1933–2016
○ Natural causes
The Soviet historian who laid the foundation of Leningrad Affair studies
His 1989 article 'The So-Called Leningrad Affair' in Voprosy istorii KPSS framed the purge as a factional struggle between the Zhdanov group and the Malenkov-Beria group. For over three decades, this framing remained the starting point of the debate.
A Soviet historian. After graduating with honors from Leningrad State University's History Faculty and working as a teacher and party functionary in Torzhok, he spent 25 years at the Leningrad Institute of Party History from 1966, researching the siege, postwar reconstruction, and the political biographies of party leaders. His 1989 article in Voprosy istorii KPSS, 'The So-Called Leningrad Affair,' was the first to frame the case as a factional struggle between the Zhdanov group and the Malenkov-Beria group with Stalin's sanction, launching the entire post-Soviet historiography. The book of the same name he co-compiled with Viktor Demidov in 1990 sold 200,000 copies and remains the most influential documentary study. He taught as professor at St. Petersburg University from 1991 until his death, training a generation of historians.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1933Born in Torzhok, Kalinin Oblast, to a working-class family
- 1952–1957Graduated with honors from Leningrad State University, History Faculty
- 1957–1962History teacher in Rzhev; then instructor and head of the propaganda department, Torzhok City Committee, CPSU
- 1965Candidate dissertation on CCC-RKI activities in Leningrad during the first Five-Year Plan
- 1966–1991Senior researcher, Leningrad Institute of Party History (later Institute of Historical-Political Research)
- 1987–1989First articles on Leningrad Affair in Dialog; landmark article in Voprosy istorii KPSS; doctoral dissertation; KGB USSR Prize
- 1990Co-compiled Leningradskoe delo with V. I. Demidov; 200,000-copy print run
- 1991–2016Professor of Modern Russian History, St. Petersburg University; over 150 publications
Related historical events
Postwar Leningrad’s reconstruction and urban history
From 1966, Kutuzov worked at the Leningrad Institute of Party History, researching the city’s wartime and postwar record. With Elena Levina, he compiled Vozrozhdenie: Vospominaniia, ocherki, dokumenty o vosstanovlenii Leningrada (Reconstruction: Reminiscences, Essays, and Documents on the Restoration of Leningrad, 1977), arranging memoirs and historical documents by subject. Vozrozhdenie zemli Leningradskoi (The Reconstruction of Leningrad Region, 1985) was among his other works on reconstruction. This research addressed the city’s postwar economic and social rebuilding as well as its wartime and siege history.
He treated the timing and organization of reconstruction, and the experience of urban life, as specific historical questions. In a 1994 paper, “When Did the Reconstruction of Leningrad Begin?”, he revised the established account of when reconstruction work started. In 2006 he published “Leningrad Women in the Reconstruction of the Hero City,” connecting women’s wartime roles to the history of rebuilding. Kutuzov also taught a course on the history of Petrograd and Leningrad at St. Petersburg University.