This section is compiled from the Working Commission Information Bulletin No. 23 (21 May 1980).
Voldemaras Karaliunas (CCE 46.13, CCE 51.11) has been transferred from Chernyakhovsk SPH to a hospital of ordinary type in Kaunas (75 Kuzmos Street). His doctor is Berner. He is being treated with aminazin and tizertsin. Karaliunas is in poor health.
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BIOGRAPHIES
LUPINOS & PLAKHOTNYUK
[1]
A.I. LUPINOS
Anatoly Ivanovich Lupinos was born in 1938.
In October 1956 he was arrested for his poems and conversations; at that time, he was a second-year student in the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty of Kiev University.
In July 1957, having been convicted under Article 58 of the old Criminal Code, Lupinos arrived in Mordovian Camp 7. In September he was sentenced to 10 years for being chairman of a strike committee (2,000 prisoners took part in the strike).
In 1962, in Vladimir Prison, Lupinos fell ill with polyneuritis, for which he was given no medical treatment, and this resulted in paralysis of the legs. In later years a stomach ulcer, myocardial dystrophy, gallstones and a disease of the liver were also diagnosed. Returning to Mordovian Camp 10 (special regime) from prison, Lupinos spent most of the rest of his sentence in hospital (Mordovian Camp 3).
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In 1967, having served out his sentence, Anatoly was brought home to his parents on a stretcher (his legs were paralysed). A Medical Work Fitness Commission immediately accorded him Group 1 invalid status for life — without the necessity for annual review. Two years later he learned to walk on crutches.
In 1969 Lupinos applied to the Philosophy Faculty at Kiev University. Having read his application form, Taucher, the Dean of the Faculty, sent Lupinos to Podoprigora, Deputy Chairman of the Party Control Committee attached to the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party. Podoprigora said that even if Lupinos got 20 marks out of 20 in the entrance examination, he would not be admitted as a student. He advised Lupinos: ‘Go to work in a factory or workshop, absorb proletarian ideology, gain the confidence of the workers’ collective, then …’ In December 1969 Lupinos became an external student at the Economics Faculty of the Ukrainian Agricultural Academy.
In the spring of 1970 Lupines abandoned his crutches.
He started working as an administrator of the Kiev Concert and Choral Society. On 22 May 1971 at the traditional Shevchenko evening, Lupinos read the poem ‘I Watched as they Dishonoured my Mother’ beside the poet’s memorial statue. On 28 May he was arrested.
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A psychiatric commission chaired by D. R. Lunts at the Serbsky Institute declared Lupinos not responsible (at the time of his first arrest a psychiatric commission at the Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital in Kiev pronounced him healthy).
The trial took place in December. When A. Sakharov I. Svetlichny and L. Plyushch appeared, the trial was cancelled. Three days later the court decided to send Lupinos for compulsory treatment in a Special Psychiatric Hospital, In January 1972 Lupinos arrived at Dnepropetrovsk SPH. He was given haloperidol, triftazin, tizertsin, sulfazin and insulin shock treatment (40 shocks).
In January 1974 a medical commission recommended Lupinos’s release, but the recommendation was turned down by a court. He was given haloperidol again. Two months later Professor P. M. Rybkin, Chief Psychiatrist at the USSR MVD, observed Lupinos and concluded: The treatment should be stopped and the patient released as soon as possible’. In June 1974 Lupinos’s release was again recommended by a medical commission and the recommendation was again rejected by a court.
Lupinos sent complaints to the Ministry of Health, the Medical Administration of the USSR MVD and the Presidium of the Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists. This resulted only in Lupinos’s transfer to another section and an enquiry into how he had managed to write and send the complaints; members of the hospital staff who were suspected of having helped him were dismissed. Six months later a medical commission once again recommended that Lupinos be released — the court once again refused. Section Head Kamenetskaya refused to treat him with haloperidol and he was transferred to another section.
In 1976 Lupinos was transferred to Alma-Ata SPH. Since Dnepropetrovsk SPH had not sent on his medical history, treatment began all over again. In February 1977 a medical commission decided to put the question of reversing Lupinos’s diagnosis to a general hospital conference. The doctors requested his medical history from Dnepropetrovsk and received in reply the information that he was an especially dangerous State criminal. The doctors wrote three more times, with no result.
