<< No 40 : 20 May 1976 >>

THIRTY-ONE ITEMS

[1]

At the end of December 1975, in Vladimir Prison A. Sergiyenko [Ukr. Oles Serhiyenko] had a visit from his mother, Oksana Meshko, during which he told her that his health had taken a sharp turn for the worse: Sergienko has tuberculosis. Since then, no letters have been received from Sergienko. His mother has received information that he was put in the cooler for two weeks in March 1976.

On 30 April 1976, Meshko had a talk about her son with a doctor specializing in tuberculosis at the Health Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The doctor informed her that her son was receiving treatment with medicines. Meshko responded:

“But surely it is customary to give tubercular patients supplementary food and longer exercise periods: after all, his cell has only diffused light and no sunshine at all. And is the cooler really allowed in tubercular cases?”

A. “We cannot make changes in the prison regime: if he has broken the rules, he will be put in the cooler. We only give medical treatment.”

Meshko asked the doctor about the possibility of her son being released.

A. “Do you know who gets released early? Stretcher cases. And we manage that only with difficulty.”

To this, Oksana Meshko replied that the release of a dying man was chiefly of benefit to the prison: its statistics looked better and it did not have to care for the prisoner. Credit did not belong to the doctors:

“You would do better to release people in time to forestall their deaths.”

A.”That is not in our power. Ask the Main Administration for Corrective Labour Institutions for a change in a prisoner’s regime.”

On the same day Meshko went to the RSFSR Procurator’s Office to see Bolysov, the relevant supervisory procurator. There she tried to find out why her seriously ill son had been put in the cooler for two weeks. In reply Bolysov told her that her son had written 84 complaints in the last year, besides which he had written not only about himself, but also about others. When O. Meshko asked what exactly her son had complained about, Bolysov replied that the complaints consisted of impermissible expressions and that he could not repeat them all.

Bolysov regretted that O. Ya. Meshko had brought her son up badly. She replied:

“It did not fall to me to bring him up, as I was in a camp for ten years. He was brought up by his school and society, and I feel that he was quite well brought up if he stands up for others when he’s in great difficulty himself.”

On 4 May O. Meshko was received at the Main Administration for Corrective Labour Institutions. Here she again suggested that such a prison-regime should not be applied to her son and insisted on the necessity of his release on medical grounds. Finally, she suggested: ‘If my son and I don’t fit in here, let us go abroad.’ At this the interviewer showed some interest.

*

[2]

MOSCOW. At the end of August 1975 Andrei Konstaninovich IVACHKIN (an engineer by education, b. 1942) was summoned to the KGB headquarters for the Kiev district of Moscow, as a result of a declaration made by a certain person.

In the words of the KGB officials, the author of the declaration had handed in a copy of the book The Gulag Archipelago by A. Solzhenitsyn, and had written that he had got it from Ivachkin. The KGB officials, threatening to make out a case against him under Article 70 (RSFSR Criminal Code), demanded that Ivachkin should tell them where he had obtained the book by Solzhenitsyn and to whom he had given it. A. Ivachkin declared in writing that it was the first time he had seen the book.

Just over two months later, on the evening of 31 October 1975, some men in police uniform and some in civilian clothes came to A. Ivachkin’s room and took him by force to Police Station 7. In the morning he was given a 15-day sentence by Judge Dyakov.

Soon someone calling himself ‘Sonny’ appeared in his cell, introducing himself as a professional thief. ‘Sonny’ questioned Ivachkin about his relations with Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn, asked him about the Gulag Archipelago and promised to help him by phoning his friends and telling them what had happened. Sonny’ stories about himself and his case later turned out to be lies.

Ivachkin was interviewed by First Lieutenant V. I. Likhachev and Lieutenant-Colonel Lidov, head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the district police station in the Leningrad district. They threatened to make out a case against him under various Articles of the Criminal Code. As an alternative, they proposed that he should be honest with them and co-operate.

When he was released A. Ivachkin made a complaint to the Procurator’s Office about the actions of the police. Assistant procurator Gorokhova replied that Ivachkin had been legally sentenced.

Bloodshot bruises and finger-marks on his neck, the result of the violence used during his arrest, were registered at a medical station at Ivachkin’s insistence.

*

[3]

MOSCOW. On the evening of 15 April Sergei D. Khodorovich (see “The Trial of Tverdokhlebov”, CCE 40.2) was brought before Judge Kutergin at the Lyublino district court.

