View source for Lev Kopelev

{{Short description|Soviet author and dissident}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Lev Kopelev
| native_name        = {{nobold|Лев Копелев}}
| native_name_lang   = ru
| image              = Lew Kopelew.jpg
| caption            = Kopelev in the 1980s
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1912|4|9|df=y}}
| birth_place        = [[Kyiv]], [[Russian Empire]] (modern [[Ukraine]])
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1997|6|18|1912|4|9|df=y}}
| death_place        = [[Cologne]], Germany
| other_names        = 
| known_for          = 
| movement           = [[dissident movement in the Soviet Union]]
| alma_mater         = [[National University of Kharkiv]], [[Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages]]
| occupation         = author
| citizenship        = [[Soviet Union]]<br/>Germany<ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE0D8153EF933A15755C0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all New York Times Obituary 20 June 1997]</ref>
| spouse             = [[Raisa Orlova]]
}}

'''Lev Zalmanovich (Zinovyevich) Kopelev''' ({{langx|ru|Лев Залма́нович (Зино́вьевич) Ко́пелев}}, [[German language|German]]: Lew Sinowjewitsch Kopelew, 9 April 1912 – 18 June 1997) was a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] author and dissident.

== Early life ==
Kopelev was born in [[Kyiv]], then [[Russian Empire]], to a middle-class Jewish family. In 1926, his family moved to [[Kharkiv]]. While a student at Kharkiv State University's philosophy faculty, Kopelev began writing in Russian and [[Ukrainian language]]s; some of his articles were published in the ''[[Komsomolskaya Pravda]]'' newspaper.

An idealist [[communist]] and active party member, he was first arrested in March 1929 for "consorting with the [[Nikolai Bukharin|Bukharin]]ist and [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]]ist [[Opposition (politics)|opposition]]," and spent ten days in prison.

==Career==
Later, he worked as an editor of radio news broadcasts at a locomotive factory. In 1932, as a correspondent, Kopelev witnessed the [[NKVD]]'s forced grain requisitioning and the [[dekulakization]]. Later, he described the [[Holodomor]] in his memoir ''The Education of a True Believer''. [[Robert Conquest]]'s ''[[The Harvest of Sorrow]]'' later quoted him directly (see also [[Collectivisation in the USSR]]).

He graduated from the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Languages in 1935 in the German language faculty, and, after 1938, he taught at the {{interlanguage link|Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History|hy|Մոսկվայի փիլիսոփայության, գրականության և պատմության ինստիտուտ|pl|Moskiewski Instytut Filozofii, Literatury i Historii|ru|Московский институт философии, литературы и истории|uk|Московський інститут філософії, літератури та історії}} where he earned a PhD.

When the [[German–Soviet War]] broke out in June 1941, he volunteered for the [[Red Army]] and used his knowledge of German to serve as a propaganda officer and an interpreter. He was tasked with subverting and indoctrinating Germans, and on one occasion persuaded the German garrison of [[Graudenz]] (Grudziądz) to mutiny.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Dobson |last2=Miller |last3=Payne|first1=Christopher |first2=John |first3=Ronald|title=The Cruellest Night|publisher=Arrow Books|year=1980|location=London|pages=17}}</ref> When he entered [[East Prussia]] with the Red Army throughout the [[East Prussian Offensive]], he sharply criticized the [[Rape during the occupation of Germany|atrocities against the German civilian population]] and was arrested in 1945 and sentenced to a ten-year term in the [[Gulag]] for fostering "[[bourgeois]] humanism" and for "compassion towards the enemy". In the [[sharashka]] Marfino he met [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]]. Kopelev became a prototype for Rubin from ''[[The First Circle]]''.

He was released in 1954 and in 1956 was rehabilitated. Still an optimist and believer in the ideals of communism, during the [[Khrushchev Thaw]] he restored his [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] (CPSU) membership. From 1957 to 1969 he taught in the Moscow Institute of Polygraphy and the Institute of History of Arts. It was Kopelev who approached [[Aleksandr Tvardovsky]], editor of the top Soviet literary journal, the ''[[Novy Mir]]'' (New World) to urge publication of Solzhenitsyn's ''[[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]''.

From 1968 onward Kopelev actively participated in the human rights and dissident movement. In 1968 he was fired from his job and expelled from the CPSU and the Writers' Union for signing protest letters against the persecution of dissidents, publicly supporting [[Andrei Sinyavsky]] and [[Yuli Daniel]] and actively denouncing the [[Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia]]. He also protested Solzhenitsyn's expulsion from the Writers' Union and wrote in defense of dissenting General [[Pyotr Grigorenko]], [[Psychiatric imprisonment|imprisoned]] at a [[psikhushka]].

Kopelev's books were distributed via [[samizdat]] (underground publishing), smuggled out of Russia and published in the West.

For his political activism and contacts with the West, he was deprived of the right to teach or be published in 1977.

==Germany==
[[File:Benefietconcert voor Russische dissident Sacharov in Concertgebouw Amsterdam Mi, Bestanddeelnr 932-9796.jpg|thumb|Lev Kopelev (Amsterdam, 1980)]]
As a scientist, Kopelev led a research project on the history of Russian-German cultural links at the [[University of Wuppertal]]. In 1980, while he was on a study trip to [[West Germany]], his Soviet citizenship was revoked. After 1981 Kopelev was a professor at the University of Wuppertal.

Kopelev was an honorary PhD at the [[University of Cologne]] and a winner of many international awards. In 1990 [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet General Secretary]] [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] restored his Soviet citizenship.

==Personal life==
Kopelev was married for many years to [[Raisa Orlova]], a Soviet specialist in American literature, who emigrated with him to Germany. Her memoirs were published in the United States in 1984.

