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Alexey NagiSoviet prose writer of Austro-Hungarian origin.
Date of Birth: 19.03.1897
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Content:
- Childhood and Education
- World War I and Capture
- Russian Revolution and Communist Involvement
- Soviet Citizenship and Career
- Personal Life and Family
- Assignment to Japan and Career
- Arrest and Sentence
- Death and Rehabilitation
- Burial and Legacy
Childhood and Education
Ákos Nagy, a Soviet prose writer of Austro-Hungarian origin, was born on March 19, 1897, in the village of Bácsborsód, Austro-Hungary (now Hungary). He was the third of three brothers, with Éné and Lászlo preceding him. In 1906, the family relocated to Szeged, where the brothers attended the gymnasium.
Upon graduating from the gymnasium in 1910, Ákos enrolled in the medical faculty of the University of Budapest.
World War I and Capture
With the outbreak of World War I on July 28, 1914, Nagy was mobilized to the front as a field medic. During the Brusilov Offensive from May 4 to August 13, 1916, over 1.5 million Austro-Hungarian soldiers were captured, including Nagy. He was interned in prisoner-of-war camps near Kyiv and later in Eastern Siberia.
Russian Revolution and Communist Involvement
The Russian Revolution of 1917 transformed the political landscape. In 1920, Nagy, influenced by social-democratic ideas, joined the Communist Party in Vladivostok. Around this time, he met dentist Dora Moiseevna Vilenska, and in 1921, they had a son named Gustav.
Soviet Citizenship and Career
With the expulsion of Japanese forces from Primorye in late 1922, communist authority was established. Nagy was appointed to work for the newspaper "Krasnoe Znamya" in Nikolsk-Ussuriyskiy in 1923. In 1924, he acquired Soviet citizenship and adopted the name Aleksey Lvovich Nagi. He was promoted to deputy editor-in-chief of "Krasnoe Znamya."
In 1926, Nagy was sent to Shanghai for six months to procure printing equipment. Upon his return, he was transferred to work for TASS in Moscow by the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He left Vladivostok for good.
Personal Life and Family
In Moscow, Nagy divorced Dora Vilenska in 1927. In 1929, he met Fanya Mihaevna Zak, a worker from Kharkiv, at a holiday home for press workers in Sochi. They began living together at the end of the year and had a son named Ervin on November 7, 1930.
Assignment to Japan and Career
In 1931, Nagy was sent to Japan as the head of the TASS correspondent's office. His family accompanied him. He began working in Tokyo on July 3.
Arrest and Sentence
On November 5, 1937, Nagy was summoned from TASS and ordered to a new assignment with his family. After a week in Vladivostok, they arrived in Moscow on November 24. They were subjected to an investigation by the Commission of Party Control, which concluded favorably on April 9, 1938. Nagy was instructed to return to work at TASS after the May holidays. However, he was arrested on April 29.
On September 7, Zak was informed by the NKVD that the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court had sentenced Nagy to 10 years of imprisonment in a labor camp with no right to correspondence. Zak and Ervin had no contact with Nagy thereafter.
Death and Rehabilitation
In August 1941, Nagy's son Gustav, a volunteer soldier, was killed in action. After Stalin's death in 1953, Ervin submitted a request to review his father's case. On February 24, 1955, he received a death certificate indicating that Nagy had died on October 5, 1939, from liver cancer. Ervin appealed the case again in 1956, and on July 25, Nagy was declared innocent and rehabilitated.
In 1988, Ervin received further information indicating that Nagy had been executed on September 7, 1938.
Burial and Legacy
In 2002, it was revealed that Nagy and other executed Hungarians were buried at the former NKVD dacha in Kommmunarka, near Moscow. Nagy's brother, Lászlo Moholy-Nagy, was a renowned artist, photographer, and author. He worked in Walter Gropius's studio in Dessau and Berlin in the 1920s.
