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Due to the expiration of a number of previously classified materials related to the activities of the Soviet special services during the Second World War, and also due to the especially high public interest in the “case of Richard Sorge” in the last 5 years, a military historian and Doctor of Historical Sciences Mikhail A. Alekseyev introduced into scientific discourse a large number of previously unknown Russian-language documents on this case. These documents are of paramount interest to researchers. For example, it is the first publication of the materials that definitively answer the questions of whether Sorge was a double agent and of what the real reason for the failure of the network of Soviet military intelligence in Japan in 1941 was, as well as of many other pieces of important documentary evidence of the activities of the Soviet secret services in that country. Soon after that, the authors of this article for the first time made a complete translation of the memoirs of Ishii Hanako, Sorge’s Japanese wife, which were analyzed in detail and commented on by the authors of the book Another Sorge. The Story of Ishii Hanako. The memoirs of Ishii Hanako give a chance to take a fresh look at Richard Sorge’s personality, his goals in studying Japan and his approaches to this issue, to form a more personal and, at the same time, objective picture of his character. Together with the case of the “Special Folder” of the Central Committee of the CPSU on perpetuating the memory of Richard Sorge, declassified in 2020, for the first time in history, these materials allow us to fully evaluate Ishii Hanako’s effort to preserve the memory of Sorge in Japan during the period from 1945 to 1964. By comparing the memoirs, the documents of the Soviet side, and by carrying out the research and analytical work, the authors have reached a new level of understanding of the “case of Richard Sorge.” In 2017–2022, a number of new materials devoted to the same case were published in Japan. They reveal the level of awareness of not only Japan’s government and law enforcement agencies, but also of the emperor himself, as well as the division of powers of the special services in the liquidation of Sorge’s intelligence network.

Due to the expiration of a number of previously classified materials related to the activities of the Soviet special services during the Second World War, and also due to the especially high public interest to “the case of Richard Sorge” within the last 5 years, a military historian and Doctor of Historical Sciences Mikhail A. Alekseev introduced a large number of previously unknown Russianlanguage documents on this case into scientific circulation. These documents are of exceptionally high interest to researchers. For example, it is the first time the published materials definitively answer questions on whether Sorge was a double agent, whether he reported to Moscow the exact date of the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union, and also what the real reason for the failure of the network of Soviet military intelligence in Japan in 1941 was. Soon after that, the authors of this article for the first time made a complete translation of the memoirs of Ishii Hanako, Sorge’s Japanese wife, which were analyzed in detail and commented on by the authors of the book Another Sorge. The Story of Ishii Hanako. The memoirs of Ishii Hanako give a chance to take a fresh look at Richard Sorge’s personality, his goals in studying Japan and his approaches to this issue, to form a more personal and, at the same time, objective picture of his character. Together with the case of the “Special Folder” of the Central Committee of the CPSU on perpetuating the memory of Richard Sorge, declassified in 2020, for the first time in history, these materials allow to fully estimate Ishii Hanako’s effort to preserve the memory of Sorge in Japan during the period from 1945 to 1964. By comparing the memoirs, the documents of the Soviet side, and by carrying out the research and analytical work, the authors have reached a new level of understanding of “the case of Richard Sorge”. In addition, a number of new materials devoted to the same case and revealing the level of awareness of not only the government and law enforcement agencies of this country, but also the emperor himself, as well as the division of powers of special services in the liquidation of Sorge’s intelligence network were published in Japan within the period of 2017–2022. However, for a number of reasons, in Russia, these documents remain poorly studied.

L’articolo proposto consiste in un’analisi della storia breve “The Sorge Spy Ring” (1996) dello scrittore bosniaco-americano Aleksandar Hemon, inclusa nella raccolta The Question of Bruno (2000, pubblicata in Italia da Einaudi con il titolo Spie di Dio). La struttura del racconto, composto da due diverse linee narrative, esemplifica l’idea di duplicità ricorrente nella maggior parte della produzione letteraria di Hemon. All’esposizione principale, dove il narratore rievoca la traumatica materializzazione delle sue fantasie infantili di spionaggio nella Sarajevo di fine anni Settanta, vengono infatti sovrapposte le reali vicissitudini dell’agente segreto Richard Sorge attraverso un complesso sistema di note a piè di pagina. I continui parallelismi conferiscono all’ambiguo personaggio di Sorge, sospeso tra culture e ideologie apparentemente contrapposte, una particolare aura metaforica, quasi elevandolo a simbolo di un’identità migrante transnazionale. Esaminando la peculiare organizzazione del testo, è mia intenzione studiare come l’apparato peritestuale si configuri come una sorta di piano narrativo ulteriore, arricchendo le chiavi di lettura del racconto. Le strategie adottate da Hemon saranno inoltre poste a confronto con la sua esperienza di immigrant writer, diviso tra gli Stati Uniti e la frammentata realtà post-jugoslava. Nel corso della mia analisi mi richiamerò in particolare alle considerazioni espresse da Gérard Genette nel suo fondamentale Soglie (Seuils, 1987), e alle riflessioni di Linda Hutchinson sulla concezione postmoderna della Storia (A Poetics of Postmodernism, 1988). Un ulteriore contributo sarà apportato dal confronto con gli autori alla cui influenza è stata spesso ricondotta l’opera di Hemon, in particolare Vladimir Nabokov e il serbo Danilo Kiš.

The biography of Ivar Lissner is presented – a person, who worked in the Far-Eastern region in 30–40 th of the XX century and actually repeated the fate of the Soviet Military Intelligence member Richard Sorge. Lissners destiny reflected all those spiritual flingings typical of the German youths of the period between two World Wars; he went through the stage of enthusiasm from the seeming start of German Renaissance when Hitler came to power, bitter offence from the sudden society`s rejection when his non-arian origin get clear, to oppressive disappointment from his compatriots` betrayal, when he was put into Japanese prison.

The biography of Ivar Lissner is presented. He worked in the Far-East in the 1930s and 1940s and actually repeated the fate of the Soviet Military Intelligence officer Richard Sorge.

The biography of Ivar Lissner is presented. He worked in the Far-East in the 1930s and 1940s and actually repeated the fate of the Soviet Military Intelligence officer Richard Sorge.