Lev had a brother by the name of Simon Kopelev (Russian: Симон копелев). Simon is survived by his son Nikolai S. Kopelev and his grandson Samuel Luke Nicholas Kopelev.

==Death==
Lev Kopelev died in [[Cologne]], Germany on 18 June 1997 at the age of 85, and was buried in the [[New Donskoy Cemetery]] in Moscow.

== References ==
{{Reflist}}
* [http://imwerden.de/cat/modules.php?name=books&pa=showbook&pid=159 Lev Kopelev. Open letter to Solzhenitsyn. Magazine "Syntax" № 37] {{in lang|ru}}

==Bibliography==
;Books
*''We lived in Moscow'' (Мы жили в Москве), 1974
*''The Education of a True Believer'', lit. ''And madest thyself an idol'' ("И сотворил себе кумира"), 1976
*''To Be Preserved Forever'' ("Хранить вечно"), 1976
*''Ease My Sorrows: A Memoir'', lit. ''nourish my sorrows'' ("Утоли моя печали"), 1981
*''No jail for thought'', lit. ''about truth and tolerance'' ("О правде и терпимости"), 1982
*''Holy Doctor Fyodor Petrovich'' ("Святой доктор Федор Петрович"), 1985

;Articles
* {{cite news|author=Kopelew, Lew|title=Rilke in Rußland : Die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen russischer und deutscher Literatur sind jahrhundertealt|trans-title=Rilke in Russia: the interrelations between Russian and German literature are centuries old|url=https://www.zeit.de/1972/16/rilke-in-russland|work=[[Die Zeit]]|date=21 April 1972|language=German}}
* {{cite book|author=Kopelev, Lev|chapter=The lie can be defeated only by truth|editor1=Meerson-Aksenov, Michail |editor2=Shragin, Boris |title=The political, social, and religious thought of Russian "samizdat" – an anthology|date=1977|publisher=Nordland Publishing Company|location=Belmont, MA|isbn=0913124133|pages=327}}
* {{cite journal|author=Kopelev, Lev|script-title=ru:Памяти Александра Галича|trans-title=In commemoration of Alexander Galich|journal=[[Kontinent]]|date=2013|orig-year=1978|volume=151|url=http://magazines.russ.ru/continent/2012/151/k54.html|language=Russian}}
* {{cite journal|author=Kopelew, Lew|title=Die Polen sind ein großartiges Volk : Der ausgebürgerte Sowjet-Schriftsteller Lew Kopelew über Dissidenten, die Sowjet-Union und Polen|trans-title=The Poles are a great people: the expatriate Soviet writer Lev Kopelew about dissidents, the Soviet Union and Poland|journal=[[Der Spiegel]]|date=26 January 1981|url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-14321048.html|pages=112|language=German}}
* {{cite news|author1=Orlowa, Raissa |author2=Kopelew, Lew |title=Die Erinnerungen Pjotr Grigorenkos : Der Hauptheld ist die Wahrheit|trans-title=Memoirs by Pyotr Grigorenko: the main hero is the truth|url=https://www.zeit.de/1982/22/der-hauptheld-ist-die-wahrheit|work=[[Die Zeit]]|date=28 May 1982|language=German}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite journal|author=Гофман, Ефим|script-title=ru:Лев Копелев: фронтовик, писатель, ученый, гражданин. Международная научная конференция|trans-title=Lev Kopelev: soldier, writer, scientist and citizen. International Scientific Conference|journal=[[Znamya]]|date=2012|issue=8|url=http://magazines.russ.ru/znamia/2012/8/k23.html|language=Russian}}
* {{cite news|title=Lew Kopelew unter Druck|trans-title=Lew Kopelew under pressure|url=https://www.zeit.de/1980/07/lew-kopelew-unter-druck|work=[[Die Zeit]]|date=8 February 1980|language=German}}
* {{cite journal|title=Lew Sinowjewitsch Kopelew|journal=[[Der Spiegel]]|date=26 January 1981|url=https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-14324840.html|pages=112|language=German}}
* {{cite news|title=Offener Brief von Willy Brandt an Lew Kopelew|trans-title=Open letter from Willy Brandt to Lew Kopelew|url=https://www.zeit.de/1980/07/lew-kopelew-unter-druck|work=[[Die Zeit]]|date=30 January 1981|language=German}}
* {{cite book|author=Applebaum, Anne|chapter=Lev Kopelev|title=Gulag voices: an anthology|date=2011|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|isbn=978-0300153200|pages=125–142}}
* {{cite news|author=Drommert, Rene Von|title=Zum Tode von Raissa Orlowa-Kopelew: Weltempfinden|trans-title=On the death of Raisa Orlova-Kopelev: world feeling|url=https://www.zeit.de/1989/24/weltempfinden|work=[[Die Zeit]]|date=9 June 1989|language=German}}

{{Soviet dissidents}}
{{Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kopelev, Lev}}
[[Category:1912 births]]
[[Category:1997 deaths]]
[[Category:Writers from Kyiv]]
[[Category:People from Kiev Governorate]]
[[Category:Ukrainian Jews]]
[[Category:Soviet Jews]]
[[Category:Soviet emigrants to Germany]]
[[Category:German people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:Expelled members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Ukrainian male writers]]
[[Category:Soviet dissidents]]
[[Category:Sharashka inmates]]
[[Category:Soviet expellees]]
[[Category:Denaturalized citizens of the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Soviet literary historians]]
[[Category:Soviet male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century German male writers]]
[[Category:University of Cologne alumni]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Wuppertal]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Cologne]]
[[Category:Soviet military personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:Burials at Donskoye Cemetery]]
[[Category:Jewish Russian writers]]