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In 1978 a medical commission recommended that Lupinos be released and the court decided that compulsory treatment should be prolonged in a psychiatric hospital of ordinary type.
In April 1979, in the Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital in Kiev, Lupinos was assured: “In June you will be at home”. In May he was sent to Cherkassy Regional Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 (in the town of Smela). At this time he was again assured: ‘From there you will be discharged immediately’.
On 26 November 1979 the hospital submitted the documents necessary for procuring Lupinos’s release to the Kiev Regional Court. There was no reply; the hospital staff said: ‘We’ll write again after the Olympic Games, then we won’t have to wait’.
On 21 June 1980 Lupinos was suddenly taken to Dnepropetrovsk SPH — so quickly that the necessary papers were not made out properly; consequently, the hospital refused to admit him and he was brought back to Smela. It turned out that on 16 June the Smela district court (Cherkassy Region) decided to send Lupinos to Dnepropetrovsk for attempting to escape (Lupinos’s family, not to mention Lupinos himself, knew nothing of the court hearing). His ‘escape’ consisted in once spending a few hours with friends outside the hospital, with the orderly’s permission. He had returned to the hospital, of course, at the time appointed by the orderly.
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[2]
M.H. PLAKHOTNYUK
Nikolai Grigorevich Plakhotnyuk was born in 1936. In 1955 he finished school. In the same year he contracted tuberculosis, for which he underwent treatment for two years. He still suffers attacks of the disease.
In 1959 Plakhotnyuk completed his training as a doctor’s assistant in medical college in Kiev, afterwards working as a village doctor’s assistant. During this period, he was elected Secretary of the collective farm Komsomol organization. In 1960 he entered the Medical Faculty of the Kiev Institute of Medicine, where he was a Komsomol group organizer responsible for the cultural section of the faculty union office.
In 1963 he read in the newspaper of the work of ‘Suchasnik’, a Club for Creative Young People (CCYP), and went to see them. The club’s members organized literary and musical evenings, and also art exhibitions. CCYP formed an intercollegiate circle for folklore and ethnography, and a touring choir called ‘The Lark’. CCYP also created the tradition of holding readings of Shevchenko’s poetry on 22 May in front of the monument to the poet, and were often visited by I. Svetlichny, Ye. Sverstyuk and V. Chornovil.
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In summer 1963 Plakhotnyuk sent a letter to the Ukrainian Ministry of Higher Education in which he proposed that tuition in the Institute of Medicine should be conducted in Ukrainian.
To justify this, he referred to the fact that most of the Institute’s students were Ukrainian or had studied Ukrainian at school. The letter was passed on to the Rector of the Institute, Professor V. D. Bratus, who summoned Plakhotnyuk and told him in Ukrainian that it was impossible to use Ukrainian because some of the Institute’s students came from abroad and required tuition in Russian. After this talk both Bratus and Plakhotnyuk attended a Komsomol conference where the Rector gave a speech in Russian, despite the fact that no foreigners were present. Then Plakhotnyuk mounted the rostrum. He noted that everyone in the hall understood Ukrainian and said that it was wrong for members of the Komsomol to scorn their native language. He called on the Komsomol to make preparations for the 150th anniversary of Shevchenko’s birth (due in 1964).
At the end of August 1965 there were a number of political arrests in the Ukraine. Among those arrested were I. Svetlichny and Yaroslav Gevrich, a fifth-year student from the Dentistry Faculty at Kiev Institute of Medicine. (Gevrich and Plakhotnyuk lived in the same hall of residence, both attended meetings of the ‘Lark’ choir, and together they organized a group of carol singers at the Institute. Gevrich also organized the Institute’s bandura ensemble.) When he heard that Gevrich had been arrested, Plakhotnyuk telephoned Gevrich’s parents for confirmation. Then he took a parcel to the prison for him, found him a defence counsel, and insisted on being called as a witness at his trial.
Gevrich was tried in March 1966. When Plakhotnyuk entered the courtroom and saw only the Judge, the assessors, the Procurator, the defence counsel, a number of soldiers and Gevrich, instead of giving evidence he said: ‘A trial behind closed doors is In my opinion unlawful’. He then turned to the accused with words of support.
