TWENTY-TWO ITEMS
[1]
TASHKENT
At the end of July 1971 two members of the national movement of the Crimean Tatar people were convicted: Aishe Seitmuratova [1], a history lecturer at Samarkand University, and Lenur [or Denur?] Ibragimov, a teacher.
They were charged with the preparation and circulation of material slandering the Soviet social and political system (Article 194-1, Uzbek SSR Criminal Code) and sentenced to three and two years’ imprisonment respectively.
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Lithuania
[2]
Jonas Lauce (b. 1917), a teacher of literature and academic administrator at a school in Birzai, was arrested In August 1971. (This was reported very briefly, without giving his name, in the “Letter from a group of Lithuanian intellectuals”, CCE 22.3 [2].) Lauce had written a four-part novel The Turtle-Dove, about the road taken by the Lithuanian People after the loss of independence in 1940 and about the fate of the Lithuanian partisans.
The investigation was conducted by Major Pilelis. In November 1971, after completing a psychiatric examination which began in September, Lauce was judged to be of sound mind. Even before his trial Lauce’s wife, who is also a teacher, was banished with their children to a village where there is no school.
On 16-17 December Lauce’s case was considered by the Lithuanian SSR Supreme Court, Judge Misiunas [2] presiding. The Procurator demanded five years’ imprisonment. At the request of his defence counsel, the basis of the charge against Lauce was changed from Article 68 to Article 199-1 (Lithuanian SSR Criminal Code = Articles 70 and 190-1, RSFSR Code). The sentence: two years of corrective-labour camps.
[Surname is correctly spelled Laucius, see CCE 29.9.]
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[3]
In Simnas at the beginning of 1971 Antanas Jankauskas [mistyped in CCE 22.8 [2] “Jablaskus”], a worker born in 1942, was placed in a psychiatric hospital for circulating leaflets.
In August he was released, whereupon he wrote a letter to Sneckus, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party. In October he was again placed in a psychiatric hospital, this time in Novovilnia [Vilnius suburb]; he is being “treated” with Aminazin and tablets which paralyse the tongue.
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[4]
ODESSA
On 8 December 1971, Nina Strokata [Ru. Strokatova; CCE 18.5] was arrested by officials of the Odessa KGB [3] on her way from Nalchik to Odessa. She was going there in order to make the final arrangements for the exchange of her flat.
On the same day a search of her Odessa flat was carried out. Two poems [4] by her husband S. Karavansky were confiscated, as well as an old book on ethnography, and a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets containing a dedication by the translator Dmitry F. Palamarchuk, which refers to Strokata as a “Decembrist’s wife” [5].
Strokata’s flat in Nalchik was also searched. In connection with the same case the home of L. Tymchuk, a sailor working at the port of Odessa [6], was searched; nothing was confiscated.
Strokata has been indicted under Article 62 (UkSSR Criminal Code = Article 70, RSFSR Code). There is reason to suppose that she was arrested as a result of testimony given by the doctor Alexei Prityka, who was arrested on 9 July. (In addition, A. Prityka’s testimony also resulted in the arrest on 9 November 1971 of the writer Alexei Riznykiv.) Strokata’s case is being conducted by Investigator Rybak.
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Nina Antonovna STROKATA is the wife of Svyatoslav Karavansky (CCE 13.7, CCE 18.5 [7]). She is a scientific worker and a microbiologist. In the past she has been subjected to administrative persecution (CCE 18.5 [7]) and vicious attacks in the press (CCE 22.5).
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[5]
Mordovian ASSR
DUBROVLAG
From 10 November to 10 December 1971, Nikolai Bondar carried out a hunger strike (in Dubrovlag, Camp 17-a) in protest at his conviction.
From 1968 to 1969 Bondar (b. 1939) worked as a lecturer in philosophy at Uzhgorod University (West Ukraine). In 1969 he went to work in a boiler-house in Cherkassy, however, having been obliged to leave the university: Bondar had openly expressed his opinion about the “immoderate” festivities marking the centenary of Lenin’s birth, and also expressed his discontent at certain acts of the Soviet leadership in the field of foreign policy.
