After seven years imprisonment Zoryan POPADYUK arrived from the Perm camps to serve his five-year exile sentence in the Far Eastern Magadan Region; Popadyuk was arrested on 28 March 1973. He suffers from tuberculosis, which he contracted in Vladimir Prison.
In April 1980, after three years imprisonment, Merab KOSTAVA (trial, CCE 50.2) began his three-year exile sentence in east Siberia. His address is: Irkutsk Region, Taishet district, Kvitok village, 26 Chapayev Street. He lives in a hostel and works in the club there: Kostava is a musicologist by profession.
On 27 April, a month before the end of his exile term, Razmik MARKOSYAN was arrested in Tselinograd. Markosyan has been charged under Articles 170-1 (Kazakh Criminal Code = Article 190-1 of the RSFSR Code) and 198 (Kazakh Code: “Escape from Place of Exile…”).
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ZINOVY ANTONYUK
Irkutsk Region (east Siberia)
Zinovy ANTONYUK now lives at the following address: 666910, Irkutsk Region, Bodaibo, 4 Poruchikov Street, Dormitory, room 33. He is working as a dispatcher at a power station.
On 6 June 1980, Lieutenant-Colonel Dubyansky, Head of the Irkutsk KGB’s Investigation Department, questioned Antonyuk in connection with the case of Tatyana Velikanova. To his great sorrow, Antonyuk said, he did not know Tatyana Mikhailovna VELIKANOVA, but would consider it a great honour to meet her one day.
When Dubyansky tried to write this down in his own way, Antonyuk refused to talk to him any longer. Participation in the investigation of Velikanova’s case bordered on immorality, he said. Dubyansky began to threaten Antonyuk with 15 days in jail for ‘hooliganism’, to which the latter replied: “Let it be 15 years, but you won’t make me do something immoral.” The basis for questioning Antonyuk was a piece of paper with his address, which was confiscated from Velikanova during a search.
On the same day Antonyuk’s room was searched in connection with Case No. 5, Stus’s case (see “Events in the Ukraine”, CCE 57.13). Letters from Stus, Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets. V, Balakhonov, Ivan Kandyba, V. Isakova and Mikhail Makarenko were confiscated. A notebook of poems, which had passed every prison and camp censor, and a photo of Yury Dzyuba and Anatoly Zinchenko (see “Events in Ukraine”, CCE 57.13) were also taken.
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VALERY MARCHENKO
Aktyubinsk (Kazakhstan)
On 13 June 1980, officials of the Aktyubinsk KGB (Kazakhstan) carried out a search in connection with the case of Vasyl Stus at the home in exile of Valery MARCHENKO.
Letters from Semyon Gluzman and Viacheslav Chornovil, a letter which Marchenko intended to send to Myroslav SIMCHICH, an unopened letter addressed to Valentina PAILODZE from England (it arrived after Pailodze was released from exile and had been entrusted to Marchenko), cuttings from Foreign Literature and The Times, and a translation made by Marchenko of the US Declaration of Independence were all confiscated.
In June 1980, Valery Marchenko was taken to hospital, suffering from hypertension.
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Searches in connection with the Stus case were also carried out at the homes in exile of Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets and Yevhen Pronyuk.
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MUSTAFA DZHEMILEV
Zyryanka, Yakut ASSR (Soviet Far East)
On 24 May 1980, “The Face and the Mask”, an article by V. Mikhailov, was published in the Socialist Yakutia newspaper; it was reprinted in Soviet Kolyma on 30 May.
It contains a letter to the editor from A.Z. Sharafutdinov, a welder at the repair shops in the river port of Zyryanka. Sharafutdinov says that Mustafa DZHEMILEV has broken up his son’s family, “making two children orphans”. The article proceeds to give the already standard Soviet newspaper biography of Dzhemilev. It says, for example, that in Tashkent, after he completed his previous sentence, he carried out stormy ‘public activities’, aimed principally at extorting money from close and distant acquaintances.