The following day he was called into the Institute Party Committee. After a discussion lasting four hours Committee Secretary Sidelnikov said: “It has been a pleasure talking to you, and I am pleased to see that there are still some intelligent students left”. Plakhotnyuk’s actions on Gevrich’s behalf were later cited in Kazan SPH as the beginning of his illness.
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In 1966 he completed his studies at the Institute. In the following year the traditional Shevchenko celebrations were interrupted by the police, who began seizing members of the crowd and putting them in police cars. The crowd protested and started shouting “Shame!” Then they began singing the ‘Internationale’, and the police withdrew. Plakhotnyuk addressed the crowd:
“Today in Moscow the Congress of Soviet Writers opened. Today in Kiev we have been paying tribute to the memory of the Ukraine’s greatest poet, Taras Shevchenko.
“Students have today been reading poems which brought Shevchenko ten years in exile. Today these same poems have brought more brutality, and some students have been arrested. We came here with flowers, but they put handcuffs on us and take us away in police vans. Therefore, I ask all of you here today to go to the Party Central Committee building, to protest against the brutal treatment we have received, to demand the release of those who have been arrested, and to insist that those responsible for this savage brutality are brought to justice.“
At about 10 pm that evening several people broke through a police cordon to reach the Central Committee building, despite being sprayed with water from fire hoses. The demonstrators were met by Golovchenko, Minister for the Preservation of Public Order [i.e., Internal Affairs], who was wearing an embroidered shirt. After listening to them he gave orders for the release of those who had been arrested and the crowd dispersed.
(Each year after this the authorities organized a festival in Kiev on May 22, entitled ‘Kievan Spring’. The performances by the invited artists were usually followed by ‘unofficial’ poetry readings and singing.)
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In November 1968 Plakhotnyuk made the acquaintance of the poet Ivan Sokulsky (CCE 56.15 [4]). They spent the evening of November 7 together singing.
In summer 1969 A. A. Yarosh, head of the Department of Neuropathology in the Kiev Institute of Medicine, invited Plakhotnyuk to work for the department as a laboratory assistant. On 1 September he began work for the department.
In June 1969 Sokulsky was arrested [1]. Plakhotnyuk was interrogated in connection with his case, in particular concerning the evening they had spent together; but there was nothing for him to say about it. After this interrogation Plakhotnyuk was asked to leave the department. The Party organizer of the department told him that there were no complaints about his work. On the contrary, the department had not had such a diligent worker as Plakhotnyuk for ten years; ‘but we have had orders from above to dismiss you’. Plakhotnyuk replied that he was not prepared to leave. He was finally dismissed on grounds of redundancy.
In January 1970 Sokulsky stood trial in Dnepropetrovsk with two of his friends (CCE 12.4). Three Dnepropetrovsk newspapers printed ‘denunciatory’ articles, Plakhotnyuk sent an open letter to these newspapers, with copies to Sokulsky’s mother and to the newspaper Radyanska [Soviet] Ukraine. At his trial in 1972 the sending of this letter to Sokulsky’s mother became Plakhotnyuk’s main ‘sin’ (‘circulation!’).
On 12 January 1972 Plakhotnyuk was arrested under Article 62 (UkSSR Criminal Code = Article 70, RSFSR Code). In September 1972, after psychiatric examination at the Serbsky Institute, he was ruled not responsible. On 13 November 1972 the Kiev Regional Court sent Plakhotnyuk for compulsory treatment to a special psychiatric hospital, and on 24 November 1972 he arrived in Dnepropetrovsk SPH.
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In April 1974 a commission headed by Professor V. P, Blokhina, Head of Ihe Department of Psychiatry at the Dnepropetrovsk Institute of Medicine, and including P. M. Rybkin, Chief Psychiatrist of the USSR MVD, and I. A. Vashchenko, Chief Psychiatrist of the Ukrainian MVD, decided that Plakhotnyuk should be sent to the Serbsky Institute for re-examination. Kiev Regional Court, however, overruled this decision.
