To mark Ukrainian Lawyers’ Day, Barristers Law Firm invites everyone to attend the unveiling of a memorial plaque honoring Ivan Pavlovich Bessarabov—a legal advisor who was killed as a result of repression on February 4, 1938.

On the occasion of Ukrainian Lawyers’ Day, we invite you to the unveiling of a memorial plaque honoring Ivan Pavlovich Bessarabov—a legal advisor who was killed as a result of repression on February 4, 1938.

Ivan Pavlovich was born on June 28, 1882, in the village of Nizhne (Katerynoslav Governorate) into a priest’s family. He received his legal education at St. Petersburg University. In St. Petersburg, he was admitted to the bar. He served in the Ministry of Justice under Kerensky’s Provisional Government. He later became a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1919–1920, but was expelled from the party because of his work at the ministry.

In 1929, I.P. Bessarabov was sentenced under Article 54-6 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR to 10 years in a concentration camp. Prior to his arrest, he was a member of the Kyiv Bar Association. He served his sentence in the camps of the Belomor-Baltic Canal and later on the Solovki Islands. He was released early in September 1933 and returned to Kyiv.

In Kyiv, he lived at 9 Poltavska Street. He worked as a legal advisor for the Kyiv Installation and Technical Trust.

He was arrested again on December 16, 1937, and charged with espionage (Article 54-6 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR). Among the items seized during a search of his apartment, a map of Moscow, in particular, caught the investigators’ attention. During interrogation, the lawyer was accused of being “an agent of German intelligence who engaged in counterrevolutionary and espionage activities.” Bessarabov confessed that he had been personally recruited by the German consul in Kyiv, Werner Stefani, and, on his orders, had engaged in espionage activities from 1925 to 1928: he passed on information about the judicial system in the USSR, for which he received 2,000 rubles.

Accused of spying for Germany and counterrevolutionary activities, I.P. Bessarabov was sentenced to the highest penalty by a decision of the “duo” on January 24, 1938. He was executed on February 4, 1938.

In 1958, a protest filed by the lawyer’s wife, E.K. Bessarabova, demanding a review of the criminal case, was rejected by the NKVD authorities in 1960.
Ivan Pavlovich Bessarabov was exonerated by a decision of the Military Prosecutor’s Office of the Kyiv Military District on March 28, 1989.

One fact is particularly interesting: in 1938, during the interrogation of attorney S.B. Ratner by the NKVD, the latter—who was personally acquainted with Bessarabov—stated that Bessarabov had confessed to him that in 1917 he had received an arrest warrant for V.I. Lenin from the Minister of Justice (with whom he was friends).

The initiative to erect this memorial and honor his memory comes from the Ukrainian legal community, including Ilya Novikov, a partner at the “Barristers” law firm.

“Barristers” invites everyone to the unveiling of the memorial plaque to Ivan Pavlovich Bessarabov on December 19, 2018, at 3:00 p.m., at 9 Poltavska Street, Kyiv.