My father's father, Anton Lavrentyevich Drobyazko. Grandfather Anton was born in 1870 in the town of Nezhin. He was a famous lawyer. The photo was taken in 1914 in Zhytomyr. (He was not Jewish)
I know about the family of my father from family legends, even though I remember my grandfather, Anton Drobyazko. When he was arrested in June 1941 I was four years old. In Kiev, our family lived not far from him, and I saw him quite often. He was very kind, smiled a lot, and expressed a lot of love to me. He came from a family of potters, but for outstanding services as a lawyer the tsar granted him the status of a nobleman at the age of 40. He graduated from Kiev University's Law Department, and began his career in a court in Nezhin, Ukraine. He had a very good career. After the revolution he worked as an editor and translator in various publishing frims in Ukraine, and in 1926 he and a team of authors issued Ukraine's first Soviet Law Dictionary. He worked as an editor and a translator until 1941, when he was arrested.
After my grandmother's death in 1924, my grandfather Anton lived in Kiev, actively working in the Soviet publishing structures. On June 30, 1941, at the age of 71, he was arrested by the State Security Service and condemned, charged with anti-Soviet propaganda and with welcoming Hitler and the fascists, and was sentenced to death. His court hearings never took place, however, and he too was reported missing. I found investigative materials pertaining to his case in 1997-1998, which stated that the fate of the condemned Anton Drobyazko is unclear. Most likely he was shot during the evacuation of the prisoners of the Lukyanovksaya prison which occurred at the end of August to the beginning of September 1941.
