On 28 December 1978, at the age of 51, Gely SNEGIRYOV died in the neurological department of the October Hospital in Kiev.
*
Until 1974, Gely Snegiryov’s life was running very smoothly: he was a well-known writer of prose, drama and film scripts, and a member of the Union of Writers and the Union of Cinematographers. G. Snegiryov’s books were published by republic and union publishers and he occupied high administrative positions: he was Chief Editor, for example, of the Ukrainian Studio of Documentary Films for seven years.
In 1974 Snegiryov was expelled from the unions and from the Communist Party. In 1977 Kontinent began to print G. Snegiryov’s story “Bullets for an Execution”, about the trial of a group of Ukrainian intellectuals in 1930. [note 1] On 22 September 1977, after Snegiryov had circulated several journalistic articles of a very sharp nature and renounced Soviet citizenship, he was arrested (CCE 47.4 c).
On 1 April 1978, a letter of repentance was signed by Gely Snegiryov and titled “I’m ashamed and condemn my behaviour” («Стыжусь и осуждаю…») appeared in the newspaper Soviet Ukraine. On 12 April the letter was reprinted in Literaturnaya Gazeta (CCE 49.18). From this letter it became known that Gely Snegiryov had been released and transferred from the KGB investigations prison to a hospital.
After nine months in this hospital Snegiryov died.
*
Snegiryov’s retrospective prison diary has come into the possession of the Chronicle. Part of it was written by Snegiryov himself and part was dictated to friends in the last months before his death, when he was no longer able to write; the text includes many of his poems, written in prison. [note 2]
As can be seen from the “Diary”, Snegiryov maintained a sharp, at times even provocative attitude all through the investigation. On 29 October 1977 he went on hunger-strike. On 7 November during exercise, he cried out: “Greet the glorious 60th anniversary [of the October Revolution] with a protest hunger-strike!” He resisted force-feeding, teased his investigator with mocking verses and even asked for some of these to be included in the record as his answer to questions. However, Investigator Slobozhenyuk behaved with perfect correctness, and they did not even punish him for his call for a hunger-strike, but merely read out a record of the incident.
Here is a characteristic conversation with his investigator:
“Tell me, do they search you on your way to and from work?”
“Whatever gave you that idea? Of course not!”
“Not true. They frisk you, and how!”
“You’re being stupid.”
“No, not stupid. Do they frisk me on the way to seeing you and on the way back?”
“So?”
“So it’s not me they’re frisking, it’s you!”
“?”
“Well, think! They bring me to see you. And I don’t see anyone but you. A screw follows right behind me and doesn’t let me touch anything. It means they’re frisking you: either I’m bringing you something or you’ve given me something. Isn’t that so? It’s you they’re searching, you!”
“You’re a joker, Gely Ivanovich!”
It was at the end of December that the investigator first broached the subject of a sincere confession, which is “quite often rewarded by a full pardon*. Snegiryov said he supposed this turn of the conversation was occasioned by publicity abroad.
The investigator answered: “Yes, it wouldn’t hurt to neutralize it. Think about it, Gely Ivanovich,” I said: “And if I thought about it, would that transform us from investigator and investigated into high contracting parties?” “It’s possible to think so,” he answered very boldly.
At the same time as offering this deal, the prison administration started to offer Snegiryov little indulgences. For example, on 31 December 1977 he and his cell-mate were allowed to put up a fir tree and see in the New Year. Snegiryov, however, firmly refused to compromise.
In January 1978, Snegiryov’s state of health deteriorated. The initial diagnosis was coronary insufficiency. He began to suffer from insomnia and from pains in the breast and hip area. On 2 March he was informed that he would be transferred to the prison hospital. Snegiryov told Investigator Slobozhenyuk that it would be impossible for him to be treated successfully under prison conditions, and that if he died there might be unpleasant consequences for the KGB.
“What have we got to fear? One can fall ill anywhere, Gely Ivanovich, and anything can happen. You know what you should be thinking about now? Do you remember our conversation at the beginning of January?
“Are you still on about the repentance idea? It won’t happen. Forget it!”
“More’s the pity for you! Our conversation could have been quite different.”
On the same day Snegiryov was taken to the prison hospital.
