Mirsky returned to Russia in September 1932 . Five years later , during the Great Purge , Mirsky was arrested by the NKVD . Mirsky ’s arrest may have been caused by a chance meeting with his friend , the British historian E. H. Carr who was visiting the Soviet Union in 1937 . Carr stumbled into Prince Mirsky on the streets of Leningrad ( modern Saint Petersburg , Russia ) , and despite Prince Mirsky 's best efforts to pretend not to know him , Carr persuaded his old friend to have lunch with him . Since this was at the height of the '' Yezhovshchina '' , and any Soviet citizen who had any unauthorized contact with a foreigner was likely to be regarded as a spy , the NKVD arrested Mirsky as a British spy . He died in one of the gulag labor camps near Magadan in June 1939 and was buried on the 7th of that month . Although his '' magnum opus '' was eventually published in Russia , Mirsky 's reputation in his native country remains sparse
the Great Purge
Great Purge
D. S. Mirsky