Tatarbunary Uprising – "Trial of the 500".

More information

Tatarbunary Uprising – "Trial of the 500".

The trial took place from August 24 to December 2, 1925, at the Military Court of Third Army Corps. Most of the initial 1600 arrested were freed but 489 of them would be prosecuted, only 9 of them being Romanians. It was nicknamed by the press "Trial of the 500". Defense was ensured by 8 Romanian lawyers, including Iacob Pistiner and Constantin Costa-Foru who wrote about the arrested and criticized the Romanian authorities. Because the defendants did not speak Romanian the hearings were made with the help of translators so the trial lasted very long. The government's dossier presented at the trial contained about 70,000 pages and the verdict 180. All this and the unusual number of persons prosecuted made the trial last 103 days.

During the trial, Parfentie Voronovski, one of the participants, said that Nenin came from Moscow to organize the revolutionary committee and he, at Nenin's orders, would cut the telephone and telegraph line in Tatarbunary. Leonte Ţurcan, at the trial, informed that Nenin presented himself as a student coming from Russia to organize the committees. Nenin frequently asked about the state of the revolutionary committees and brought him two books – The Communist ABC and The Red Army.

Ţurcan also said that after Nenin went to Odessa then to Moscow, upon his arrival in Bessarabia, informed the committees that the Red Army promised to intervene when the revolution starts. Another participant to the uprising, Dimitrie Sevcone, spoke about the meetings held by Nenin and Kolţov in which they talked about the connections between the committees and Grigory Kotovsky's army that also promised help.

On December 3, 1925, the War Council of Third Army Corps convicted 85 (none of them Romanians) out of 287 persons brought to trial. Iustin Batishcev was sentenced to life forced labor (eventually reduced to 16 years), the most severe penalty, Nichita Lisovoi and Leonte Ţurcan to 15 years forced labor, another three to 10 years and 20 others to 5 years in prison. The remaining received convictions of 1 to 3 years in prison. Also, each of the 85 convicts were to pay 1,000 lei representing legal charges.

Object data

Title

Tatarbunary Uprising – "Trial of the 500".

Artist

M. G. Grek.

Founder

"Soviet Artist", Moscow.

Date

1958.

Culture

USSR.

Classification

Postcard.