- 30-1. Letters and Statements (15 items)
- 30-2 Documents 82-98 of Moscow Helsinki Group
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[1]
Sergei Khodorovich, “Appeal to the Press”.
One of the administrators of the Fund to Aid Political Prisoners (Relief Fund) writes about the threats to which Irina Zholkovskaya (Ginzburg), Yelena Sirotenko, Yelena Bonner and Andrei Sakharov are being subjected. They are all being threatened with physical reprisals from “persons unknown”.
“Publicity could avert this danger. But there is no such thing as publicity [glasnost] in our country. I therefore ask for assistance in publishing this appeal. Any radio-station in the world, any newspaper or magazine which publishes these facts will help to prevent a crime.”
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[2]
Gleb Yakunin
Protest to the Patriarch
On 2 April Father Gleb Yakunin, a member of the Christian Committee, sent the following ‘Protest’ to Pimen, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church:
“Twenty-five years have passed since Stalin’s death.
“The ‘Personality Cult’ has been condemned, even by the Communists themselves. But the Moscow Patriarchate has not only not repented for burning incense to ‘God’s Chosen Leader’, but now you, High Priest of All-Russia, a quarter of a century later, in your congratulatory address of 21 December [Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, No. 2] again throw a pinch of incense to our present leaders …
“You write ‘Your radiant image’, using an expression reserved only for saints or the deceased.
“In your message, what is most striking is the date: the 99th anniversary of Stalin’s birth. What is this — the irony of fate, or a persistent congratulatory reflex looking forward to the centenary year?
“Your Holiness, by taking part in the name of the whole Russian Orthodox Church in the revival over the last few years of the ‘Personality Cult’, you are causing deep concern among believers and further encouraging the discrediting of the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate.“
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[3]
Christian Committee
Protest to Council for Religious Affairs and the MVD
On 24 April the Christian Committee protested to Kuroyedov, Chairman of the Council for Religious Affairs, and to Shchelokov, USSR Minister of Internal Affairs, about the persecution of believers in places of detention.
The document contains the following paragraph:
“In places of detention believers are subjected to discrimination with regard to their right to practise their religion. They are deprived of access to religious literature, cannot see a priest for the performance of essential sacraments, and furthermore have no chance of receiving information in any way connected with religion …“
//The authors of the document demand that Soviet laws relating to believers in places of detention be observed and that those guilty of violating these laws be punished.
The Committee simultaneously appeal to Pope John-Paul II, to the Patriarchs of other Orthodox Churches and to the World Council of Churches. They explain the situation of believers in places of detention and ask for all possible help to alleviate their fate.
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[4]
Grigory Goldstein
- “Open Letter to American Scientists” (28 March 1979)
- “From the Memoirs of a Refusenik Prisoner” (15 April 1979)
- “To the USSR Minister of Internal Affairs” (18 May 1979)
- “To the USSR Procurator-General” (18 May 1979)
- “To the Izvestiya editorial office” (21 May 1979).
The author (CCE 49.2, CCE 53.19-2) talks of the trumped-up charge of parasitism for which he was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, and of the living conditions of prisoners in camp and transit prisons.
“The compartment of the prison carriage, intended normally for four people, held 17-20, The only food between transit prisons, which are usually two or three days’ journey apart, was dried herring and bread. Water was obtainable only if the guard so allowed, as was using the toilet …
“In the transit prisons a cell intended for 26 prisoners frequently held 60-70. Conditions were extremely unhygienic. The mattresses were crawling with lice … A corrective-labour camp is Soviet society seen through the wrong end of binoculars; it is its microcosm; but vices are accentuated …“
Goldstein is seeking full rehabilitation.
He asks the Izvestiya editorial office to organize a press conference for him. Then he can draw public attention to the difficult position in which a Jew may find himself in the USSR, persecuted after applying for an exit visa for permanent residence in Israel.
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VICTOR NEKIPELOV (5-7)
[5]
Victor Nekipelov
“To G.E. Clancier, President of the PEN Club’s French Section” (18 March 1979).
