ELEVEN ITEMS
[1]
On 24 July 1974 the writer Vladimir Rafailovich MARAMZIN (CCE 32.6) was arrested in Leningrad.
The arrest was preceded by open police surveillance over many days and by three interrogations, at the last of which Maramzin was handed a summons to appear at a further interrogation on 25 July. However, on 24 July a search was carried out at his house, with a warrant, and after the search he was arrested. It appears that the investigator in charge of Maramzin’s case is Major Ryabchuk, one of the investigators in the Kheifets case. The circumstances of Maramzin’s arrest are described in the anonymous samizdat document ‘Leningrad, Case Number 15’, dated August 1974.
On 2 August Josif Brodsky issued a statement in defence of Maramzin (see A Chronicle of Human Rights, 1974, No. 10).
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[2]
On 19 July and again in the middle of December searches connected with the Maramzin case were carried out at the Moscow apartment of Professor Alexander Voronel (CCE 32.15).
During the July search, those in charge obviously knew in advance where everything was kept. The December search was carried out after A. Voronel had received permission to emigrate to Israel. All issues of the samizdat journal Jews in the USSR were confiscated, including one in which were published some stories by Maramzin. At the end of December 1974 A. Voronel left the USSR.
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[3]
In the autumn of 1974, the abstract artist Ganibari (Boris) Mukhametshin was arrested in Moscow; he is an architect by education and a member of the graphic artists’ group committee.
He was charged under Article 70 (RSFSR Criminal Code). According to rumour, Mukhametshin is charged with designing some posters of an anti-Soviet tendency, and of trying secretly to send these works to the West. There is a report that Mukhametshin is co-operating with the investigators and, in particular, that he is giving testimony against young `left-wing’ artists.
Mukhametshin’s wife Charlotte, an American citizen, had left for the USA before the arrest of her husband. (Mukhametshin himself was not allowed to go abroad.) He took part in the Izmailovsky Park exhibition, and his abstract works have been exhibited three times in the USA.
It is known that many of his acquaintances have refused to give evidence during the investigation.
Mukhametshin’s mother and his sister Roshaniya (Ron), who has a two-month-old child, lived in Moscow, at 27 Budyonny Avenue, flat 125.
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[4]
In the spring of 1974, a number of people were arrested in the town of Gorodenka (Ivano-Frankovsk Region). They were charged with preparing and disseminating Ukrainian samizdat.
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[5]
In early October 1974 Oksana Popovich was arrested in Ivano-Frankovsk (West Ukraine).
It has become known that one of those arrested in Gorodenka gave evidence to the effect that Popovich had given him Ukrainian samizdat, and that a few years earlier she had collected money to pay for the defence of Ukrainian political prisoners. The investigation is being conducted by the Procurator’s Office.
Oksana Popovich is 47 years old; she has already spent 10 years in imprisonment on a political charge. Not long before her arrest she underwent an operation, and she was walking with crutches. She was to have undergone a further operation. She has as a dependant her 85-year-old blind mother.
Until her arrest Popovich was working at an electricity power station [1].
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[6]
On 20 November 1973 a search was carried out at the apartment of Vlada Antano Lapienis, an organist, in Vilnius.
The search was led by First Lieutenant Gudas. A number of sacks of religious literature was confiscated (part of this literature had been produced on an Era duplicating machine). The books were taken away without an inventory being made, nor were they marked in any way.
After the search Lapienis was summoned eight times for questioning, the last time being in about June 1974. During the interrogations he was threatened with imminent arrest and a seven-year sentence. At one of them, investigator Jankauskas asked him to give evidence corroborating statements purportedly made by the priest Buliauskas, who was said to have been arrested. In actual fact, Buliauskas had not only not been arrested, but had not even been interrogated by the KGB.
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[7]
On 20 September 1974 Anatoly Sergeyevich KUDINOV (b. 1955) was summoned to the police station.
