Bethell’s ‘Last Secret’ Released in Persian

‘The Last Secret,’ a 1974 book by British politician and historian of central and eastern Europe Nicholas William Bethell (1938-2007), is now available in Persian.

Mehrdad Moini, 48, has rendered the book into Persian. It is released by Moin Publication based in Tehran, Mehr News Agency reported.

‘The Last Secret: Forcible Repatriation to Russia 1944-47’ was first published in 1974. The book reveals how, between 1944 and 1947, around 50,000 Cossacks, Croats and other Soviet citizens in Nazi Germany, who were prisoners of war and refugees from the tyranny of Stalin’s communism, were forcibly repatriated to Russia.

The Persian translation comes in 425 pages, including the introduction written by British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003) for the book.

‘The Last Secret’ is a fascinating and harrowing story of how Allied powers turned over Russian citizens to the Soviet Union in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

Bethell was also a translator and human rights activist. He sat in the House of Lords as a Conservative from 1967 to 1999. He served as an appointed member of the European Assembly from 1975 to 1979, and as an elected member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1994, and from 1999 to 2003.