11 ITEMS.
IN DEFENCE OF SERGEI KOVALYOV (1-2).
[1]
A Letter of Appeal to Soviet Scientists and Scholars.
“Yesterday the Moscow biologist Sergei Kovalyov was sentenced in Vilnius.
“According to the classic traditions of Soviet justice, he has been sentenced to 10 years’ deprivation of liberty — seven years in camp and three in exile … The glory of Soviet science is talked of loudly and at length, and each of you feels that he shares something of that glory.
“Let us remember the shame of Soviet science and scholarship [1]: the lines of research which are forbidden, the schools rendered leaderless, the ineradicable stain of the ‘struggle against the cosmopolitans’, the scholars and scientists forced out of their fields of study and killed or tormented in the camps.
“Let us remember the newspapers of the 1930s, the demands for execution and payment in blood for ‘enemies of the people’ and the signatures of scholars and scientists underneath. Let us remember the betrayal of ideas and of friends. Scientists and scholars pronounced anathemas and conferred blessings. Surely those who by right of inheritance have taken over and are developing the glory of Soviet science and scholarship are, equally, partakers of its shame?
“Having accepted the title of Soviet scientist or scholar, we are obliged by the debt of our inheritance to accept and share the guilt of our predecessors and their responsibility for the recent past, even to take into account their dismal experience: our successors will have to pay for our sins.
“… I am not addressing those who are clearing a place for themselves at the expense of others. I am addressing those scientists and scholars who are painfully //straining their consciences for the sake of science and scholarship — surely you can see that this is self-deception? Surely you can sense that in making a choice between the fate of Sergei Kovalyov and research on the nucleus of cells, and favouring the latter, you are championing not science, but your own place in it? …
“The nature of the Vilnius trial and Sergei Kovalyov’s sentence is a demonstration experiment performed on you: tyranny is testing the limits of its present potential. Surely you will not, once again, allow it to find that potential to be boundless?
“I am not appealing to you by name; but I call upon each of you individually to feel personally responsible for what has happened and to seek and find convincing and active forms of protest.
“However dismal human experience may be, I cannot believe that there will be no-one among you who will dare to defend the honour of science and of Russia, and your own dignity as human beings and as scientists.
“Larisa J. Bogoraz (Candidate of Philological Science)
“13 December 1975”
*
[2]
178 people from 16 cities (Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tbilisi, Kharkov, Vilnius, Gorky, Pskov, Smolensk, Alexandrov, Luga, Donetsk, Tarusa, Kalinin, Dushanbe and Kaluga) and from the Crimea have issued this statement:
In Defence of Sergei Kovalyov
On 12 December 1975 Sergei Kovalyov, the well-known biologist and active participant in the human rights movement, was sentenced to seven years in camps under strict regime and to three years in exile.
In his public activity, which is what he was sentenced for, Kovalyov fights against tyranny and lawlessness and speaks out in defence of people persecuted for their beliefs. As an opponent, in principle, of violence, he fights with words: through verbal protest and wide-ranging, accurate information. He is one of those who publicly declared their responsibility for the distribution of the Chronicle of Current Events.
For this he has been convicted as an ‘especially dangerous State criminal’.
At his trial Sergei Kovalyov strove to defend the Chronicle and declarations supporting human rights in the USSR from charges of being libellous and illegal. By gross violations of the right of free speech and of the norms of legal procedure, the court compelled Kovalyov to renounce further participation in the trial.
The attempts to conceal this trial from the public and make it in practice a secret trial have been obvious. The aim of such trials and sentences is also obvious: they want to break our sense of civic responsibility and active sympathy and help for those whose rights have been crushed. They want to return us to the times when such trials took place to cries of organised approval, when not even one voice of protest was heard.
We believe that that age of suicidal and shameful silence in our country will not be repeated.
We demand a halt to persecution for exchanging ideas and information. We demand a halt to the persecution of people who champion human rights, who defend those who have fallen victim to political repression.
We demand the revocation of Sergei Kovalyov’s sentence, 19 January 1976.