There he was told that he was suspected of a theft, and he was subjected by force to a search. A copy of Vestnik RSKhD No. 107 [Messenger of the Russian Student Christian Movement] and a book about Bukovsky were found in Kudinov’s briefcase and confiscated. After this, Kudinov was escorted to his home (Moscow, 17 Golovachev St, flat 171), where a search was already going on, also ‘on suspicion of theft’. However, those carrying out the search was interested only in samizdat. A great deal of samizdat was confiscated (for example two copies of Berdyaev’s The Origin and Meaning of Russian Communism).
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[8]
In 1972 G. M. Prokhorov, a junior research officer with a doctoral degree at the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Russian Literature (“Pushkin House”), took a trip to Bulgaria.
There he met his acquaintance, Catherine Lvova, a French citizen of Russian descent, who had once been a graduate student of Russian literature at Leningrad State University and was now living in Bulgaria. After his return to the USSR, Lvova, Martynov and Belyakovsky (all Russian by descent and living in Bulgaria) were arrested on charges of importing forbidden literature, and at the beginning of 1974 they were tried by a Bulgarian court. At the trial, Martynov stated that they had sent similar literature to the USSR through Prokhorov. Prokhorov was not called as a witness either during the pre-trial investigation or at the trial.
After the trial was over, his home was searched and he was repeatedly summoned to Moscow for interrogations. Prokhorov categorically denied having imported anything which was forbidden. In spite of this, he was ‘cautioned’ according to the Decree of 25 December 1972.
In August the institute received a document from the KGB, in which the verdict of the Bulgarian court was referred to as a fact which discredited Prokhorov. A meeting took place in which the following persons participated: the director of the institute, the head of the Ancient Russian Literature department (in which Prokhorov worked), a KGB representative and Prokhorov himself. Prokhorov again categorically denied being guilty of anything.
In the autumn of 1974, a general meeting of Prokhorov’s department discussed his ‘behaviour’. The head of the institute’s personnel department said that applications should be sought for Prokhorov’s job in early 1975, ahead of schedule. Prokhorov submitted a complaint about the KGB to the Procurator’s Office.
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[9]
In the summer of 1974, a photocopy of Gulag Archipelago was confiscated from Alexeyev-Popov, an assistant professor of Odessa University. He told the KGB that he had received it from Gleb Pavlovsky. Pavlovsky stated that he had received the photocopy from Vyacheslav Igrunov. On 9 August Igrunov was taken to KGB headquarters for questioning. During the interrogation he denied Pavlovsky’s statement and asked for a personal confrontation with him.
On the same day Igrunov’s wife, Svetlana Artsimovich, gave KGB officials a number of samizdat works (without any search being ordered by them). Later, Oleg Kursa, who had come to visit Igrunov on that day, was detained at Igrunov’s apartment. A number of works were taken from his briefcase: a photocopy of Gulag Archipelago, Forever Flowing by V. Grossman, two copies of the two-volume edition of Mandelstam’s works, and a microfilm of a book by Avtorkhanov. When questioned, Kursa stated that he had bought all the books in Simferopol and that the microfilm had been given to him as a present, and he had no idea what it contained.
Between 9 August and 4 September Igrunov and Kursa were questioned four times. In connection with Pavlovsky’s evidence the KGB also questioned A. Katchuk, V. Sudakov, S. Makarov, Yu. Shurevich and Svetlana Artsimovich.
On 3 September Pavlovsky, Kursa and Igrunov were ‘cautioned’ according to the Decree of 25 December 1972. Pavlovsky and Kursa signed the ‘record of caution’, but Igrunov refused to do so. Pavlovsky was ‘cautioned’ for having ‘over many years received and disseminated literature which was ideologically harmful and anti-Soviet in nature’. Kursa was ‘cautioned’ for having ‘procured and stored’ such literature. In signing the ‘record of caution’, Kursa added in writing that the nature of the literature was unknown to him, as he had not had time to read it. Igrunov was ‘cautioned’ for having ‘procured, stored and disseminated’ literature. As his grounds for refusing to sign the ‘record of caution’ Igrunov stated that he had not pro- cured any literature which was ‘ideologically harmful and anti-Soviet in content’.