Nekipelov writes in defence of the 83-year-old Ukrainian writer Nadezhda Surovtseva, who spent more than thirty years in prisons, camps and exile. Since she came back from prison she has been subjected to constant persecution.
“The most recent search…was carried out on 28 September 1977 [CCE 47.4]. This time the investigators announced — such is the degree of fantasy in our Soviet reality! — that they were searching for forged banknotes. They announced that there were grounds for believing that the 80-year-old writer was engaged in forgery!
“It hardly needs to be said that they found no bank-notes, and indeed this was not why they came. They confiscated her typewriter, her manuscripts and her entire archive accumulated over many years, including her unfinished memoirs.
“It has to be said that the case of N.V. Surovtseva is only one more link in a long chain. Literary archives have been confiscated in political searches and never returned in our country throughout the 60 years of Soviet history, probably starting with the archive of Nikolai Gumilyov [1] …“
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[6]
Victor Nekipelov
“When there is no ‘Contest between the Parties’ …”
An “Open Letter” sent out via the West German newspaper Die Welt” (11 July 1979).
This letter is a response to Leo Budzin, who claimed in connection with the publication of Nekipelov’s appeal in defence of Yevgeny Buzinnikov (CCE 51.3) in Die Welt, that civil rights are constantly being violated in West Germany.
Budzin claims to be the victim of a miscarriage of justice and declares that for ten years he has been unable to get a reversal of an unjust sentence.
Nekipelov writes
“I am not inclined to believe that every miscarriage of justice is a violation of human rights .,. For a mistake to become a crime, there has to be a conscious desire to do harm for the sake of certain aims or doctrines …
“The opportunity itself of having forms printed as you have done, with a drawing of barbed wire, convict shackles, interlaced with a serpent and a monstrous, sinister bird, even the possibility of creating a society for the victims of miscarriages of justice, of distributing letters in your own defence, of making frequent and sharp criticisms of state justice, strikes us as utterly fantastic.“
Nekipelov goes on to say that Eduard Kuleshov (CCE 53.10) was sentenced merely for having criticized the trial of Buzinnikov; while Mikhail Kukobaka (CCE 53.13) was given three years in the camps for telling the truth, in an Open Letter to the USSR Minister of Health, about people being put into psychiatric hospitals for their political and religious beliefs.
Nekipelov continues:
“What happened to you is indeed tragic, but nevertheless a mistake.
“What has happened to Yevgeny Buzinnikov, Eduard Kuleshov, to scores and hundreds of their compatriots, was not a mistake, but a feature of our lives, the very structure of our existence …”
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[7]
Victor Nekipelov, “Are the Dissidents ‘Complaining’?”
An Open Letter to the editors of the Deutsche Welle radio station (25 April 1979).
“‘Victor Nekipelov is complaining about the violations of human rights in his country’
“That’s how Deutsche Welle commented on my appeal ‘Repressive Acts against Workers in the USSR’… It’s sad, but the broadcast reminded me of the language used in Soviet complaints departments!
‘I protest against my letters going missing!’
‘I demand that my confiscated diaries be returned!’
‘I protest against the prisoner in the next cell getting beaten up!’
“I demand, I protest! And in reply:
‘In answer to your complaint…’, ‘Having examined your statement in which you complain …’
“No. Our statements and protests, our appeals to world public opinion have never been complaints …
“There is no need to feel pity for us. But we do need your understanding. And, if possible, your moral support.“
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[8]
Felix Serebrov
“To staff at the German Press Agency [DPA] and Deutsche Welle’s Russian Section”
“What are your most interesting broadcasts?