Bondar was arrested in Kiev on 7 November 1970, during the official demonstration on Kreshchatik, the city’s main street. He had mingled with the demonstrators and unfurled a banner criticising the leadership of the Communist Party.
Bondar was also charged with circulating slanderous fabrications defaming the Soviet social and political system, both verbally among lecturers at the university, and in writing: in statements sent on the eve of 7 November to Redko, head of the philosophy department at Uzhgorod University, and to Party and State leaders; as well as in personal correspondence with a friend (all these documents, including the letters to Brezhnev, Kosygin and Podgorny, were attached to the case).
On 12 May 1971 the judicial board of the Kiev Regional Court, Judge Matsko [7] presiding, sentenced Bondar under Article 62 (UkSSR Criminal Code = Article 70, RSFSR Code) to imprisonment in a strict-regime camp for a period of seven years.
Bondar pleaded not guilty.
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[6]
KIEV
The trial of Lupynis (CCE 22.8 [5]) took place in Kiev on 28 December. The court sent him for compulsory treatment in a special psychiatric hospital.
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MOSCOW (7-12)
[7]
At the beginning of January 1972 a medical commission at Moscow’s Solovyov Psychiatric Hospital (No. 8) deemed it possible to discharge Valeria Novodvorskaya (CCE 11.7, CCE 13.2, CCE 21.10 [16]). A court will now have to consider the commission’s decision.
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[8]
In August 1971 V. S. Ter-Grigorov, Cand.Sc. (Medicine) and author of 60 scientific works in medical biology, was dismissed from the P. A. Herzen Oncological Institute in Moscow for a speech which he had made at a trade-union meeting.
After condemning the desire of one of the institute’s employees to emigrate to Israel, V. S. Ter-Grigorov objected to a number of groundless and anti-Semitic statements made at the meeting.
Not long previously the work which V. S. Ter-Grigorov had been supervising had been put forward for certification as a discovery, and the State Committee for Science & Technology had allocated 20 research workers for its development.
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[9]
On 10 December Valery Chalidze called on the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet to pardon Andrei Amalrik.
Chalidze pointed out the acute deterioration in Amalrik’s health (CCE 19.11 [5], CCE 20.11 [30]) [8], the existence in Soviet law of the principle “the infliction of physical suffering is not an objective of punishment”, and the lack of an effective procedure for the investigation of infringements of this principle on the initiative of the convicted person or his friends.
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[10]
Alexander Dronov, a postgraduate student at the Moscow Oil Institute, was arrested in December 1971.
During a search samizdat literature was confiscated; he has been indicted under Article 70 (RSFSR Criminal Code). The KGB has informed the institute that Dronov “is refusing to assist in the investigation”. There is information to the effect that five other persons have been arrested in connection with the same case.
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[11]
On 14 December 1971 Sergei Myuge was summoned to the Moscow City Procuracy as a witness, and was questioned by senior investigator Yu. P. Maloyedov.
It became clear from what was said that Myuge is still in the category of a suspect (CCE 22.8 [7]).
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[12]
A. D. Sakharov, A. N. Tverdokhlebov, V. N. Chalidze and I. R. Shafarevich, members of the Committee for Human Rights, and A. S. Volpin, one of the Committee’s experts, sent greetings to U Thant on the occasion of a dinner given in his honour in New York (January 1972) by the “International League for the Rights of Man” to mark his retirement from the post of UN General Secretary.
The letter ends with the words:
“In our view, the years of U Thant’s period of office as General Secretary have seen a marked increase in the authority of the UN in the efforts made by all mankind in the defence of Human Rights.
“There are many who hope that in future the United Nations will be in a position to defend Human Rights not only when the party guilty of their violation is weak, or the cries of the victim reach all ears, but above all when the evil done is especially great”.
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[13]
CHALIDZE LETTERS
(a) The following exchange of letters took place
at the beginning of November 1971.
3 November 1971
To:
Valery Nikolayevich Chalidze
(address)
The investigation department of the Committee for State Security [KGB] at the USSR Council of Ministers requests you to call at (address) at 5 pm on 9 November 1971 to collect property belonging to you.