On 4 September Igrunov was again summoned for a ‘chat’. On this occasion the investigator, who refused to give his name, spoke in a very loud voice, sometimes rising to a shout. and hammered on the table, demanding that Igrunov should answer all questions. Among other things, the investigator said: ‘You’re not Chalidze, not Solzhenitsyn, not Sakharov. We’ll find a way to deal with you, though, just as we dealt with them. Do you know what happened to Solzhenitsyn? We’ll soon put Sakharov in his place, too. Just wait — you’ll see for yourself.’ Igrunov once more explained, in greater detail, his reasons for refusing to sign the ‘record of caution’: first, he did not consider it a proved fact (after all there had been no investigation or trial) that he had distributed or stored anti-Soviet literature; and second, he considered he had a right to read any kind of literature and to distribute any non-criminal literature, even if the investigators called it anti-Soviet. Igrunov stated that the Chronicle of Current Events, for example, was not in his opinion criminal literature. He asked the investigator either to show him a list of anti-Soviet literature or to give him a precise definition of what constituted ‘anti-Soviet literature’.
In October lecturers at political seminars in Odessa spoke of the ideological sabotage carried out by Reiza Palatnik (CCE 20.5) and Nina Strokata (CCE 28.7), and of how, after Palatnik and Strokatova had ‘received their just punishment’. Igrunov had become the ‘leader of the group’.
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[10]
A Chronicle of Case 345
On 27 August 1974, in the city of Vilnius, Nijole Sadunaite was arrested for making copies of A Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church (LCC Chronicle) on her typewriter.
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On the night of 27-28 November 1974, on the orders of the Lithuanian KGB, a search was carried out at the Moscow apartment of A. N. Tverdokhlebov in connection with Case 345. Tverdokhlebov was leaving the cinema when he was picked up by police and escorted to the scene of the search.
During the search the following were confiscated:
- three issues of A Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church in a foreign English-language edition;
- a copy of The Gulag Archipelago;
- three issues of A Chronicle of Human Rights (New York);
- one issue of the Bulletin of the Council of Relatives of Evangelical-Christian Baptist Prisoners;
- documents in defence of civil rights;
- lists of addresses of political prisoners and their families;
- lists of addresses of German families wishing to emigrate to the Federal Republic of Germany (about 2,000 families);
- materials about the situation in labour camps and prisons;
- notebooks; a typewriter; and a tape recorder.
On 28 November Andrei Tverdokhlebov issued a ‘Statement on the Search of 27/28 November’, ending with the words: ‘However, they have not yet taken away my fountain pen.’
*
In December 1974, a trial arising from Case 345 took place (this issue CCE 34.6).
*
On 23 December 1974, on the orders of the Lithuanian KGB, six searches were carried out in connection with Case 345 in Moscow and the suburbs of Moscow.
The searches were at the apartments of Sergei Kovalyov (this issue CCE 34.1), Andrei Tverdokhlebov, A. P. Plyusnina (the search warrant stated: “Carry out a search at the apartment of A. P. Plyusnina, as it is the actual place of residence of G. I. Salova . . . for the purpose of confiscating items and documents belonging to G. I. Salova which are relevant to the case”), Galina Salova in the township of Chernogolovka near Moscow, Malva Landa and Irina Korsunskaya.
During the searches all samizdat and all typewriters were confiscated.
In the search at Plyusnina’s apartment (see search warrant excerpt, above), notebooks belonging to her husband, Yury Shikhanovich, were among the material confiscated.
In the search at Salova’s home, all the letters written from a labour camp by her husband, Kronid Lyubarsky, were confiscated, although these letters had passed the official camp censorship; later the letters were returned, after many categorical demands by Salova.
In the search at Korsunskaya’s flat, a photograph of P. G. Grigorenko was confiscated. The greater part of the material confiscated during the searches had no connection with Lithuania.
After the searches Kovalyov, Tverdokhlebov, Salova and Landa were summoned for questioning.
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On 23 December 1974 eight searches were carried out in Lithuania in connection with Case 345, followed by two more on 24 December. In the course of a week about forty people were questioned. Some interrogations took place on 25 December (Christmas Day in the Catholic calendar).
