessed the grain requisitions by the OGPU (the Soviet security service) and the new wave of “dekulakization” – the destruction of the most productive class of the peasantry. These policies resulted in the great Ukrainian famine of 1932-1933 (the Holodomor), which Kopelev would describe in his book of memoirs, The Education of a True Believer. 

In 1935, Kopelev graduated from the German Faculty of the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Languages, and after 1938 he taught at the elite Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History, where he earned his PhD.

After the outbreak of the Soviet-German War in June 1941, Kopelev volunteered for the Red Army. With his knowledge of German, he served as a propaganda officer and interpreter. In 1943, he was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd class, for his work with German prisoners of war: He converted them to the Soviet side and trained them to carry out intelligence work behind German lines; he also devised training methods for such work. During the East Prussian Offensive in January 1945, he entered East Prussia with the Red Army, and was sharply critical of the atrocities against the German civilian population, especially the mass sexual violence against women. One of the officers wrote a denunciation against him. Kopelev was questioned by a Soviet general, who asked him: “You’re a Jew. How can you love the Germans? Don’t you know what they’ve been doing to the Jews?” Soon, Kopelev was arrested and sentenced to ten years in the Gulag for fostering "bourgeois humanism" and showing "compassion toward the enemy." He served his term in a “sharashka” (a secret research facility staffed by highly skilled prisoners, who had to work for the Soviet military) in the town of Marfino near Moscow. There, he met a fellow inmate named Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Kopelev was the real-life prototype of Rubin, a character in Solzhenitsyn's novel In the First Circle (“V kruge pervom”). Kopelev eventually had a falling-out with Solzhenitsyn, who accused him of undeserved criticism. In 1985, Kopelev wrote an open letter to his former friend, accusing him of antisemitism. According to this text, the various Jewish characters in Solzhenitsyn's works presented “the image of a satanic Jew, the main culprit of all troubles.”

Kopelev was released in 1954, and rehabilitated in 1956. Having retained his optimism and faith in the ideals of communism, he restored his Communist Party (CPSU) membership during the Khrushchev Thaw. In 1957–1968, he taught at the Moscow Institute of Polygraphy and the Institute of Art History. In 1968, Kopelev became an active participant in the Soviet dissident movement and the campaign for human rights. That same year, he was fired from his teaching post and expelled from the CPSU and the Union of Soviet Writers for signing protest letters against the persecution of dissidents; publicly coming out in support of the writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, who had been arrested in 1965; and actively denouncing the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. He also protested Solzhenitsyn's expulsion from the Union of Soviet Writers and wrote in defense of Pyotr Grigorenko, a dissident Soviet general who had been committed to a mental hospital for his opposition to the regime.

Kopelev's books were distributed in the USSR via samizdat and published in the West.

For his political activities and contacts with the West, he was officially denied the right to teach and be published in 1977.

As a scholar, Kopelev led a research project on the history of Russo-German cultural contacts at the University of Wuppertal. In 1980, while on a study trip to West Germany that had been approved by the Soviet authorities, he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship "for conduct incompatible with the high rank of a citizen of the USSR.” 

After 1981, Kopelev was a professor at the University of Wuppertal, and later at the University of Cologne. Kopelev was also awarded an honorary PhD by the latter university, and was the recipient of many international awards. In 1990, the Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev restored his Soviet citizenship.

For many years, Kopelev was married to Raisa Orlova, a Soviet specialist in American literature and a dissident, who immigrated to Germany with him. Her memoirs were published in the United States in 1984.

Lev Kopelev died in 1997 in Cologne, Germany, and was buried at the New Donskoye Cemetery in Moscow.

Related Resources

Lev Kopelev about his Jewish childhood in Kiev:

Only “Papa’s Grandma” was truly devout. In her apartment she kept the dishes for meats and milk products separate, made a special ritual of cleaning up. On Fridays she prayed over candles. When she visited us, she ate nothing. “Ev’ryting you have be treyf -- not kosher… Pork you even be eating. All your dishes be unclean, all mixed together.” She would agree to drink tea only with preserves she had previously given us as a gift. She also considered the sugar unclean, for some reason. But Grandpa, when he came on a visit without her, contentedly ate ham and any other victual on any plate. Grandma’s God was petty and ridiculously demanding. Why was it a sin to ladle bouillon with a “milk” spoon? “It be sin -- tat’s all. ’Cause God commanded and prophets too. But you still be baby piggies. Not to qvestion, but to listen. Else God punish you, blind you, tvist your arms and legs up vit palsy.” “But how come Mama and Papa keep eating it, and God doesn’t punish them?” (I didn’t want to tattle on Grandpa.) “Apikoyres tey be, sinners -- God forgive tern and have mercy on tern.” She mumbled something angrily in Yiddish. “I pray for tem, but don’t you make vit qvestions like dummy. Too young to qvestion ’bout daddy’s sins. Tongue you have very long, ought be cut out.” Mama often swore to almighty God, threatened me: “If you lie, God will punish you. If you don’t obey your parents, God will punish you.” I don’t recall that she ever really prayed in earnest. But in the autumn before Yom Kippur, a chicken was bought and Mama spun it over my brother’s head and mine, mumbling some sort of incantation. “That’s so all sins and all diseases will leave you.” Then this same sinful and diseased chicken was safely consumed. When I asked if we weren’t eating all our sins and diseases back again, Mama shouted angrily: “You don’t understand anything; when you grow up you’ll understand.” But later she retold my question to relatives and acquaintances with delight: “Well, tell me now, isn’t he an amazingly bright boy?” On Yom Kippur Mama fasted and reproached Father for eating. “You think your mamasha will pray everything away. There ought to be something sacred in life.” However, Mama was not so much religious as superstitious. She wouldn’t begin anything on a Monday. She was afraid of the evil eye. When she lost something, she would tie a handkerchief around a table leg before looking for it. The surest way to get anything out of her was to conjure her: “I swear by my health . . . do such and such, let me do such and such.” When Mama’s parents died, one after the other in ’21, Mama, her sisters and her brothers sat for several days in a row on the floor of their apartment with their shoes and stockings off. It was explained to me that this was the Jewish custom of mourning. Not a solemn ceremony, but something strangely resembling children’s games. Only everyone was sad. Concerning “Mama’s Grandma,” I learned that she also didn’t eat non-kosher food, kept separate dishes and did nothing on the Sabbath; Mama’s Grandpa, though, would readily feast on forbidden food when visiting. Once I saw him praying. Pale, with a thin gray beard, he covered himself with a white silk shawl with black edges, wrapped his arm with straps, fastened a little black box to his forehead and put on a little black silk cap. On the Jewish holidays we most often visited my father’s parents. I don’t recall “Father’s Grandfather” praying. He was squat, wide shouldered, red-faced, with a short gray beard. Sometimes he would explain the meaning of a holiday to me. And he loved to “discuss politics.” His speeches were long-winded and boring. I would pretend to listen and would wait impatiently for the moment when I would receive my Hanukkah gift or we would finally start eating the poppy seed pies which Grandma baked for Purim. Passover was considered the most important holiday. All the children and grandchildren were supposed to come to the seder—the paschal supper. The men sat at the table in hats—at home this was considered impolite. In church, kirk and kosciôl, you were supposed to take off your hat. It was an understandable sign of politeness to God. “Papa’s Grandma” was a great cook. Even my demonstratively critical mama was forced to admit it. Her stuffed fish, vorschmacks, vinaigrette salad, liver pasties with goose cracklings, borscht and soup with dumplings were extraordinarily tasty. And her radish cooked in honey was magnificent—sweet and sour. The Passover table was especially abundant. In the midst of the plenty stood a beautiful chalice of wine for the prophet Elijah, which they filled from their own goblets. The front door was left open so that the prophet could enter. Everything would have been fine, if only bread hadn’t been forbidden. During the days of Passover at Grandma’s place, only the tasteless unleavened matzo was served. Once I decided on a ruse and brought a piece of French loaf from home in my pocket. At the table I tried to pinch off pieces without being noticed. But I was discovered: Grandma gave me a few angry, vicious clouts and ordered me to throw the loaf outside, wash my hands and rinse out my mouth. She went on grumbling for some time, mixing Ukrainian and Yiddish curses, complaining that on such a holiday she had to punish her sinful grandson. Misha, Father’s younger brother, whom Mama never called anything other than “Mishka the Bandit,” and the husband of Father’s younger sister, also named Misha, a procurator and party member, would wink at each other during the seder, drop ironic comments so that Grandma couldn’t hear and pour wine in the glass of lemonade set before me. (This “Mishka the Bandit” had been in both the White and the Red armies, commanded a fort in Sevastopol, stolen the daughter of a former tsarist officer, deserted, been a criminal, later given himself up and gotten a job somewhere. Granny converted his wife to the Jewish faith and even took her regularly to the synagogue. Eventually he “came to his senses,” studied and became an engineer specializing in farm equipment. He died in 1941, during the first months of the war.) Several times I repeated the traditional questions which the youngest at the table asks, having learned in advance a text written in Russian letters: “Manishtana halaila haze" -- “What makes this night different [from all other nights of the year]?” Then the grandchildren would search for a piece of matzo hidden by Grandpa and demand that he buy it back.

From: Lev Kopelev, The Education of a True Believer. New York, 1978. pp. 42-45.

