Summary
Ladislav Žerjavić: Betrayed ideals: from Lenin to Bare Island
Ladislav Žerjavić (1894 - 1960) is Kerim Selimovič Agabekov. Under his first name, this soldier of the First World War, a native of Croatian Zagorje, participated in the October Revolution, and later, upon returning to his homeland, organized illegal communist cells. Another name was given to him by the Comintern, and he lived under it for twenty years in Stalin's Soviet Union. After his return and work in Yugoslavia, the authorities imprisoned him on Goli otok (1951 - 1953) on suspicion of collaborating with the Russians. The book Betrayed ideals: from Lenin to Bare Island brings Žerjavić's memoirs: memories of work and everyday life as well as politics and survival in the USSR in the 1930s, and they are published after they were hidden in the archives of the Croatian State Security Service for almost seven decades, together with the file that the Service kept on him. The edition before us brings the reader closer to an interesting and difficult human story about a revolutionary with betrayed ideals, ideals that many carried within themselves during the first half of the 20th century. These memoirs are also a valuable original chapter in the history of the Croatian labor movement, with a view to the world horizon, which makes them a valuable read not only for historians, but also for lovers of the mentioned topic. The book contains summaries in Croatian, English, French and Russian.
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