In May 1973 Balys Gajauskas (CCE 24.5) returned to Kaunas after serving 25 years in labour camps and prisons. On 23 December 1974 a search was carried out at his home.
During the search the KGB confiscated a list of 135 Lithuanian prisoners and some money, which they reckoned was a mutual-aid fund for the families of political prisoners. After the search Gajauskas was taken to Vilnius and interrogated in custody for three days. When he was asked why the list confiscated from him was identical to the list confiscated from Sergei Kovalyov (this issue CCE 34.1), he replied that he could not explain this coincidence and that he did not know Sergei Kovalyov. Neither did he know the other Muscovites whose addresses had been written into his notebook by chance.
Algirdas Petrusevicius was questioned on three days in succession — 23, 24 and 25 December. He was asked in particular about Gajauskas and Galina Lyubarskaya (as the Lithuanian KGB refers to G. Salova).
Birute Pasiliene was also questioned on three consecutive days after her home had been searched.
Her husband. A. Pasilis, was also questioned. He was asked: “Does Gajauskas often come to visit you?” “Who gave you Gulag Archipelago — Gajauskas or Lyubarskaya?” The couple were reminded that their son, Alexis Pasilis, had only recently been released from a labour camp (CCE 33.4 [7]).
Many of those interrogated were asked about Gajauskas and Kovalyov.
Katkus from Plunge stated that he had given Gajauskas a list of former political prisoners living in his area without residence permits and in difficult material circumstances. (He himself was in the same situation.)
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[11]
A Chronicle of Case 38
Issue 32 of the Chronicle has already reported (CCE 32.16) that the Vladimir Region KGB is conducting an investigation of Case 38, which concerns the journal Veche [2].
*
On 15 August a second search was carried out at the apartment of the Moscow mathematician Yu. A. Gastev (CCE 32.20 [16]). The following were confiscated: 32 issues of A Chronicle of Current Events; No. 1 of the journal Veche; a typewriter belonging to someone else; photographs of friends of Gastev, and a copy of Mandelstam’s essay ‘Chaadayev’.
On 3 September Gastev was questioned at the KGB headquarters in Vladimir by Major P. I. Pleshkov, who is in charge of Case 38. During Gastev’s interrogation he was threatened with arrest.
On 1 September a group of Muscovites appealed to world public opinion in the following statement :
“Appeal to World Public Opinion
“We appeal to world public opinion on behalf of Yury Gastev, the well-known Moscow mathematician and philosopher, who is now in a dangerous situation. He is the author of scores of academic works and has a doctoral degree in philosophy. His work is well known in the USSR and abroad. He is a member of some foreign academic societies.
“During the last three months Yury Gastev has been subjected to searches on three occasions. He has been repeatedly summoned for questioning. He has been threatened with arrest. However the most astonishing circumstance in Gastev’s case is that the formal pretext for this persecution is the so- called Case 38, in which the Vladimir KGB is investigating the Russian nationalist journal Veche, a journal with which Gastev has not the slightest connection.
“It is hard to understand what exactly the security organs hope to gain by linking Gastev with the Veche case. which is itself artificially manufactured and blown-up.
“We would remind world public opinion that Yury Gastev has already spent four years in Stalinist camps in the post-war years, when he was only a youth. His father, Alexei Gastev, an outstanding worker and revolutionary, a scholar and a poet, the director of the Central Labour Institute, was arrested by the NKVD in 1938 and shot. His mother and two of his brothers spent many years in Stalinist labour camps and prisons. Another brother was killed at the front during the war with the Germans.
“Yury Gastev began to be persecuted again in 1968, for his defence of the mathematician A. Esenin-Volpin. Since then he has periodically been deprived of employment.
“We call on the world academic public to come to the defence of Yury Gastev. We appeal especially to mathematicians and philosophers.
[Signed]
Igor Shafarevich, Valentin Turchin, Mikhail Agursky, Andrei Tverdokhlebov, Yury Orlov,
Anatoly Levitin-Krasnov, Vladimir Albrekht, Alexander Lavut, Grigory Rozenshtein, Tatyana Velikanova, Sergei Kovalyov.