The written testimony by witnesses of his detention was absent from the ca.se materials, and neither were these witnesses questioned. The head of Police Station 103 had told them that the trial would take place only on the following day.

The judge read S. Khodorovich extracts from reports made by policemen and vigilantes, which contained fantastic allegations about his behaviour;

Khodorovich said these were lies. The judge wrote out an order and told Khodorovich that he would be under arrest for 15 days for wilfully disobeying the police.

For the first two days Khodorovich was held at Police Station 103, where he was not given any food, but food parcels were accepted. For the remaining 13 days, he was put in the remand cells at Police Station 71. There the following regime was in force: prisoners had to sleep on the bare floor; from 6 am to 11 pm lying down was forbidden; no parcels were accepted; smoking was forbidden; there was no towel, toothbrush or handkerchief; shaving and cutting one’s nails were forbidden, and there was nothing to do it with; there was no bath or shower throughout the 15 days. The cell was not ventilated and there was no exercise period. The food was as follows: 8 am, tea without sugar, with bread; 3 pm, soup with a meatball with vegetables; 8 pm, half-sweet tea with bread.

While he was under arrest, Khodorovich categorically refused to work. On 30 April S. D. Khodorovich was released.

On 20 April S. Khodorovich’s wife sent a complaint to the district procurator. She asked for the case to be reconsidered with the participation of the witnesses. There was no reply to this complaint.

*

[4]

MOSCOW. On 17 April 1976, during the Jewish Passover, some men who refused to show any identification detained two young Jews in Arkhipov Street, near the synagogue. They also beat one of them up, Andrei Okunev.

The names of two of those who beat him up have become known: Viktor Vasilevich Korotkikh and Mikhail Alexandrovich Grudman (or Grutman).

Okunev was taken to police post 6 of Police Station 26, where he was searched and beaten up again. This took place in the presence of Yury Nikolayevich Bannikov, head of the mass-defence section of the Kalinin District Komsomol Committee.

At Police Station 26, investigator Kravtsov said to Okunev: ‘Where did you say they hit you? I’ll hit you in the same spot!’ Kravtsov removed Okunev’s testimony about the beating from the interrogation record.

A medical examination, carried out on 18 April at the medical station of the Volgograd district in Moscow, recorded the traces of the beating.

*

[5]

KAMESHKOVO, VLADIMIR REGION. On 13 April 1976, in the evening, two district police officials, Lieutenant N, I. Karplyuk and Inspector V. D. Zhigarev, came to the flat of Victor Nekipelov, “to check up”, as they said, “what Nekipelov was doing there and if there were any anti-Soviet people there”. They also asked where Nekipelov kept his firearms.

They explained their actions by saying that Nekipelov had been ‘inside’ recently (trial CCE 32.4) and referred to a secret order from the head of the district department for internal affairs.

V. A. Nekipelov wrote a protest against the unlawful police entry into his flat.

*

[6]

MAGADAN. At the beginning of November 1975 G. Bogolyubov got to know from his neighbours that, in his absence, unknown persons had visited his flat.

On 11 November 1975 Bogolyubov was detained on the street, taken to a police station and questioned about two explosions which had occurred (according to his interrogators) in Magadan on 8 and 9 November. The detained man categorically rejected the accusation of involvement in the explosions, considering the question to be a provocation.

At the police station, Bogolyubov was subjected to an unsanctioned search, while his attempt to resist this illegal act was met by violence. “We’re not the KGB, who might still stop to discuss philosophy with you!” said one of the policemen, hitting him in the stomach. They pulled out of Bogolyubov’s shopping-bag the ‘Letter of F. Raskolnikov to Stalin’ [¹], the ‘Letter of E. Genri to Ehrenburg’ and other samizdat texts. No record was made of the search, in spite of requests by Bogolyubov to do so.

Then he was taken home, and here KGB official V. S. Myasnikov, police official Vodopyanov and others carried out a search. They confiscated two volumes of The Gulag Archipelago, issues 1 and 2 of the journal Kontinent, the novel August 1914 by Solzhenitsyn and Ten Years after ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ by Zh. Medvedev. The search took place without a warrant from the procurator and without a record being made.

Gennady Bogolyubov, born 1942, works as a house painter at the ‘Magadanstroi’ construction firm. In September 1975 he was called as a witness at the trial of Vladimir Osipov (CCE 37.2). He did not attend the trial because of illness.

