Chronicle 36 has already reported (CCE 36.11 [5]) on the obstacles that the Soviet authorities have put in the way of the intended marriage of Moscow writer Alexander Sokolov and Austrian teacher Johanna Steindl.
On 16 May Sokolov received a letter from the Austrian Embassy in Moscow. ‘According to information received from the Soviet authorities’, it said,
“your fiancée, Miss Steindl, may return to the USSR in order to marry you. Permission for Miss Steindl’s entry visa, which has been sent to the Soviet Consulate in Vienna, is conditional on an invitation from you.“
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On 29 May Sokolov was invited to the Visa & Registration Department (OVIR) by Inspector I. N. Krivosheyev, who suggested that he invite his ‘friend from Austria’ in the usual way; at the same time, he was told that the investigation of such cases takes about four months.
On 3 June, the day before the appointed registration of their marriage, Sokolov asked Shamanina, the director of the Marriage Palace, to postpone the registration, as his fiancée could not return to the USSR on the appointed day, owing to circumstances beyond her control; whereupon he received a promise that the marriage would be registered on the day that she returned.
On 4 June Johanna Steindl flew to Moscow at the personal invitation of the Austrian consul. Customs officials at Sheremetevo airport detained her for 16 hours in the hall for transit passengers, not even allowing her to phone the Austrian Embassy, and permitted her to enter Soviet territory only on the morning of 5 June.
On 5 June A. Sokolov and J. Steindl went to the Marriage Palace where the same Shamanina stated that, as they had failed to turn up at the right time, they would have to arrange a new date for the registration of their marriage, which could not be earlier than September. Their references to the fact that Johanna had only a one-month visa made no difference.
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Sokolov and Steindl appealed to Gusev, Deputy-Head of the RSFSR Ministry of Justice’s Marriage Registration Bureau. He refused to help them and advised A. Sokolov to travel to Austria to register his marriage. When Sokolov asked how and on what basis he could do this, Gusev answered that he ‘does not know all the laws’.
Sokolov’s parents have declared to the KGB and the District Military Commission that Alexander is mentally ill and that he is not, therefore, responsible for his actions and should be subject to supervision. An official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Sokolov that, until his mental competence was established, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not help the couple.
In addition, the official said:
‘There is an organization against which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can do nothing, although it understands that this incident could impair relations between Austria and the USSR.’
A new date for the registration of the marriage was set by the Marriage Registration Bureau for September; OVIR, however, refused a request from the Austrian Embassy to prolong Steindl’s stay in the USSR.
On 13 June Alexander Sokolov sent a telegram to Podgorny in which he addressed the latter as the deputy whom he elected, asking him to ‘help us in our battle with bureaucracy, which has now been going on for half a year. Moreover, this concerns not only ourselves but also the fate of our unborn child’. Podgorny’s secretary informed Sokolov that his telegram had been sent to the Marriage Registration Department of the Moscow Soviet.
At the end of June Sokolov received a summons to the District Military Commission. There he was given an appointment for an examination at a psycho-neurological clinic.
On 2 July Alexander Sokolov and Johanna Steindl were married by a Protestant clergyman. On 4 July J. Steindl had to leave the USSR, as her visa had run out. On 6 July Sokolov was sent by the clinic to psychiatric hospital number 14 for an in-patient examination.
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The story of Alexander Sokolov and Johanna Steindl has been widely reported in the international press: articles on the subject have appeared in many Austrian newspapers, in the Herald Tribune and The Guardian. There have also been references to it in Russian-language foreign radio broadcasts.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 