1 September 1974, Moscow”
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In early autumn 1974 Sergei Pirogov (CCE 32.5) was visited in camp by N. N. Belyayev, an investigator of the Arkhangelsk KGB, who questioned him about Osipov and the journal Veche.
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From July to October 1974 the following people were questioned in connection with Case 38: I. V. Ovchinnikov, A. M. Ivanov, Viktor Polenov and Yury Pirogov (both of Yaroslavl), Ivan Cherdyntsev, Svetlana Melnikova, Aida Khmelyova, Ilyakov (of Kiev), Adel Naidenovich, Georgy Petukhov, and Zaitsev.
During the interrogations references were made to evidence given by a certain Dyakonov.
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On 27 November 1974, in the town of Alexandrov (Vladimir Region), searches were carried out at the homes of Vladimir Osipov and Vyacheslav S. Rodionov. The warrant for the search of Osipov’s home stated that ‘investigations conducted under Case 38 have established that V. N. Osipov has published and disseminated the illegal typewritten journals Veche and Zemlya, in which certain articles contain slanderous fabrications defaming the Soviet political and social system’.
The search at Osipov’s home took place in his absence and in the presence of his wife, Valentina Mashkova. After the three-hour search Mashkova was forcibly taken to the headquarters of the Aleksandrov city KGB for questioning, but she refused to make any statements.
Rodionov, too, was taken by force to the KGB headquarters in Alexandrov for interrogation, likewise after a three-hour search at his home. After protesting against the fact that he had been forced to come for interrogation, he refused to answer any questions. Major Pleshkov, who was questioning him, said: ‘You should all be rounded up and imprisoned till you rot!’
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“Appeal Regarding the Arrest of Vladimir Osipov
“On 28 November 1974 Vladimir Osipov was arrested in the town of Alexandrov in Vladimir region. He is the former editor of the manually-produced journal Veche and the current editor of the journal Zemlya, and he has already spent seven years in a corrective labour camp for being a member of a small political group. His arrest was the outcome of the criminal investigation Case 38, concerning Veche, which has been dragging on for half a year now and has involved scores of interrogations and searches.
“As everyone knows, the journals Veche and Zemlya were published quite openly. The editor’s name was given in every issue of the journals.
“Vladimir Osipov always retained the position of a loyal citizen and called on his readers to do the same, although he criticised the ruling ideology in various ways for its lack of attention to the cultural heritage of the Russian people and for the destruction of the country’s ancient buildings. In particular, he advised his readers to avoid confrontations with the authorities and to concentrate their efforts on doing something about the inner problems of national life. The destruction of the journals Veche and Zemlya shows that in contravention of the constitution of the USSR, which guarantees freedom of the press, even publication of politically loyal typewritten journals is regarded as a threat to the State system.
“We call on all those who are not indifferent to freedom in the USSR to come to the defence of freedom of speech and of the press in the USSR, and to the defence of Osipov, a victim of unjust, unconstitutional persecution.“
[Signed]
“Igor Shafarevich, Valentin Turchin, Yury Orlov, Leonid Borodin, Mikhail Agursky, Sergei Kovalyov, Tatyana Velikanova, Tatyana Khodorovich, Igor Khokhlushkin, Vadim Borisov, Alexander Voronel, Vladislav Ilyakov, Vyacheslav Rodionov, Nikolai Ivanov, Stanislav Sery, Andrei Grigorenko.
29 November 1974“
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NOTES
- Popovich was later sentenced to eight years in strict-regime camps, plus five years in exile, and sent to camp 3 in Mordovia. As of 1976 the Chronicle had provided no information on her trial or her life in captivity.
In 1977 (CCE 46.23-2) 52-year-old Popovich was being held in Mordovia Camp 3-4. Article 70, pt. 2; eight years strict, five years exile. Due for release 1986 (November). Serious health condition, on crutches after operation.
↩︎ - On Veche and its founding editor, see 16.1 Social Issues, Veche, Poiski, Obshchina (1969-1980).
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A Chronicle of Current Events 