The article ends with the assertion that it was difficult to expect honesty, friendship, honour and conscience from such a person, qualities which have become the norm for Soviet people.
On 12 June 1980, a search was carried out at Mustafa Dzhemilev’s home in exile.
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MALVA LANDA
Dzhezhdy, Djezkazgan Region (Kazakhstan)
On 4 May 1980, Malva LANDA, arrested on 7 March and sentenced to five years’ exile (CCE 56.3), arrived under guard in the town of Dzhezdy (Dzezkazgan Region, Kazakh SSR).
Kayukov, a Senior Investigator for Especially Important Cases from the USSR KGB Investigations Department, arrived from Moscow, On 19 June 1980, he tried to interrogate Landa.
Malva N. Landa, 1918-2019
From the very beginning, Landa stated that she would neither talk to him nor answer his questions. She did not trust the KGB, which was directly responsible for instigating and organizing the persecution of people because of their beliefs and their attempts to ensure the observance of human rights; the KGB had fabricated trials on false charges, either on its own or through the services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the procurator’s office.
Kayukov told Landa that he had come in connection with her visit to Yerevan in March 1979: after the execution of Zatikyan, Bagdasaryan and Stepanyan (CCE 52.1) Landa went there to talk to their families and friends. The people she met in the Armenian capital, Kayukov continued, were planning to commit terrorist acts during the Olympic Games: an investigation was under way, and people were giving evidence.
“Do you support such acts?” he asked. “Have you heard of plans to commit such deeds?”
Landa replied that she did not believe that the people she had met were planning acts of terrorism or sabotage. She then made a written statement:
“Individually and together with my friends, including the non-governmental Public Group to Assist the Implementation of the Helsinki Agreements in the USSR [i.e. the Moscow Helsinki Group], I have often stated that I reject any form of terror, whatever its motives. I categorically repudiate terror and sabotage, for whatever cause and by whomsoever it is perpetrated.
“I would also point out that I’ve never been aware of any plans involving terrorism or sabotage anywhere. Discussions of plans to commit acts of terrorism or sabotage have never taken place in my presence.
“This statement is written in the presence of Citizen Kayukov, Senior Investigator for Especially Important Cases of the USSR KGB Investigations Department.”
In answer, Kayukov presented Landa with a record of the interrogation which had been prepared in advance, in which his questions alternated with her ‘answers’ (for example: “Which language will you give evidence in?” “l shall testify in Russian”). He now categorically stated that Landa had been present at discussions of plans to commit terrorist acts and that in order to prevent them, she should give truthful evidence about the people whom she met in Yerevan.
Kayukov also wrote into the record the question: “Are you aware of your responsibility under Article 88-1 (RSFSR Criminal Code: “Failure to report crimes against the State’’)?’.
In reply, Landa repeated her statement.
The following day Kayukov again informed Landa that it was officially known that she had participated in discussions of plans to commit terrorist acts during the forthcoming Olympic Games. She had to prove her non-participation, to help the investigation to arrive at the truth. Landa stated that an investigation which was based on falsification was not interested in truth and that she would not help such an investigation. The remainder of the interrogation consisted of threats and insults (“You do not realize the full seriousness of your situation!” said Kayukov: “You are cowardly and lazy, like all women.”)
On the first day Kayukov asked Landa whether she wished to emigrate. She replied in the negative.
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Semyon GLUZMAN has expressed his gratitude to the American Psychiatric Association, which has made him a Distinguished Fellow, and he thanks everyone who has sent him their congratulations on this event. (He has still not received the Association’s official communication.)
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The Trial of Chornovil
From 4 to 6 June 1980, Viacheslav CHORNOVIL was on trial in the town of Mirny (Yakutia), charged with attempted rape (CCE 56.22).
Viacheslav Chornovil, 1938-1999
During the investigation Chornovil declared a hunger-strike “until my release” and took no part, either in the investigation or the trial. He did not refuse to make a Final Speech, however:
“Citizen Judges!