Sevastyanov,
Senior Investigator, KGB investigation department
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7 November 1971
To:
A.A. Sevastyanov
KGB investigation department
I acknowledge receipt of your letter of 3 November 1971, in which you invite me to call to collect property belonging to me.
I found this communication gratifying, since although I had given up hope of recovering the items confiscated and did not intend to solicit their return, I nevertheless felt the lack of many of the things which you now wish to return to me.
I am prepared to accept the property belonging to me at my flat, i.e. at the place where that property was confiscated. I shall be at home at 6 pm on 9 November. If this is not convenient, another date can be arranged.
It is possible, of course, that this invitation should be addressed not to you, but to Dmitry Sergeyevich [i.e. KGB Major Yusepchuk], who carried out the search. Naturally, it will be alright if my property is delivered by any of the other persons who were at my flat with him.
Chalidze
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(b) We also give (in abridged form) the text of the following letter [9].
5 November 1971
USSR Minister of Communications [N. D. Psurtsev]
I am most aggrieved that yesterday evening, on the anniversary of the foundation of our Committee for Human Rights, Mr. John Carey, chairman of the International League for the Rights of Man, was unable to contact me by telephone for three hours […]
I was at home on 4 November and made numerous telephone calls, but […] the operator told Mr. Carey that there was no reply.
I am also most aggrieved that the Post Office systematically fails to deliver letters to me from my colleagues abroad dealing with the problem of Human Rights […]
I would remind you of my right to maintain creative contacts with foreign colleagues, of my right to conduct telephone conversations on payment of the appropriate charge, of my right to receive letters by post.
I would remind you that it is your official responsibility to ensure that these rights are implemented.
Chalidze
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[14]
On 5 July 1971 N.V. Podgorny, President of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, was sent a petition for the ratification of the “International Pact on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” and the “Pact on Civil and Political Rights”, which were adopted by the UN General Assembly on 16 December 1966 [10].
The petition was signed by 26 persons. (In late 1968 and early 1969 this petition was signed by 96 persons, but the signatures were confiscated by officials of the KGB during searches, including 86 signatures at the home of Boris Yefimov (CCE 9.8 [5]).
As yet there has abeen no reply to the petition.
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[15]
On 4 December 1971 Alexander Solzhenitsyn sent a letter to Mr. K. R. Gierow, Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy [11].
Discussing the factors impeding the presentation to him of the Nobel Prize in a dignified atmosphere, Solzhenitsyn suggests that the ceremony should be arranged in his flat in the presence of a few dozen people invited by himself and the Academy:
“… this, I think, would provide perfectly dignified circumstances for the public delivery of the Nobel lecture. It is the simplest solution”.
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[16]
On 29 December the board of the Moscow Writers’ Organisation expelled Alexander Galich from the Union of Writers [12].
He was expelled because of his songs. Songs mentioned during the three-day discussion which preceded his expulsion included: “I choose freedom”, “Clouds”, “A mistake” and “The prospector’s waltz” [staratelsky valsok].
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[17]
Ukraine
On 4 December 1971 Boris Kochubievsky (trial, CCE 8.1) was released from the “Yellow Waters” camp (Dnepropetrovsk Region, postbox YaE 308-26) on completing his sentence.
Kochubievsky’s wife was told that he had been transferred to “Yellow Waters” from the “Kiev Hydro-electric” camp for “anti-Soviet agitation”. Vladislav Nedobora, Kochubievsky’s close friend from Kharkov, is still in the same camp (CCE 13.4, CCE 11.11, CCE 17.14-2).
On 21 December Kochubievsky left to take up permanent residence in Israel [13].
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[18]
On 5 December 1971 Meri Khnokh-Mendelevich left by air for Israel with her eleven-month-old child at the insistence of her husband Arieh Khnokh, who was convicted in the Leningrad “aeroplane case” (CCE 17.6) and who is now in the Mordovian political camps.
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19. RIGA
Ilya Rips (see CCE 7.13 [1], CCE 10.15 [6], CCE 22.8 [16]) left for Israel at the end of December [14].