*

[7]

MAGADAN. On 4 December 1975 Viktor Gridasov (CCE 39.11 [9]), a worker in one of the city’s building organizations, was summoned to the KGB headquarters for a talk with assistant procurator Solovyov and Kiselev, the head of the KGB operations section. The conversation concerned Gridasov’s intention of renouncing Soviet citizenship (he had announced this in a letter to the Supreme Soviet) and his links with US consul Napper.

Gridasov was warned that his contacts with foreigners were regarded as criminal activity and that, if he continued such contacts, he would be “placed in a psychiatric hospital” or subjected to ‘more effective measures’.

When Gridasov asked what ‘more effective measures’ they had in mind, he received no answer.

*

[8]

MOSCOW. On 1 April 1976 the historian and Orientalist Mikhail Semyonovich BERNSTAM was summoned to the reception rooms of the USSR KGB. There he had a conversation with KGB Major-General Vasily Petrovich Zakharov and First Lieutenant Yury Semyonovich Zdornov.

Zakharov said that the authorities were in possession of evidence that Bernstam was helping to compile a collection of writings Across the Bog (a summary of this philosophical-journalistic collection was among the material confiscated from the Leningraders Tron and Zemtsov, CCE 39.13 [14]). Zakharov accused Bernstam of initiating and organizing the forthcoming collection and told him that, if the volume were published, Bernstam would soon be brought to book under Article 70. If Bernstam managed to escape punishment (he was getting ready to emigrate, Chronicle), one of his friends would be arrested: “By the way, Vladimir Borisov is apparently waiting for you downstairs. Tell him that he’s in a critically dangerous position; he would do well to emigrate too.”

M. Bernstam told the KGB officials that, as far as he knew, the collection Across the Bog was not going to be published.

The conversation was carried on calmly. Bernstam was offered assistance in obtaining work or in getting emigration visas for himself and his family.

After the unofficial talk Bernstam was read a ‘warning’ under the Decree of 25 December 1972. Bernstam signed the ‘warning’, but added his protest against the accusations made against him.

This was the second ‘Warning’ issued to M. Bernstam. The first was in October 1974.

On 22 April Bernstam was again summoned to the KGB, and V. B. Zakharov declared that, according to information he had, Bernstam was continuing to work on the collection. Zakharov emphasized that the warning remained in force, wherever and under whatever title the collection might appear.

V. V. Grevskaya, Mikhail Bernstam’s wife, and her daughter are experiencing delay in obtaining permission to emigrate.

*

[9]

LENINGRAD. On 16 March 1976 officials of the Leningrad KGB asked Roman Gordeyev, a senior engineer at the Scientific Research Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics of Leningrad State University, a Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, to have a talk with them. The talk took place at Gordeyev’s home. He was questioned for over five hours about his acquaintances and the books he was reading. Gordeyev was told that the improvement of his living conditions depended on his answers (the Gordeyevs and their two pre-school children have 12 square metres of living-space). Gordeyev refused to answer questions about his acquaintances.

At the end of the conversation it was suggested to Gordeyev that he should voluntarily hand over any ‘literature’ he had; threats were made that if he did not, a search warrant would be sent for. Gordeyev handed over some books, including Forever Flowing’ by V. Grossman. When the KGB officials asked him to give a written undertaking that he would not take part in anti-Soviet activities, Gordeyev wrote that he would not take part in activity which was contrary to the Constitution,

On the same day, officials questioned Gordeyev’s former wife about him; on the next day, they questioned a close friend of his.

*

[10]

MOSCOW. Details have become known of a conversation between KGB official A. Shevchuk and V. Arkhangelskaya, wife of Vladimir Arkhangelsky, who was sentenced in September last year (CCE 38.19 [34]).