“Works and documents not published in the USSR; facts not released by the Soviet authorities; the broadcast titled ‘Postbox 100444’ …
“The Russian listener, brought up on falsifications, evasions and from time to time straightforward lies, appreciates above all the untarnished word of truth …“
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[9]
Andrei Sakharov (5 April 1979)
“To the Director of ‘Voice of America’; To the chief editor of its Russian broadcasts”
“Unforgivable inaccuracies and clumsy cuts unfortunately occur rather frequently in ‘Voice of America’ broadcasts (as, moreover, in those of other radio stations broadcasting to the USSR) and cause great harm to people who are being persecuted, to the authority of dissidents and to the work of defending human rights …
“Perhaps, with the support of the US State Department, the Voice of America could seek the right to send its correspondent to Moscow (this would be in the spirit of detente), and the right to broadcast unedited information of prime importance — articles and other material from the Soviet press, the full statements of dissidents and people suffering from persecution, the exact texts of information bulletins and newsletters from various well-known dissidents …
“Even a partial implementation of these requests would be helpful.“
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ORLOVSKY (10-11)
[10]
Ernst Orlovsky
“To the editorial office of The Week [Nedelya]”.
“I’ve read the essay ‘Congratulations!’ in Issue 26 [1979] of your paper and am deeply shocked by this vile lampoon.
“On first reading, the impression is given — no doubt what the authors of the piece and those behind it intended — that Academician Sakharov, his wife and her son drove a poor girl (referred to as ‘N.’ in the piece), by exploiting and persecuting her, to attempt suicide.
“If the article is read with greater care, however, it is clear that the author makes no such claim, although the facts are put together in such a way as to make the reader think he does. In publishing a private letter in no way addressed to them, the author and the editor have committed a criminal act …“
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[11]
Ernst Orlovsky
“To the Editorial Office of the newspaper Trud [Toil]”
The author comments on Order No. 315-K (26 June 1979) concerning the Mendeleyev All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Meteorology:
“I order in agreement with the trade union committee that a commission for industrial disputes be formed consisting of the following …
(According to ‘The Regulations on the Procedure for Examining Industrial Disputes’ the head of an establishment has no right to vote on the appointment of the trade union representative to the commission.)“
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[12]
Ye. Pashitin
“To His Holiness, the Patriarch of Moscow and All-Russia” (18 March 1979).
The author, in exile in Vorkuta, complains to the editors of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate for refusing to send him the Orthodox Church calendar for 1979 and five issues of the journal.
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ZOTOV (13-14)
[13]
Mikhail Zotov
“Conversation with Witnesses Present: An Open Letter to V. Kassis and P. Kolosov, Special Correspondents of Izvestiya” (June 1979).
“On 31 May 1979 the paper for which you work published your article entitled ‘Meeting Without Witnesses’… You have got everything the wrong way round!
“The people who are moved by Russia’s sorrows, the publishing houses which illuminate the painful problems of the Russian land, are called traitors, whereas you, special correspondents of Izvestiya … try to portray yourselves as patriots and benefactors.
“You were permitted to sit down in the editorial office of Possev.
If I’d been an editor of the journal I would never have let you cross the threshold; I would not have let you, being dregs of the worst kind, who betray the needs of our people for the sake of your own material comfort.“
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[14]
Mikhail Zotov, “Requiem” (March 1979).
The author (CCE 51.8) tells of the confiscation of three of his paintings and appeals to people in Western countries to take all the canvases he has painted as a gift — canvases which can never be exhibited in the USSR.
“In refusing to come to our assistance you are betraying the last outpost which defends your independence and in general your freedom …
“By leaving us to a silent death in our dreadful helplessness, you are giving the totalitarian system the chance to capture your peoples with its beautiful lies …“
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[15]
O. Solovyov, “Speech of Greeting to the European Parliament” (April 1979).
“The present-day Russian Empire is opposed to the process of integration, as were in their time the power-seeking Russian princes to the creation of the Russian State.
“The Kremlin would not object to integration if the whole world were in its hands. The future Russia will find within itself the strength to attach itself to this vital process …“
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NOTES
- Nikolai Gumilyov, a contemporary of Osip Mandelstam and first husband of Anna Akhmatova, was shot outside Petrograd (St Petersburg, Leningrad) towards the end of the Civil War.
Accused of being the member of a non-existent plot (Kovalyovsky Woods, Execution & Burial site, 1918-1921) he was shot and buried in a wooded area near St Petersburg.
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