M. Azbel, Ludmila Alexeyeva, G. Altunyan, S. Alber, V. Albrekht, A. Amalrik, E. Armand, D. Babich (Gemma Kvachevskaya), Tatyana Bayeva, E. Barabanov, T. Baskin, V. Bakhmin, I. Beilin, D. Beilina, N. Beloozerov, M. Bernstam, Larissa Bogoraz, Yelena Bonner-Sakharova, Ruth Bonner, Vad. Borisov, VI. Borisov, L. Borodin, V. Brailovsky, A. Bryksina (Kaleda), Nina Bukovskaya, B. Vail, Irina Valitova, K. Velikanova, Tatyana Velikanova, M. Voyenny, V. Voinovich, J. Volungevicius, V. Gayenko, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Yu. Gastev, S. Genkin, V. Gershuni, K. Gildman, Alexander Ginzburg, Ludmila Ginzburg, A. Gladilin, S. Goldman, Yu. Golfand, R. Gordeyev, R. Gorodinskaya, Zinaida Grigorenko, Yu. Grimm, Z. Dzeboyeva, I. Dudinsky, Fr. Dmitry Dudko, Josif Dyadkin, Father Sergy Zheludkov, Tatyana Zhitnikova, Irina Zholkovskaya, M. Zavelsky, Sh. Zakirov, T. Zaochnaya, N. Ivanov, K. Jokubinas, Olga Joffe, V. Isakova (Davydova), A, Kalinovskaya, Sophia Kalistratova, I. Kaplun, A. Karpovich, A. Kaulins, T. Kiblitsky, V. Kirpichnikov, V. Klebanov, L. Klemanova, I. Kovalyov, E. Kokorin, I. Koltunov, N. Komarova, L. Kopelev, I. Korneyev, Vladimir Kornilov, M. Korovin, A. Korchak, Merab Kostava, E, Kostyorina, V. Krivulin, I. Kristi, O. Kurganskaya, A. Lavut, Malva Landa, Vera Lashkova, E. Lebedeva, S. Levin, R. Levitanaite, A. Lerner, Raissa Lert, N. Lisovskaya, A. Lunts, G. Makudinova, V. Maresin, R. Medvedev, T. Mendzheritskaya, O. Meshko, A. Mizyakin, M. Mikulinsky, M. Mikhailov, L. Murzhenko, V. Nedobora, M. Nedrobova, V. Nekipelov, E. Nikolayev, M. Novikov, Ida Nudel, Yu. Orlov, E. Orlovsky, O. Okhapkin, Svetlana Pavlenkova, Yu. Perelman, A, Petrov-Agatov, A. Podrabinek, G. Podyapolsky, V. Pomozov, S. Ponomaryov, V. Petkus, V. Rakhmilevich, L. Regelson, V. Rodionov, G. Rozenshtein, N. Rozenshtein, M. Roizen, V. Ronkin, V. Rubin, I. Rubin, M. Rudenko, R. Rudenko, Galina Salova (Lyubarskaya), D. Samoilovich, A. Sakharov, T. Semyonova, E. Sirotenko, V. Slepak, V. Smolkin, E. Smorodinskaya, V. Sychev, Anastas Terleckas, L. Ternovsky, A. Tille, V. Timachev, E. Trifonov, E. Trubetskaya, V. Turchin, R. Urban, K. Uspensky (Kostsinsky), L. Finkelshtein, E. Finkelshtein, M. Khait, L. Khalif, S, Khakhayev, A. Khvostenko, A. Khmeleva, S. Khodorovich, Tatyana Khodorovich, I. Khokhlushkin, L. Tsypin, V. Chekatuyeva, T. Chernyshova, Lydia Chukovskaya, A. Ivich, E. Shabanov, L. Shabashov, N. Shatunovskaya, V. Sheinker, M. Shepelev, A. Shuster, A. Shcharansky, V. Shcheglov, A. Yagodnitsyn, E. Yakir. I. Yakir, R. Yakir, E. Yankelevich.