Shevchuk took part in the search carried out at the Arkhangelskys’ flat on 15 July 1975. A few days later, he came to see V. Arkhangelskaya and, while trying to persuade her to co-operate, he expressed a few interesting opinions:

“All sorts of false rumours are going round about us, but in actual fact those who work for the KGB are simple Soviet people, the sort you find anywhere. I myself once worked in a factory, then I was transferred, and now I’m doing investigative work … People react to me in different ways. If they don’t let me in through the door, I climb in through a window …

“They tell all sorts of horror stories about prisons, but it’s all lies. Take Tverdokhlebov, for instance: he had gold crowns put on his teeth in prison, ate his fill and got quite fat… The food’s good there, and you’ve got lots of free time when you can do what you like, read or work … But in general, I don’t have much experience of this; I don’t have anything to do with prisons, I’m interested in other matters …

“We don’t try these people for their beliefs but for collecting all the dirt, carrying it out of our hut and giving it to the West. There are defects everywhere, in our country as well, but we have a lot that’s good and they just collect all sorts of dirt …

“What do they all want? They’re almost all educated people, but they’re not satisfied. Take [Vladimir] Albrekht … he’s too clever by far, that dishevelled type … Your husband isn’t doing the work he was trained for either. They’re doing that on purpose, to show how bad things are here …

“Your husband will have to spend some time inside, that’ll cool him down. But if you help us, he’ll come back to his family and everything will be all right… We must unite our forces to get him out …

“In Israel, one has to work there; here things are easier in that regard … If we had the necessary authorization, we could send everyone to gaol at once … That would be easier for us … But we try to re-educate people, rather than imprison them again ….”

*

[11]

LENINGRAD. On 24 February, the day the 25th Congress of the CPSU opened, three young people scattered about one hundred leaflets from the gallery of the Gostinny Dvor building onto the Nevsky Prospekt (see CCE 51.8 [3]). The leaflets were printed in Russian; the text ended with the words: ‘Long live the New Revolution! Long live Communism!’

On 4 March one of those who took part in this action was arrested, Andrei Reznikov, a 17-year-old 1st-year student at Leningrad University’s faculty of mathematics and mechanics, a graduate of Mathematical School 121. Charges were preferred against him under Article 190-1 (RSFSR Criminal Code). Reznikov was under investigation for about a month in the inner prison of the Leningrad KGB (‘the Big House’), after which he was released into the custody of his parents. His case was passed on to the Minors’ Commission of the Leningrad City Soviet Executive Committee. He has not been formally expelled from the university, but is not allowed to attend lectures.

The two other participants in the events of 24 February (who were either in their last year at school or had left school last year) are being summoned for questioning. Graduates of Mathematical School 121 are being questioned, among them Strogov, a 1st-year student at Leningrad University’s faculty of history. A 15-year-old senior pupil from School 317 has been interrogated for ten hours. Many of those questioned are members of the city tourist club, of which Reznikov had also been a member. Almost all those questioned have been expelled from school and from the Komsomol. In School 317 the expulsions from the Komsomol took place at a Komsomol bureau meeting (without a preliminary investigation by the local Komsomol organization); speeches were made by orators from the district committee of the Party; and a representative of the KGB was present. Reznikov’s former class-teacher was sacked, as was the secretary of the school’s Party organization. In School 121 a sharp reduction in the number of Class 9s and Class 10s is being planned (instead of nine or ten there will be only two next year); in connection with this, a massive reduction in the number of teachers is planned.

A pupil from Class 10 at School 121 who won the All-Union Mathematics Olympics this year is not being allowed to go abroad for the International Olympics.

Searches connected with this case were carried out at the homes of A. Reznikov and V. Smirnov.

*

[12]

MOSCOW. Anatoly Uvarov from Novosibirsk, a research officer at the Computer Centre of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Siberian section), was arrested in Moscow at the beginning of April. During the visit to the Soviet Union of Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden, Uvarov was detained near the Swedish Embassy. He was wearing banners with roughly the following messages on them: ask for asylum, “I don’t know any military secrets.”

Anatoly Uvarov was sent to the Serbsky Institute. Further details of his fate are unknown to the Chronicle.

*

[13]

BASHKIRIA. In the town of Oktyabrskoye, Popov, author of some verses ruled to be anti-Soviet, has been arrested, declared not responsible and sent for compulsory medical treatment.

A friend of Popov’s, a student at the faculty of law at Ufa University (his name is unknown to the Chronicle) wrote a declaration in support of Popov and asked to be called as a witness at his trial [correction CCE 41.15]. He was then subjected to an investigation by the Komsomol authorities. A hearing took place in the middle of April. The ‘defendant’ made a speech, speaking highly of Popov and saying that he considered him to be mentally normal and that his persecution was unjust. The meeting expelled the student from the Komsomol and recommended his expulsion from the university. The resolution was passed with a majority of only seven in an open vote.