In July 1975 Plakhotnyuk was told by a doctor, V. I. Katkova: ‘Until you are open with us, we cannot release you’. In August 1976 Plakhotnyuk was transferred to Kazan SPH. In November 1976 a commission at the Serbsky Institute, comprised of Shostakovich, Landau and Dobrogayevsky, decided that in view of his satisfactory health Plakhotnyuk could be discharged and he should be prepared for discharge by the next meeting of the commission.
In June 1977 the commission (including Shostakovich and Landau) decided that Plakhotnyuk could be transferred to an ordinary psychiatric hospital, but the commission’s petition was rejected by Kiev Regional Court. In December 1977 the commission (including Shostakovich and Landau) proposed that compulsory treatment should be discontinued. On 20 February 1978 Kiev Regional Court transferred Plakhotnyuk to an ordinary psychiatric hospital. On 8 August 1978 Plakhotnyuk arrived at Cherkassy Regional Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 (in the town of Smela).
On 5 March 1979 a commission recommended that Plakhotnyuk should be released, but their petition was rejected by Kiev Regional Court on 6 July. The court’s decision states in part:
“In view of his vigorous anti-Soviet activities during the years 1962-72 … Kiev Regional Court decided on 13 November 1972 that Plakhotnyuk should be committed for compulsory medical treatment.
“The administration of Cherkassy Regional [Psychiatric] Hospital No. 1 has recommended that this compulsory treatment should be discontinued and Plakhotnyuk transferred to a course of out-patient treatment, citing as their reasons for this their belief that his mental condition has improved as a result of treatment and that he no longer represents a danger to society.
“The court has heard the Chairman’s report, the speech by defence counsel Gretzky supporting the administration’s recommendation, the opinion of Procurator Markova that the hospital’s petition should be rejected, and the results of a medical re-examination have been studied. The court considers that the petition should not be granted for the following reasons:
“The results of the medical re-examination performed by Cherkassy Regional Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 show that Plakhotnyuk is suffering from mental illness in the form of paranoid schizophrenia.
“A long course of treatment has brought about an improvement in his mental condition. He is taking part in production activities and his behaviour has now been corrected. However, the results of the medical re-examination do not describe Plakhotnyuk’s mental condition fully enough. There is no clear description of some aspects of his mental activity, particularly his thought processes, will and emotional state.
“The medical commission has neither described nor evaluated the patient’s behaviour, nor his views or his attitude to the socially dangerous activities he conducted.
“The conclusion that Plakhotnyuk does not present a danger to society should have been reached only after giving consideration to the possibility of a repetition of the socially dangerous activities which he previously conducted.
“The record shows that Plakhotnyuk was for a long time involved in socially dangerous activities, and there is no indication in the report on his mental condition that he will not repeat these activities …“
On 11 July 1979 Gretzky, Plakhotnyuk’s defence counsel, sent an appeal to the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR:
… I consider the court’s decision to be incorrect and that it should be overruled for the following reasons:
As the report of the forensic psychiatric team of 5 March 1979 indicates, Nikolai Grigorevich Plakhotnyuk has been undergoing treatment for a long lime, more than seven years, and as a result his mental condition has shown a considerable and persistent improvement. The report also shows that N. G. Plakhotnyuk now presents no danger to society; he is able to make productive contact with others and he answers questions correctly with direct answers. His behaviour is normal and he has made realistic plans for his future.
N. G. Plakhotnyuk’s views and behaviour were not described in the report because this information is contained in the report of the Central Forensic Psychiatric Commission of 15 December 1977, which was ignored by the court.
The above report states that even in 1977 N. G. Plakhotnyuk already showed a definite improvement and was taking part in working activities and was calm in his behaviour. He showed no tendency towards antisocial behaviour. He was sufficiently critical of his state of ill health. He was aware of his situation and regretted his past activities’ which were the result of his illness.
I consider it necessary to add that after the above report was made N. G. Plakhotnyuk was transferred from a special hospital to an ordinary hospital in accordance with a ruling made by a Judicial Board of the Kiev Regional Court on 20 February 1978.
This is in itself an indication of the progressive improvement in his health.
