ABSTRACT
A telegram from Gerasimovka was published in Pionerskaya Pravda with Vitaly Gubarev's signature, and that made him the discoverer of the Pioneer-Hero. As public prosecutor at the trial in Tavda, Elizar Smirnov participated in editing the text of the official record of the proceedings. He wrote a number of articles about Pavlik Morozov, the book Pavlik Morozov, and other works about the Pioneer movement. During the thirties, however, Smirnov was not just the main "mythmaker" but also the chief source of information for other authors, in particular the well-known Alexander Yakovlev, who was commissioned by a children's publishing house to write a book about Morozov. Authors and Victims of Heroization Morozov always stank unbearably of urine. Because of the textbook he holds in the photograph, the authors could present him as an insatiable reader, a scholar, an intellectual leader of both children and adults the representative of new power in his native village.