*

[14]

PYATIGORSK. On 15-19 September 1975 a court hearing took place in Pyatigorsk concerning the application of measures of a medical character to Mikhail Stefanovich ZVEREV. The defending lawyer was a local man; the legal representative of the defendant was his wife.

Zverev was accused of disseminating about 20 articles libelling the Soviet system, and of compiling and disseminating leaflets of a libellous nature (he sent these documents by post, by putting them in post-boxes). He was arrested on 5 February 1975. The charge against him was at first formulated under Article 190-1, but in the course of the investigation it was re-defined under Article 70. In the spring of 1975 Zverev was sent for a forensic-psychiatric diagnosis to the Serbsky Institute. He was declared not responsible, the diagnosis being ‘paranoid development of the personality’ (reformist delusions, an uncritical attitude to himself, and so on).

The court issued an order for compulsory treatment in a special hospital.

An appeal was made against the decision by Zverev’s wife, as the defence lawyer refused to appeal against the court order. The appeal court, which took place in Stavropol on 14 November 1975, upheld the decision of the court.

At the end of December 1975 M. Zverev was put in the Chernyakhovsk SPH (Special Psychiatric Hospital) in the Kaliningrad Region.

*

Zverev is 50 years old and an electrical engineer. He has two children. His daughter is a 7-year-old schoolgirl. His son is 18 and is serving in the army.

There was a short report about M. S. Zverev in CCE 39.3.

*

[15]

KIEV. Viktor Mikhailovich MARESIN, who was arrested in the summer of the year before last on suspicion of participating in a money-forging group, expressed some ‘anti-Soviet opinions’ in the course of the investigation.

In December 1974 Maresin was sent for a psychiatric diagnosis and declared to have become ill in the course of the investigation. The diagnosis was schizophrenia in paranoid form.

The trial of the forgers has taken place; Maresin’s case has apparently been separated, and the investigation of it has been suspended. Maresin himself is in Kiev psychiatric hospital No. 21. According to the doctor treating him, he is in danger of being transferred to the Dnepropetrovsk SPH. The same doctor is of the opinion that a man who holds the views expressed by Maresin should not be living in freedom.

Viktor Maresin is the brother of Valery Maresin, whose trial is reported (CCE 40.6) in this issue of the Chronicle.

*

[16]

UKRAINE. In January 1976 a member of the ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ sect was tried in the town of Zhdanov [Mariupol] for refusing to serve in the Soviet army. The details are unknown to the Chronicle.

*

[17]

VOLGOGRAD REGION. In the town of Uryupinsk 19-year-old Kirill Dmitrievich SONIN was sentenced for refusing to serve in the Soviet army out of religious motives.

*

[18]

Viktor Petrovich CHAMOVSKIKH (CCE 33.6-3 [16]), after serving his 4-year sentence in a camp, was sent into exile, where he was placed under open administrative surveillance.

(In the summer of 1975 the police of Chuna settlement, Irkutsk Region, tried to place the exile Anatoly Marchenko under surveillance, but this attempt was blocked as unlawful by the procurator’s office.)

On 24 April 1976 Chamovskikh was sentenced to one year in the camps for infringing the surveillance rules.

*

[19]

On 5 February (in CCE 39 this date was wrongly given as 5 January) Vyacheslav Petrov, co-defendant of Georgy Davydov (trial CCE 29.2), finished his term in the camps and was sent from Perm Camp 35 to a two-year exile.

On 18 February he arrived at Tomsk Prison, and on the following day he went on hunger-strike, demanding that he be allowed to travel to Moscow and Leningrad to visit the procurator’s office (Petrov is trying to prove that some of the charges in the indictment against him were false).

He continued his hunger-strike even when he was transferred from the prison to his place of exile, the settlement of Kargasek. On 4 March he reached this place. Petrov ended his hunger-strike on 8 March, but is continuing to demand permission for his trip.

*

[20]

PERM. On 20 March Gennady Paramonov was released from an ordinary psychiatric hospital (CCE 38.19 [14]).

*

[21]

VLADIMIR. Between 10 and 20 May Mikhail I. Kukobaka was released from an ordinary psychiatric hospital (CCE 39.3).

