Natalya Gorbanevskaya was arrested on 24 December 1969.
Born in 1936, Natalya Yevgenievna GORBANEVSKAYA and graduated from the philological faculty of Leningrad State University in 1963.
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A talented poet, she took part in the 25 August 1968 demonstration on Red Square (CCE 3.3) against the sending of troops to Czechoslovakia, and is author of the book Red Square at Noon, which brings together material about the demonstration.
A member of the Action Group for Civil Rights in the USSR, she is the mother of two young children: the elder is eight, the younger is one year and seven months old.
Natalya Gorbanevskaya with her sons (photo Alexander Gribanov)
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On 24 December 1969, a search was made of Gorbanevskaya’s flat. The search warrant was signed by L.S. Akimova, Senior Investigator with the Moscow City procurator’s office; the search was carried out by Shilov, an Investigator with the office. Confiscated during the search were items of samizdat, the manuscript “Free Medical Aid” and a copy of Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem with a handwritten dedication from the author.
Friends present in Gorbanevskaya’s flat at the time were also searched.
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Natalya Gorbanevskaya has been charged under Article 190-1 (RSFSR Criminal Code). The investigation is being conducted by L.S. Akimova. Gorbanevskaya is at present in Moscow’s Butyrka Prison.
As early as 1968 — after the demonstration of 25 August — Gorbanevskaya was declared to be of unsound mind, and now she is threatened with imprisonment in a hospital prison for an unlimited term.
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