On the wave of ‘unofficial variety’ of the 1960s a club for unofficial singing was organized in Moscow in 1967 from a group of authors, singers and musicians (who often combined these roles).
Now, the Unofficial Song Club [USC] numbers about 200 group members (song clubs in higher educational institutions, schools, factories and even housing offices) and holds gatherings and contests near Moscow which attract thousands of participants.
The USC now has an artistic committee which operates under the aegis of the Moscow City Komsomol Committee and the Moscow City Trade Union Council, but at first, for several years, the Club was ‘nobody’s’, although its board had of its own accord suggested to the Komsomol that it should take it under its wing and give the club a more official character. This does not mean that in this period no attention was paid to the Club by Party and State bodies. Members of the USC were ‘summoned’, expelled from institutes (I. Boikov, chairman of the song club in Stankino), from the Komsomol (Valery Abramkin, also a chairman of the song club in the Moscow Chemical-Technological Institute), and from time to time the activities of the U S C in several institutes of higher education were forbidden.
The Moscow City Komsomol Committee ‘legalized’ the club in 1973. It is thought that the stimulus for this was the report on the activities of the USC given by a KGB representative at a plenary session of the Moscow City Party Committee.
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In 1975, soon after the establishment of the above-mentioned artistic committee, disagreements and dissatisfaction arose in the board of the USC. One of the critics, V. Abramkin, left the board. In the autumn of 1975 he was called into the Party committee of the institute where he worked and accused of frustrating the Komsomol’s initiatives and permitting antisocial attacks on its Moscow City Committee. Also put to Abramkin at the Party committee were such questions as: ‘What is your attitude to Solzhenitsyn? to the policies of the Party?’
Because of the disagreements in the USC board, in 1976 people began to hold ‘mini-meetings’, involving only some of the ‘groups’ of the Club, and some groups decided to gather quite independently of the USC. These meetings, fixed on non-working days in some open space, were called by their participants simply ‘Sundays’.
The day before the first ‘Sunday’, fixed for 1 May, V. Abramkin was summoned at work to the management, where two people from the KGB were waiting for him. They said that a statement had reached their organization from a number of comrades, and that these comrades had asked it to investigate Abramkin’s ‘anti-social activities’. The statement allegedly said that Abramkin was the chief organizer of an ‘anti-social gathering’ which was to take place on 1 May. The KGB officials refused to name these comrades or to show them the statements. They reminded Abramkin that they ‘had already had a friendly talk with him’ the previous autumn, and said that even then the KGB could have opened a criminal case against him, but had relied on his common sense. The KGB officers further demanded, threatening Abramkin with immediate dismissal, that he should promise not to participate personally in the ‘Mayevka’* and, also, to do everything he could to prevent it taking place. [*A Mayevka was a pre-revolutionary illegal May-day meeting.]
Nonetheless, the Mayevka look place on 1 May. Several dozen people gathered in the forest near Pionerskaya station (on the Belorussian rail line). Among other things, a composition was performed which included fragments from Campanella’s work City of the Sun, Korolenko’s letters to Lunacharsky, the speeches of procurator Krylenko, and the songs of Galich. They also sang songs of their own composition.
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At the end of May several people underwent investigation for this ‘Sunday’ in their Party committees at work.
On 28 May Alexander Mirzayan, a research officer at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, was interrogated by the Party organizer and another member of the Party committee. They asked him where the ‘anti-Soviet meeting’ had taken place, and whether he had taken part in it. They asserted that, according to reports which had reached the Party committee, Mirzayan was one of the organizers. Mirzayan replied that he had been invited to sing his songs, and that he was not an organizer of the meeting. The conversation lasted about half an hour.
Conversations about his songs had already been held with Mirzayan in the Party committee of the Institute and in the Moscow City Party Committee.
On 29 May Valery Zhulikov was called in to the Party committee of the Kommunar engineering works. They asked him who was the organizer of the ‘Sunday’, whether any proclamations had been read out, and whether the ‘Sundays’ had anything to do with religion.
On 31 May a conversation was held with Yekaterina Gaidamchuk, who works at the Moscow electro-mechanical factory. They suggested that she occupy herself with unofficial artistic performances in the factory and join the Party.
Reports had reached the Party committee about the 1 May meeting, they told her, saying that she was one of the organizers.
During April-May 1976, KGB officials talked more than once with Vitaly Akelkin, a participant in the mini-meeting, (Akelkin is the leader of the ‘Altruists’ group and one of the active organizers of the USC.) They proposed that Akelkin tell them about Abramkin’s activity, about the reasons for Abramkin’s leaving the USC, and about his, Akelkin’s, personal disagreements with him. They also asked whether Abramkin had given him anything to read. They asked that he answer the questions in writing.
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The following ‘Sundays’ were held on 23 May and 20 June 1976.
About 200 people gathered at each, Before the concert on 20 June, those who had gathered were informed about the conversations mentioned above. After this a document called ‘Information about the “Sundays”’ was read out. The necessity for the ‘Information’, in the words of those who read it out, arose because the Sunday meetings had evoked a number of wrong interpretations. It was said that the ‘Information’ was a sort of summary opinion of some of those who had gathered which in no way bound together the other participants in the meeting.
The contents of the ‘Information’:
- The ‘Sundays’ are intended for informal creative contacts which are fully independent.
- They are not an obstacle, despite the accusations already brought, to the initiatives of the Moscow City Komsomol Committee: the ‘Sundays’ are not held on the same days as large meetings.
- In view of the fact that the ‘Sundays’ have already been called ‘anti-Soviet demonstrations’ and ‘antisocial gatherings’, it is essential to state that the Sunday meetings do not have a political character, in no way contradict existing laws, and do not obstruct the work of official organizations.
- The ‘Sundays’ are not an organization (there are no leaders, regulations or permanent membership).
- Anyone who wishes to can perform any artistic item at the ‘Sundays’, and the degree of participation of each person in the ‘Sundays’ is defined exclusively by his personal actions; thus he cannot be seen as a co-participant in anything at all and cannot bear responsibility for another people’s actions.
- All participants in the ‘Sundays’ are reminded of the necessity of a considerate attitude to nature.
- In view of all these things, in the event of any actions subsequent to the above-mentioned conversations which have the aim of bringing the ‘Sundays’ to an end, it will be difficult to consider such actions as anything other than illegal persecution.
The 20 June concert began at noon and continued until six o’clock in the evening.
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