An appeal for Plakhotnyuk’s release was also made to the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR by Plakhotnyuk’s brothers Vasily and Ivan in conjunction with his sister Anna. They signed themselves respectively; ‘collective farm worker, father of five children, soldier in the War; worker; pensioner, collective farm worker, mother of six children. Their appeal ended with the words: ‘Our toil-hardened hands allow us to appeal to you… We call for justice and humanity’. On 2 August 1979 the Ukrainian Supreme Court approved the decision of the Kiev Regional Court.
A new commission met on 11 January 1980. The hospital’s chief doctor, P. G. Derevyanchenko, stated that a new petition would be made for Plakhotnyuk’s release. This application was typed but not sent. One of the doctors said that they were not the only authorities involved.
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Forcible Hospitalization
On 15 April Petras Lukosevicius (b. 1917), who lives in Panevėžys, was forcibly interned in a hospital near Vilnius.
In 1944 Lukosevicius was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment under article 58 of the old Criminal Code. In 1955 he was released in an amnesty. In 1975 his memoirs about life in the camps came into the possession of the KGB. In November 1978 a search was conducted at his home and many items of samizdat were confiscated (the Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church, Ausra, Devos ir Tevinja). He was told then by KGB Major Urbonas that he would be placed in a psychiatric hospital. In 1980 another search took place.
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On 29 April Mikhail Ivanovich Berozashvili (b. 1922) was forcibly placed in a hospital. Berozashvili spent 17 years in Stalin’s camps. Shortly before his internment he had sent a petition to the Supreme Soviet renouncing his Soviet citizenship. Three weeks later he was released from hospital after being diagnosed as suffering from ‘asthenia and paranoid tendencies’.
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On 1 June nonconformist artist Valentin Smirnov (pseudonym ‘Valentin-Maria’) [2] was arrested and interned in Section 10 of Leningrad Psychiatric Hospital No. 5.
Smirnov (b. 1928) was arrested half an hour before a street exhibition of nonconformist artists was due to begin. He had helped organize the exhibition and was exhibiting his work in it. The exhibition — near the Peter and Paul Fortress — took place nonetheless.
Smirnov was first placed in a psychiatric hospital in December 1956 for taking part in a discussion about Picasso. He was kept in hospital for two years. In I960 he was interned for one-and-a-half years for his involvement in an unofficial seminar at which he spoke about the nature of communism. He was diagnosed as ‘a psychopathic personality with a tendency towards decompensatory activities’.
Smirnov also took part in the exhibition held on 5 September 1979, entitled ’Paris-Moscow-Leningrad’ (CCE 53.29). Since September 1979 he had been living in hiding because he was afraid of being hospitalized again. In September 1979 and February 1980 police and doctors from a psychiatric clinic came to his flat.
Smirnov was educated as a literature specialist. He is a photographer, graphic artist and collector of modern art. His work has been exhibited in France and Italy.
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On 25 June Ivan Adrianovich Bykovsky (b. 1909), a pensioner, was taken from his home in Podolsk and placed in the Yakovenko Psychiatric Hospital (at Stolbovaya Station near Moscow). He had done nothing to provoke this action. In 1963 he spent 20 days in a psychiatric hospital after his wife took his memoirs to the KGB.
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On 11 July Vladlen Stolpner, who lives in Moscow, was forcibly placed in a hospital.
In 1963, as a result of letters he had written to the government, he was placed under psychiatric observation. It is three years since he was last called to the clinic. In January 1980 he applied to emigrate. The head of his hospital section, I. I. Flerov, has told him that he will be allowed visits only if he is not mentioned in Western radio broadcasts.
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In July Vladimir Gusarov [3], who lives in Moscow, was placed in a hospital.
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RELEASES
On 15 April G. Yankov (CCE 56.23) was released from hospital.
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NOTES
- On Sokulsky, see CCE 8.14 [4], CCE 10.15 [1], CCE 11.15 [14] and Name Index.
↩︎ - Smirnov was released soon after the Olympic Games. He is referred to in CCE 53.29 only by his pseudonym ‘Valentin Mariya’.
↩︎ - On Gusarov, see CCE 7.13 [14], CCE 11.14 [13], CCE 12.10 [3, 9], CCE 15.11 [9], CCE 17.13 [18], CCE 19.11 [18], CCE 25.2 [1] and Name Index.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 