As too many in modern Russia are also discovering, repression has a momentum of its own. Petr Druzhinin's meticulous exploration of the case of the Azadovskys follows this dark path through forty years of Russian history through to the post-Soviet 1990s.

Mark Galeotti, Honorary Professor of Slavonic & East European Studies, University College London, UK

This fascinating account of the ordeal suffered by Konstantin Azadovsky, an eminent literary scholar, in the 1980s is a reminder of the cruelty and arbitrariness of the Soviet Communist regime. Anyone today who feels nostalgic about the Soviet era ought to read this book. Azadovsky was a cautious person, but that did not prevent him from being targeted by the Soviet KGB, which orchestrated his arrest and imprisonment on trumped-up charges. Like Joseph K. in Kafka's The Trial, Azadovsky was thrust into a faceless bureaucratic morass and punished for crimes he did not commit. Petr Druzhinin recounts this appalling episode in vivid detail, showing how the Soviet repressive apparatus enforced the whims of an odious dictatorship. Much has changed in Russia since the 1980s, but unfortunately the travails Azadovsky experienced four decades ago are disturbingly reminiscent of the way opposition figures nowadays in Russia have been repressed under Vladimir Putin's autocratic rule.

Mark Kramer, Director of the Cold War Studies Project, Harvard University, USA

This book provides a close-up view of what it was like to live under continuous KGB surveillance and repression, and sheds new light on the tenuous relationship between the state and intellectuals during the Soviet period.

International Journal of Russian Studies

This rich and well-argued study makes a significant contribution to the literature through a painstaking reconstruction of an important case, providing insights into late Soviet repression that deserve the attention of the field.

The Journal of Modern History