Two A4 sheets of handwritten text were handed over by a private individual to the Russian Federal Forensic Center (RFCS) of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation on March 14, 2018.
The main question of the person who contacted handwriting experts was to establish the authorship of the manuscripts. The applicant requested clarification whether the letters he had were indeed written by Joseph Stalin.
The first sheet contained text beginning with the words “Comrade Beria. The government has learned...“ The letter ended: “There is no place on our Earth for traitors and enemies of the people. Dog's death for dogs, this is the only way.“ I. Stalin, July 8, 1937"
The text of the second letter begins with the words „Comrade Beria, I have read your list...“ and ends with the words „Trial of the first category. Execution“. I. Stalin, September 15, 1937"
The texts are written in blue pencil.
The upper right corner of these documents is marked with “Top secret, destroy if dangerous“.
According to the applicant, these documents were extracted from the archive. They consist of correspondence between Stalin and the first secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Lavrenty Beria - “The so-called execution lists“, Elena Gavrilova, a leading state criminalist at the Russian Center for Forensic Examination, told TASS.
For the study, the applicant also provided the experts with comparative material, also taken from his personal archive.
The documents include letters from Stalin to the Minister of Cinematography of the USSR Ivan Bolshakov and his notes on the artistic silk carpet “Youth of the Leader“, made at the Tbilisi Silk Factory for his anniversary.
Experts are particularly interested in the children's drawings of Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, with comments from the leader himself. The drawings were made with colored and regular pencils on 14 sheets of sketchbook paper.
“Svetlana was 9-11 years old when she made these drawings. They are very interesting and she drew very well. And Joseph Vissarionovich was an attentive and strict father. He makes very thorough comments on them“, Elena Gavrilova noted.
The study of documents from the first half of the 20th century is usually entrusted to a commission of experts. In this case, the difficulty was caused by an unusual writing instrument today - that same blue pencil - and the changed rules of writing.
Iosif Dzhugashvili (Stalin's real surname) received his education first at the Gori Orthodox Theological School, and then at the Tiflis Theological Seminary.
“He learned to write on pre-revolutionary notebooks - they had completely different rules of writing. He had a very well-developed and refined handwriting for a time when many people were barely literate. Stalin's handwriting had elements of complication and simplification - that is, he wrote constantly“, noted the expert.
The expert commission, which examined the submitted documents, carried out a microscopic examination to determine whether they were handwritten.
All texts, signatures and samples were scanned, after which the experts compiled detailed working materials, which included images of the studied documents and samples used for comparison.
Then each member of the commission began his examination separately. After everyone came to their conclusions, the experts met to discuss the results.
„And we agreed that the studied texts and signatures were written by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin himself. These results were formalized in the form of an expert report“, said Elena Gavrilova.
The applicant himself stated that he wanted to donate these documents to the museum, but their future fate is unknown to experts.
Source: TASS