“MY STATEMENT WAS LOST IN THE DEPTHS OF THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSARIAT OF EDUCATION”: PETITIONS AND INTERCESSIONS FOR PERSONAL PENSION PROVISION OF VERA USPENSKAYA, THE DAUGHTER OF GLEB USPENSKY

Abstract

Based on archival materials, the article considers problems of pensions provision of Vera Uspenskaya (1877—1942) in 1923—1939 whose pension case was registered in the name of her father, the writer Gleb Uspensky. Having analyzed the frequency of changes in the size of Vera Glebovna's personal retirement benefit, the authors found that all the increases in pension amounts were related to personal applications of the pensioner or petitions from her brother, sent to the People's Commissariat of Social Security of the RSFSR through in­ter­mediaries. The world-famous writer Aleksey Gorky, People's Commissar of Education Ana­toly Lunacharsky, leadership of the Union of Soviet Writers and the Literary Fund took part in the solution of her pension problems. Given the documents from the personal pension file of Ve­ra Uspenskaya, one can see that in the legally established three-step procedure for the pre-war establishment and further increase of personal pensions of republican significance (pro­vin­cial (regional) bodies - central bodies - the Commission of the NKSO of the RSFSR), an ins­titution of mediation was built in, based on the principle of personal merit.