[1][2] Born on 23 February 1920, he was the son of the Bolshevik military leader Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko who commanded the assault on the Winter Palace.
In 1935, he joined the historical faculty of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute.
Antonov-Ovseenko is best known for his biography of Lavrentiy Beria and he also wrote several books.
Antonov-Ovseenko operated a state museum on the Gulag, for which the Moscow administration provided a building in August 2001.
[4][5] When he died in 2013, he was still working two full days a week to continue documenting what he called "the evils of the Soviet era" and to help with plans for a new, larger space.