Lev Razgon
1908–1999 (age 91)
Writer
Biography
Lev Emmanuilovich Razgon (Russian: Лев Эммануи́лович Разго́н; 1 April 1908 – 8 September 1999) was a Soviet Russian journalist, writer, a prisoner of the Gulag from 1938 to 1942 and again from 1950 to 1955 and, latterly, a human rights activist.
Razgon was born in Belorussia to the family of Mendel Abramovich Razgon and Glika Izrailevna Shapiro. In the 1920s they moved to Moscow and in 1932, he graduated from the history faculty of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute.
His career before his arrest in 1938 was in great measure due to his marrying into the new Soviet elite and, in particular, two men: his wife Oksana's father Gleb Boky, a high-ranking NKVD officer, and her step-father Ivan Moskvin, a leading figure in the Central Committee.
Later in life, Razgon fell into the category of Gulag detainees who rejoined the Communist Party after their release. He did not resign from the Party until 1988.