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[20]
On 11 November 1971, Oleg Georgiyevich BAKHTIYAROV (CCE 10.4, CCE 13.8) was released on parole, nine months before the expiry of his sentence.
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[21]
SYKTYVKAR
Komi ASSR, Northwest Russia
In reply to the offer of help (CCE 22.8 [24]), from the Netherlands committee of Amnesty International, Revolt Pimenov has sent a letter of thanks to J. Budde-Hesp, a representative of the committee.
All he would like to be sent by the committee is a Dutch dictionary and information on the subject of persecution for one’s beliefs in various countries.
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[22]
The address of Mikhail Yanovich MAKARENKO (CCE 16.7 [2]) is: Mordovian ASSR, Zubovo-Polyansky district, Ozyorny, institution 385-17-2.
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NOTES
- Aishe Seitmuratova, i.e., the daughter of Seit, was born in 1937. See CCE 20.11 [12] for more on her and on Ibragimov.
↩︎ - As well as sitting as judge in the Laucius case, Misiunas presided also at Simas Kudirka’s trial (CCE 20.6).
↩︎ - A Reuters dispatch (11 December) reported Strokata’s arrest on 8 December at Odessa airport after her return from the North Caucasus (Nalchik).
↩︎ - See a poem by Karavansky, written in Vladimir Prison in 1970, in Ukrainsky visnyk (Ukraine Herald) No. 4, republished in Suchasnist, Munich, 1971 (p. 109). See also the attack on him in Literaturna Ukraina, Kiev, 21 January 1972.
↩︎ - The Decembrists were a group of liberal aristocrats who tried unsuccessfully to overthrow the tsarist regime in December 1825. Many of their wives gained a reputation for heroism by following their husbands into the severe conditions of Siberian exile.
↩︎ - See Tymchuk’s letter in P. Litvinov, The Trial of the Four (English edition 1972).
↩︎ - Judge Matsko presided at another Ukrainian political trial in 1969 (CCE 8.12 [17]).
↩︎ - For details of Amalrik’s near-death on the long journey to Siberia, see The Times, 25 January 1972.
↩︎ - See background to Chalidze’s letters and extracts from same in a UPI dispatch of 5 November 1971 and The Times, 6 November.
See also interviews with Chalidze in The Times (5 November 1972), and, in a special article by the Reverend Donald Harrington, in the New York Times (20 November).
See also the parliamentary report in The Times (23 March 1972), where Mr. Barnet Janner (b. 1892 Lithuania, d. 1982), a Labour M.P., asked the British government to protest to the Universal Postal Union about the non-delivery by the Soviet Post Office of mail and telegrams to Soviet Jews. He received a favourable reply.
↩︎ - For texts of the two pacts, see International Agreements (1948-1975).
↩︎ - Additional clarification (see CCE 22.1):
The “Press Statement” of 7 October 1971 stressed that Solzhenitsyn could choose how to receive his insignia.
In a letter to the Norwegian journalist P. E. Ilegbe, published in the Swedish press on 19 October and in the world press the next day, Solzhenitsyn said he would like the ceremony to take place in Moscow in public, but doubted the feasibility of this in the near future. (His letter of 22 October appears not to have been published.)
On 29 October 1971, the Swedish Academy agreed to hold the ceremony in Moscow, and asked the Swedish government if the embassy could be used. When no answer was forthcoming, Solzhenitsyn suggested in a letter to the Academy (published in an AP dispatch from Moscow, 23 December) that a private flat be used.
On 4 January 1972 the Academy agreed to this, and hoped for a ceremony in the spring.
↩︎ - See also reports in The Times (4 January and 6 March 1972), where the expulsion of Galich from the Film-Workers’ Union was reported, and again on 9 March, where a letter from five colleagues reports that a new heart-attack “seriously threatens his life”. He was then 53.
The collection of his songs, Pesni, Frankfurt, 1969, contains the last three mentioned here.
↩︎ - See a report of a speech by Kochubievsky about his experiences in the newspaper Nasha strana (Tel-Aviv, 5 January 1972).
↩︎ - See Ilya Rips’ interview in the Russian paper Tribuna (Tel-Aviv, 3 January 1972), and in Possev 2, 1972.
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