There he became even worse. Paralysis developed in both legs and the pains increased sharply. The interrogations continued even in hospital, every other day on average. From a conversation with his investigator (12 or 13 March 1978):
“Listen, Slobozhenyuk, do you understand that it’s impossible to do punctures or to treat my illness here? It can only be treated at the Neurological Institute.”
“Of course, you’d have more chance there. But so what, Gely Ivanovich, people die everywhere.”
“That’s logical, but all the same you wouldn’t like it if a political prisoner died under investigation.”
“No, we wouldn’t like it!”
“So how are you to treat him then?”
“We can’t transfer you to an ordinary hospital and keep you under guard. In other words, they’ll treat you here somehow … There is, Gely Ivanovich, just one other possibility …
“Again the sincere repentance?”
“Yes.”
“Under medical torture, so to speak. Twisting arms, even those of sick men?”
“Hey, hey, that’s going too far.”
“I’m calling things by their names, Investigator Slobozhenyuk!”
In the next few days Snegiryov’s state of health sharply deteriorated: his bladder and bowels stopped functioning; his body, from the ribs downwards, lost sensation. From what was said by a visiting consultant neuropathologist Snegiryov understood that “the damage is in my spine, somewhere around my neck”.
On about 17 March 1978, Snegiryov wrote the text in which he renounced his former views and thanked the state for the ‘judicious mercy’ they had shown him.
“Why did I choose the theme of gratitude to the government? I was looking, blockhead that I am, for guarantees: they would only be able to print it after they had freed me, as if it were hard for them to change the words ‘gratitude to the government’ to ‘I begged the government’.”
On 20 March Snegiryov showed the text to the investigator.
He was pleased, openly so, and said that as a basis for a political document (i.e., for the press) it wasn’t bad, but what was most needed was a long document with motives, repentance and details for the investigation, on the basis of which the resolution to release me would be written.
“Well, you can compose that document for me yourself,” I said. He agreed.
As a guarantee of his release, Snegiryov demanded a meeting with his wife. He was refused. He had the strength to continue insisting for a few more days. On March 23 Snegiryov agreed to consider, as a guarantee, a meeting with Colonel V. P. Turkin, the Chief of the Investigation Department of the Ukraine KGB (lit. “attached to the Ukrainian SSR Council of Ministers”). The meeting took place on the following day; it was decided that the investigator and Snegiryov would compose an enlarged text of the ‘repentance’, after which Snegiryov would be released and transferred to hospital. Straight away, on March 24, the ‘repentance’ was written; however, Snegiryov had to wait a whole week to be released. Only on March 31 did they show him the final lines of the “Resolution of the Procuracy and the investigators”:
… the investigation has been terminated, and the prisoner released as he no longer presents a social danger.
Snegiryov was there and then invited to sign a new variant, suitably rewritten, of ‘his’ confession. “Then I read and signed the idiotic confession, ‘I’m ashamed and condemn my behaviour’. I hardly read it, I couldn’t see anything from pain, it was all blurred.”
As soon as the confession was signed, Snegiryov was released and transferred to the October Hospital in Kiev.
On 12 April 1978, Snegiryov underwent an operation; a tumour was cut out of his neck. His condition, however, did not improve. On the contrary, in subsequent months he became worse and worse. Snegiryov himself and some of his friends considered that his treatment was being carried out carelessly and that it varied depending on Snegiryov’s ’loyalty’ (he refused to refute reports in the Western press on his situation).
On 18 December Snegiryov informed Slobozhenyuk of his intention to leave the USSR for continued treatment. Snegiryov, however, was convinced that he would not be let out of hospital.
“I think they’ll finish me off soon. There are no other options left … I’ll be taking this step, understanding that it’s the end — you know they simply can’t expose themselves. But I can’t take any more of this.” (From conversations with friends.)
Gely Snegiryov died on 28 December 1978 at 10 am. The post-mortem was conducted, despite Snegiryov’s dying wish, without the participation of one of his friends who is an anatomical pathologist; it revealed cancer of the prostate gland with numerous secondaries.
At the KGB’s request the funeral took place the following day. The body was cremated — also against the wishes of the deceased, The whole procedure with the funeral was conducted under the surveillance of KGB officials.
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NOTES
[1] See Kontinent (Paris), Nos. 11-14, 1977.
[2] Published in Kontinent (1979) No. 21, pp. 89-145, with an introduction by his friend Viktor Nekrasov.
Gely I. Snegiryov, 1927-1978
A Chronicle of Current Events 