*

[22]

JELGAVA, LATVIAN SSR. The investigation in the case of Mikhail Alexandrovich NARITSA, who was charged under Article 198 (Latvian SSR Criminal Code = Article 190-1, RSFSR Code), has come to an end. Two forensic-psychiatric diagnoses, in Riga and at the Serbsky Institute (by Professor Lunts), have declared Naritsa responsible.

On 7 May Naritsa was taken from the prison in Riga, where the investigation took place, to Jelgava. The procurator in Jelgava told Naritsa that he was being released from detention on condition that he signed a promise not to leave town. The procurator said that it had not yet been decided if the case should be handed over to a court, or if proceedings should be stopped, and that a great deal depended on Naritsa himself: “Do you promise to change your behaviour?” Naritsa replied by asking: “Are you trying to forbid me to do creative work?” and did not promise anything.

At the same time, Naritsa’s wife was talking to her husband’s recently appointed new investigator. He told her that Naritsa was no longer under arrest and returned some of Naritsa’s works, which had been confiscated in searches; two or three stories and the manuscript of a textbook called Perspective.

*

Naritsa was arrested on 20 November 1975 (CCE 38.11).

On 3 December he was taken to Riga psychiatric hospital. Here he refused to answer the doctor’s questions, which resembled an interrogation, and resisted an injection. Then two policemen, an assistant doctor and an orderly severely beat him up. The policeman also threatened to charge Naritsa with assaulting them and to draw up the corresponding testimony.

On 20 May 1976, the six-month term allotted for investigation of the case, including the time needed for Naritsa and his lawyer to study the case, comes to an end. The evidence on which the charges are based consists exclusively of Naritsa’s own works. He refused to give any evidence himself.

*

[23]

VILNIUS. The lawyer who will lodge a supervisory appeal in the case of Sergei Kovalyov received permission on 17 May from the Supreme Court of the Lithuanian SSR to examine the case materials, but was not able to obtain the materials themselves.

It turned out that they had been demanded by the Lithuanian KGB and then sent to Moscow.

*

[24]

MOSCOW. During the ‘Nobel Prize campaign’ against A. D. Sakharov an article by Max Leon from the PCF newspaper L’Humanité was reprinted in Literaturnaya gazeta on 3 December 1975. A week later the same newspaper printed a letter from the “well-known progressive writer” Mary Dawson from Canada.

Victor Kudrin, a research officer at one of the institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences, sent Leon and Dawson a letter protesting against this. At the same time, he sent a copy of the letter to Literaturnaya gazeta, asking that it should be published.

On 15 March 1976 Ya. Borovoi (of the foreign department of Literaturnaya gazeta) sent Kudrin the following reply:

“In our paper, we do indeed have a good tradition of giving people with differing points of view the opportunity to defend them. However, such an opportunity is given only on condition that the opponents (whatever they disagree about) should feel sympathy for our system and desire success in the task of building Communism in the USSR.

“We do not intend to make Literaturnaya gazeta a platform for lampoonists and enemies of our society.”

*

[25]

MOSCOW. In September 1975 Yermakov, the head of the editorial staff for Soviet literature of the Literary Encyclopaedia, was dismissed by order of the Chairman of the State Publishing Committee. He was told orally that he was being dismissed for continuing to criticize the Cult of Personality, and that under this guise people were working for him who did not find our reality to their taste.

Some of the employees of the editorial staff fear that they too might become unemployed.

The conflict began after the editorial staff prepared a ‘Literature’ section in the article on the RSFSR for the 22nd volume of the Large Soviet Encyclopaedia. Earlier, this editorial staff had produced a similar article on ‘Russian Soviet literature’ for volume 6 of the Literary Encyclopaedia, which was published in 1972.

The text of the new article (essentially repeating the ‘canonized’ earlier text) was sent back from the Party Central Committee with the following cuts: references to the 20th Party congress were removed, as well as references to the 1958 resolution of the Central Committee, which softened the well-known resolution of 1948; and in a list of ‘classics’, Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Tvardovsky’s Tyorkin in the Next World and Victor Nekrasov’s In the Trenches of Stalingrad were deleted.

The head of the editorial staff was in fact dismissed for protesting against these changes.

Seven members of the editorial board of the Literary Encyclopaedia sent a letter to the Central Committee’s Department of Culture, expressing their disquiet at the situation developing on the editorial staff. They received no reply. Alexei Surkov, chief editor and member of the editorial board of the Large Soviet Encyclopaedia’s literature section, declared that he would resign from both positions if the changed text was published. He received no reply.