*
The following have also expressed their protest against continuing political repression
Political prisoners in
Vladimir Prison
V. Balakhonov, V. Bukovsky, Yu. Vudka, G. Davydov, L. Lukyanenko, K, Lyubarsky, M. Makarenko, I. Meshener, V, Pavlenkov, Z. Popadyuk, G. Rode, G. Superfin, Ya. Suslensky, A. Khnokh, A. Chekalin, B. Shakirov, Yu. Shukhevich.
Mordovia’s special-regime Camp
Ivan Hel, Svyatoslav Karavansky, Nikolai Kurchik, Mykhailo Osadchy, Vasyl Romanyuk, Danilo Shumuk.
Mordovia strict-regime women’s Camp No 3:
Nadiya Svetlichna, Iryna Senik, Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets, Stefania Shabatura.
Mordovian strict-regime Camps 3, 17 & 19
Paruir Airikyan, Alexander Bolonkin, Mikhail Kheifets, K. Matviyuk.
Urals (Perm) strict-regime Camps 35, 36 & 37
A. Altman, N, Bondar, S. Gluzman, N. Gorbal, I. Kalynets, I. Kandyba, Valery Marchenko, V. Petrov, V. Pidhorodetsky, I. Svetlichny, S. Soroka, Bagrat Shakhverdyan, O. Vorobyov, G. Mukhametshin, Yevhen Sverstyuk, V. Khaustov, Yu. Vasilyev and M. Kapranov.
POLITICAL EXILES
S. Malchevsky, Komi ASSR (Northwest Russia);
Anatoly Marchenko, Irkutsk Region (east Siberia).
ъъъъъъъъъъъъъъъъъъъъъъъъъъъ
[3]
An Open Appeal
During the CPSU Twenty-Fifth Congress, now taking place in our country, we are issuing a call to facilitate the solution of a question of the highest moral and political significance …
We call for a general political amnesty, for the release of political prisoners in prison psychiatric hospitals, and for legislative reform to liberalize the regime in places of imprisonment for all categories of prisoner.
Only when we are purged of this shame, of this nightmarish weight crushing people’s consciousness, can we think of the revitalization of the moral, political and even economic life of the country.
*
A political amnesty in the USSR and other countries of Eastern Europe would be a truly historical act of enormous significance for all mankind, would make a general political amnesty in the whole world possible, and through this would facilitate mutual understanding between peoples, genuine detente, humanism and peace.
We hope for a wider understanding of this in our country and abroad.
We especially appeal to all the delegates and guests of the Twenty-Fifth Congress of the CPSU, and to the leaders of the CPSU and of foreign delegations.
V. Turchin, Yu. Orlov, A, Sakharov, P. Grigorenko, A. Amalrik
23 February 1976.
*
[4]
Mikhail Kheifets’s mother has written to the genera! secretaries of the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union, Italy, France and Britain, requesting that her son be pardoned (CCE 32.6, CCE 34.2).
*
[5]
Oksana Yakovlevna MESHKO, a former prisoner of the Stalinist camps, has appealed to the CPSU 25th Congress to revoke the unfounded sentence on her son Alexander Serhiyenko (CCE 30.8, CCE 38.12-2). She writes:
“I am convinced that sooner or later he, too, will be exculpated’ [Meshko was herself exculpated in 1956, Chronicle] ‘Will this happen now, while he and I are both still alive?’
*
[6]
A. D. Sakharov: Interview with the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera (25 February 1976).
Sakharov answered four questions about his impressions of Brezhnev’s speech at the CPSU 25th Congress. Below is his reply to the fourth question:
*
Q4. On Civil Rights and Freedom of Belief.
In the corresponding passages of Brezhnev’s speech, one senses above all else the inveterate dogmatism, intolerance and hypocrisy of the bureaucracy which prepared the materials for the speech.
“In response to the continually growing concern of world public opinion about ongoing legal and psychiatric repression in the USSR, about forced labour, the agony, hunger and cold in the camps and prisons, and religious persecution, there have been only a few hypocritical and mendacious articles in the Soviet press, which have tried somehow to reject these reproaches.