“I am not quite sure whether I will be able to finish my short final speech, although I shall speak about the true substance of the case and the courtroom is empty. Nevertheless, I will begin with what I should have left to the end.
“I am quite indifferent to the length of punishment you will mete out to me.
“This is not bravado, which would be out of place here. Both the minimum and the maximum sentence are unreal to me, since I have declared a hunger-strike for the duration of my prison sentence under this dirty law, and since my life is being sustained artificially. For even now, I am not so far from the lower limits of my physical strength. I see no other way out, however. It may still be possible to vindicate one’s principles and to spare oneself at the same time, but in the present circumstances it is impossible for me to vindicate my honour and dignity in any other way than by sacrificing not only my health, by my very life.
“At times I wonder: was it worth dropping my earlier boycott of the investigation and trial to take part in the finale of this filthy case?
“And I decide that it was, nevertheless. Until now an open battle has been waged against me and my beliefs — I leave aside various petty insinuations, anonymous letters or rumours. Having demonstrated their undeniable weakness and their fear of a face-to-face confrontation, my opponents have hidden behind an agent staging an ‘attempted rape’ scene. I had no right to deprive myself of the chance to investigate through my own experience how the whole thing is done and to tell people about it.
“I will not engage in polemics with the Procurator, nor delve into the sordid details of the trumped-up case. This thankless task has been assumed by my lawyer, who has demonstrated the groundlessness of the criminal façade of this essentially political trial. I am extremely grateful to him for this, whatever the results of his efforts may prove to be.
As to the charges, I will only say that the investigation and the Indictment could well become a classic example — to be studied by trainee lawyers — of juridical illiteracy and bankrupt justice. What can one not find in this single volume of a far from richly documented case! The records of interrogations drawn up in some corner, were inserted later in the most inappropriate part of the case file; examinations by experts were not conducted in accordance with legal forms and are therefore invalid; elementary rules that govern the preservation of the scene of the incident for examination were violated (of course there was actually nothing to preserve). The records of the interrogation of various witnesses were identical, not only regarding facts, but literally. The principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty was violated: from the day of my arrest I was called a criminal and my guilt is clearly stated in the investigation documents, etc, etc.
“I’m even a little insulted. However cruel the times may be, I feel that after 15 years of fundamental resistance, I deserve at least a literate investigator and a somewhat more respectable Article of the Criminal Code.
“Even Blokhina, the principal protagonist, having carried out the initial stage of the operation quite well and lured me into a trap, later, during the trial and investigation, got hopelessly embroiled in contradictions and took her bosses along with her, marring the trial. The case was not clean — its whole surface is spattered with dirty marks.
“Although the attempt was made to give my trial a purely criminal character (the fact that I am an exile is not even mentioned in the charges) the real reasons behind this criminal comedy emerged here and there.
“It transpires, from the testimony of the agent provocateur, that I threatened her with a bottle, shouting: “Do you know who I am? I am in agreement with Sakharov and if you don’t stop shouting, I’ll slash you!” As I was shoved into prison for the umpteenth time, the statement “l see no meaning in my life apart from imprisonment or exile” was attributed to me with cannibalistic cynicism. During a routine confrontation, the ‘unfortunate victim’ (who was, incidentally, a healthily glowing, well-built young girl and could have dealt with several such ‘assailants’ as me — exhausted by prisons and camps, emaciated and with an injured arm) openly described the reasons behind her slanders: “They told me who you are; people like you should not be allowed to walk on Soviet soil!”
“Then a reporter is suddenly invited to attend the closed trial of a quite insignificant case and is commissioned to put together an article exposing the ‘dissident-assailant’ — look, this is what they’re like! A witness, forgetting what I am being tried for, begins to testify that I have retained my former beliefs.
“They tried hard in court to discredit the idea that there was a plot against me, but there’s no getting away from the facts. One of the ‘worst’ (how valuable was the description of me as an exile, which was sent to the court), I alone among political exiles, was given permission for a minor reason to travel on business to a town which, for the Far North, is of sizeable proportion [pop. 30,462; 1979].