Lev Kopelev on the choice of ethnic identity:

 The question of national identity first rose before me when I received my first passport as a twenty-year-old member of the Komsomol. Since then I have set myself this question on a number of occasions. And every time I have clearly felt and realized that I should answer “Jew.” Because most people around me consider me a Jew. If I were to call myself a Russian, some would regard it as rootless importunity, others as pusillanimous defection, and both the one and the other as a self-serving attempt to conform to the dominant nation. On a questionnaire, under “Native Language,” I would write “Russian” and “Ukrainian,” but under “Nationality”: “Jew.” I didn’t see any contradiction in these answers. I didn’t see anything unnatural in these answers. After the war, the question of national identity began to acquire an ever greater significance and often a vicious intensity. Today this question and all the problems associated with it are decided by a certain “triangle of forces.” First, the questionnaire-passport rationale of administrative genealogy. Second, the irrational forces of ancient herd instinct and aversion to everything foreign, everything belonging to another ethnic group. And third, the most recent racist myths laden with scientific-looking considerations about the ethnic genetic pool, etc. Ever since the new emigration began and started to spread, the question of the nationality of Soviet citizens with Jewish passports, or even those with Jewish relatives, has been decided not by the people themselves, but by others. On the one hand, the “Russists” (Jews with roots in the Russian soil); on the other, the Zionists. And on all sides, the petty officials of personnel departments and the legion of philistines who find the nearest refuge for their resentments, dissatisfactions and inferiority complexes in a racist, chauvinistic mythology. I have never heard the voice of my blood speak within me. But I have heard the voice of my memory. And in my heart’s memory live my grandfather, grandmother and aunt, who were executed by a firing squad in Kiev, in Babi Yar, because they were Jews. In my heart’s memory live my mother, father and relatives, who considered themselves Jews to their dying breath. To renounce them would mean to desecrate their graves. Yulian Tuwim wrote about blood brotherhood: it’s not the blood “in your veins, but out of your veins.” Therefore, on all questionnaires, to all state officials and simply to anyone who wants to know, I have answered, still answer and will continue to answer: “Jew.”

From: Lev Kopelev, The Education of a True Believer. New York, 1978. pp. 102–103.

Lev Kopelev on his experiences in the Red Army in 1945:  

The offensive began. The German front on the left bank of the Narev was ripped open within hours. We in the Political Department improvised a new role for the men enrolled in our anti-Fascist school. ‘Commissars of panic” we dubbed them. They were to pretend to be German soldiers who had lost contact with their units or who were trying to break out of encirclement. Their job was to spread rumors about the Soviet advance, to yell, ‘The Russians have broken through!’ “Tanks behind us!” and the like at opportune moments, and generally to spread confusion in the German ranks. I spent several days with the advancing armor, selecting fresh candidates for this operation from among the German prisoners. The first prerequisite was that they still be unshorn: our army made a practice of shaving their heads as soon as they were captured. I was accompanied on this mission by Alexander Belyaev, the commanding officer at the school. A government functionary who had spent most of the war at the rear, he did not know a word of German and left all the training and educational work to Ivan Rozhansky and me, relieving us of the administrative chores, for which he seemed to have a bent. We gathered a sizable batch of prisoners, picking up three wounded Germans along the way. I thought we’d turn them over to some field hospital on the way back; but all the hospitals we passed were full, and I had to take them to our own base. Belyaev, half-asleep when we reached the school after driving all night, grumbled about something or other. I had just spent a week almost without sleep in the thick of battle, and his complaining voice struck a raw nerve. That was the first time we had ever had words, so I didn’t give it any importance. The very same day, after I left the village, Belyaev had the three wounded prisoners executed. I learned of it only later …

General Okorokov received me coolly.

“Too kind, — he turned to me again, — that’s what’s the matter with you. Still, you’re a Jew. How can you love the Germans? Don’t you know what they’ve been doing to the Jews?’ “What is “love”? I hate the Fascists not as a Jew—I haven’t had much occasion to be reminded of that— but as a Soviet Man, a Kievite, a Muscovite, and, above all, as a Communist. And that means my hate cannot find expression in rape or pillage.” ‘There goes our Hamlet again. Who’s raping them? They’re begging for it, and you pity them!’ ‘Not them so much as us—our morality, our discipline, our glory!’ ‘All right, enough of that. The Party and the high command will somehow take care of morality and discipline without Major Kopelev’s help. Now you listen to me. We won’t make an issue of this. If we did, they’d throw you out of the Party. This Hamlet complex of yours comes from lack of partyness. You have a head on your shoulders, but your Party backbone is weak. To pity the enemy is to betray your own. The citation I was going to draw up—I’ll put that off. For the time being. Comrade Zabashtansky is not to assign you to German soil. You speak Polish, don’t you, and we’ve still got some fighting to do in Poland. Let the Poles show you how to love the Germans.’

From: Lev Kopelev, To Be Preserved Forever. Philadelphia-New York, 1977, pp. 35–65.

• 1. Lev Kopelev, The Education of a True Believer. New York, 1978. p. 69.