The article on the ‘RSFSR’ in volume 22 of the Large Soviet Encyclopaedia was published in a new version. According to rumour, A. Surkov is now refusing to work on the editorial staff and is not even signing editorial documents which are sent to him at home.

*

[26]

MOSCOW. At a meeting of the Learned Council of the Higher Nervous Activity Institute in mid-April, an official of the institute, Podachin, suggested that a request be made to the Higher Degrees Awards Commission (VAK) that Yury Geinisman, who emigrated to Israel three years ago, should be deprived of his doctor’s degree.

The proposal was supported by Academician Asratyan, director of the institute, and it was unanimously adopted. Then someone remembered that two years ago Myslobodsky (D.Sc., Biology) [correction CCE 41.15] had also emigrated to Israel. The same decision was taken concerning him.

*

[27]

MOSCOW. On 12 April 1976, the day after the election of people’s judges, Tatyana S. Khodorovich called a press conference.

She described how, the day before, attempts had been made to persuade her to go and vote:

“In our country only sentenced criminals and mentally ill people don’t vote.”

“What would it cost you to go? Go there, cross it out and that’s all there is to it.”

“If you don’t go, we shall give the empty room in your flat, which your daughter is applying for, to other tenants.”

Khodorovich explained to foreign correspondents the reasons for her refusal to vote: elections with only one candidate are not elections; Soviet courts are not subordinate to the law; and the elected judges are members of the CPSU and are therefore not independent.

*

[28]

The writer Anatoly Gladilin has left the USSR.

See CCE 39.13 [17] for details of his expulsion from the Writers’ Union.

*

[29]

Josif Meshener has left the USSR (CCE 16.10 [9]). Meshener’s release after five years in labour camps under Article 62 (UkSSR Criminal Code = Article 70, RSFSR Code) was reported in CCE 39.2-2.

*

[30]

At the end of March eight ‘unofficial’ artists from Moscow and Leningrad asked the Visa Department (OVIR) to allow them to spend six months travelling in Europe and America, so that they could study foreign art.

They suggested visits to France, Yugoslavia, Poland, East Germany, West Germany, Italy, Canada and the USA. The artists were ready to pay for the expenses of their travel in the following way: each person would take two pictures with him to sell. In addition, they intended to paint pictures abroad and sell them. The suggested group consisted of: Yu. A. Zharkikh, V. A. Ovchinnikov, I. I. Kiblitsky, A. O. Kropivnitsky, V. E. Kropivnitsknya, O. Ya. Rubin, E. L. Rukhin and N. V. Elskaya.

At the beginning of April an OVIR inspector told the artists on the telephone that their application would not be considered. The reasons for this refusal were that OVIR did not consider applications:

• (1) from groups of persons;
• (2) for visits to more than one country;
• (3) without an invitation from abroad.

In addition, the artists were told that in any case they would require character references from Party and professional organizations and from administrative authorities.

The artists sent a complaint to the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, insisting that they be given a proper answer.

*

[31]

On 30 April 1976 the poetess Anna Aleksandrovna BARKOVA died in Moscow at the age of 75, after a long serious illness which she originally contracted in the camps.

Barkova was born into a worker’s family, in the town of Ivanovo-Voznesensk. In the 1920s her collection of poetry Woman was published. The originality of her talent was highly praised at that time by Lunacharsky in his introduction to the collection. Blok and Bryusov commended her.

Barkova traversed a long road of imprisonment and exile [²]:

• from 1934 to 1939 her first imprisonment, followed by exile;
• from 1947 to 1956 her second imprisonment;
• from 1957 to 1965 her third imprisonment.

She was exculpated in full, at different times, in all three ‘cases’.

Her verses, marked by deep pessimism, sorrow, tragic feeling and sharpness of thought, passed from hand to hand in samizdat, both as individual leaflets and as small collections.

She was helped by Tvardovsky and Fedin to move from an old people’s home in Potma to Moscow, and also to obtain a pension. She was not a member of the Writers’ Union.

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NOTES

1. A reference to the letter of the Bolshevik Raskolnikov (Ilyn), criticising Stalin. Dated 17 August 1939, it was first published in the Paris émigré newspaper Novaya Rossiya on 1 October 1939 (see note 1, CCE 13.3).
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2. See selection of Barkova’s poems in Till My Tale is Told (1999; Russian edition 1989).
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