“At the same time, from the Ukraine — with a short stop (perhaps even a fictitious one) in Ashkhabad to lend credibility — Tatyana, daughter of Colonel Vadim Blokhin, military attaché in an African country (i.e. a member of the KGB, directly or indirectly), arrives in Mirny “in search of work”. For some time, she was cast (most probably, judging by the case file, fictitiously) as a simple worker, so that the story of a decadent dissident attacking a proletarian girl could be acted out. Having flown to Mirny, she chances to meet the very supplier whom I was visiting on business. She ‘accidentally’ meets us as we are going to have dinner and makes herself our companion, turning on both feminine charm and politically provocative remarks, lures me to her hotel room and there, quite clumsily, acts out the scene of ‘attempted rape’, with stupid details such as threats with a bottle, mysterious scratches on her breast, and undressing. “At the same time, from the Ukraine — with a short stop (perhaps even a fictitious one) in Ashkhabad to lend credibility — Tatyana, daughter of Colonel Vadim Blokhin, military attaché in an African country (i.e. a member of the KGB, directly or indirectly), arrives in Mirny “in search of work”. For some time, she was cast (most probably, judging by the case file, fictitiously) as a simple worker, so that the story of a decadent dissident attacking a proletarian girl could be acted out. Having flown to Mirny, she chances to meet the very supplier whom I was visiting on business. She ‘accidentally’ meets us as we are going to have dinner and makes herself our companion, turning on both feminine charm and politically provocative remarks, lures me to her hotel room and there, quite clumsily, acts out the scene of ‘attempted rape’, with stupid details such as threats with a bottle, mysterious scratches on her breast, and undressing.
“Her assistants (who arranged things with her in advance or later, it’s unimportant) — the woman on duty at the hotel and a police detail — behave like clowns at the trial, turning somersaults over their poorly-learned version of events. And Blokhina herself, very significantly, arrives from Ashkhabad via Kiev, where she evidently had a consultation with Fedorchuk, Chairman of the Ukrainian KGB, or with one of his subordinates, people who are already practised hands at such fabrications and have imprisoned almost the entire second membership of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group on criminal charges.
“Having expressed these thoughts, I feel doubtful that the court will decide my fate dispassionately.
“As an incurable optimist I believe, nevertheless, that sparks of justice, decency and personal responsibility glow in every soul. Sometimes, despite all circumstances and possible consequences, they flare up. Therefore, (but only theoretically, sad to say) I am assuming that by drawing your conclusions from the facts of the case alone and, forgetting all the insinuations and play-acting, you, citizen Judges, will demonstrate civic courage. You will not swell the ranks of the conspirators: you will offer me a just verdict.”
The court found Chornovil guilty and sentenced him to five years in strict-regime camps.
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The Trial of Lisovoi
On 11 June 1980, Vera Lisovaya and her children boarded a plane leaving Kiev for Buryatia (there was an error in CCE 54) to join her husband Vasily LISOVOI. Two hours later, he was arrested and charged with ‘parasitism’. He was then beaten, robbed and stripped by his cell-mates.
Lisovoi’s trial took place on 16-17 July 1980. Vera Lisovaya was allowed to appear as his defence counsel. On five occasions, she told the court, her husband was unable to get the job he wanted (the head of the enterprise said: “I’m taking him!”, the personnel officer responded: “I won’t have him!”). Four times he was offered work he could not take because of his health.
The court sentenced Lisovoi to the maximum sentence under Article 209 (RSFSR Criminal Code), one year’s imprisonment. He must serve his sentence in a strict-regime camp.
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Releases
At the beginning of July 1980, Nijole SADUNAITE (CCE 37.7 & CCE 47.9) was released at the end of her three-year term of exile in Siberia.
When Sadunaite got off the plane from Krasnoyarsk in Riga, she was met by KGB officials from Vilnius, who put her in a car and took her to Vilnius. A Lithuanian friend of hers, who had flown with her, was also made to get into the car.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 