“Yet how can one soften the impression made by the trial of Sergei Kovalyov, sentenced on a charge of circulating information about persecution to seven years of imprisonment and three years in exile by a judicial procedure in which the defence counsel and the accused himself did not participate?
“Or the impression given by the many years Grigorenko and Plyushch have spent in psychiatric prisons? Or by dozens of cases of children being taken away from religious parents? Or by the continuing discrimination against the Crimean Tatars, by the suffering of Mustafa Dzhemilev? Or by the fact that a 70-year-old doctor, V. F. Livchak, has not been able to see her daughter, who has left for Israel with her husband, for four years? [below, item 8]
“One could multiply the examples endlessly.
“Brezhnev says: ‘Every conversation about increasing discipline and social responsibility is portrayed there (i.e. in the West) as a violation of democracy.’ But it is not a question of conversations, but of the kinds of violations of rights which, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are an international matter.
“Demanding freedom of belief, therefore, and a general political amnesty in the USSR and in other socialist countries is not only a right, it is also the duty of honest people throughout the world.“
*
[7]
A letter from Jewish activists to the 25th CPSU Congress
(15 February 1976, 21 signatures).
” […] the existing situation contrasts sharply with recent declarations about freedom of emigration by Soviet officials …
“The following things must be done to eliminate situations like this:
“1. Guarantee in practice the preservation of civil rights for individuals who are petitioning to emigrate;
“2. Cease, in peacetime, calling up individuals for military service who have submitted documents for emigration; and
“3. Abolish secrecy in the procedure of examining a case for emigration.
“Conduct the analysis of a case in accordance with published legal norms, with the participation of the individual petitioning to emigrate, and on the basis of a realistic concept of secrecy, for example, that accepted in European countries.
*
“In each and every case of refusal, a specific term for the duration of the prohibition on emigrating must be indicated.“
*
[8]
V. F. Livchak: “Help me see my daughter” (23 February 1976).
For more than four years I have been trying to obtain a meeting with my only daughter, Marina Dolgoplosk, who lives in Israel …
My four-year epic is a scandalous mockery. It is a mockery against morality and humanity, against international obligations, and, in particular, against the Final Act on Security signed last year in Helsinki.
Having exhausted every possibility of achieving justice and my rights in the USSR, I appeal to the world public, to the world press, and to all people on earth who will not see any threat to the interests of the State in the efforts of a seventy-year-old woman to see her daughter and granddaughter.
*
[9]
Viktor Gridasov
Declaration to the Committee for Human Rights, & to A. D. Sakharov (12 December 1975).
The author (a resident of Magadan) reports that for three years now he has been unable to obtain permission to renounce his Soviet citizenship. On 27 November 1975 he was issued a caution under the Decree of 25 December 1972.
Letters sent to him by the American consul have not been reaching their destination.
*
[10]
A. M. Zinchenko
A Declaration to N. V. Podgorny (22 December 1975).
The author, an engineer from Kharkov (CCE 34.18 [7]) has been seeking permission to emigrate since June 1974.
The authorities demanded from him a written rejection of Soviet citizenship and a payment of 500 roubles for each adult member of his family as a condition of accepting his declaration of intention to emigrate. At the present time he has not received permission.
*
[11]
The writer and journalist Igor Dudinsky (Moscow) has circulated a statement in which he expresses his indignation at a search of his flat which took place in his absence on 29 December 1975.
During the search KGB officials (the investigator was Dobychin) confiscated Dudinsky’s literary archive and materials which he had brought back from his two-year exile in the Kolyma area (1972-1974), including materials on the economy and culture of Magadan Region and on the former Stalin-era network of Magadan camps [2].
===========================================
NOTES
- Russian language and culture use the same words, for science and scholarship [nauka], and for scientist and scholar [uchony]. To demonstrate the extent and nature of Larissa Bogoraz’s appeal both terms have been consistently added throughout the English version of the text.
1986 appeal following Marchenko’s death: Alexander Podrabinek, Znamya ///
↩︎ - See Map of Memory’s 18 entries for burial grounds, camps, prisons and execution sites in the Magadan Region.
↩︎
==================================
A Chronicle of Current Events 