23.1 THE CASE OF VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY
The Trial
[74] A 50-page samizdat transcript of Bukovsky’s trial appeared in Russkaya mysl, Paris (9 March 1972), and will appear soon in English in Survey 83, London. Long extracts were printed in The Times, London, 7 February 1972. See also numerous western press reports printed on 6 and 8 January, and a crudely distorted Soviet report in Vechernyaya Moskva, 6 January.
[75] Valentina G. Lubentsova was also the judge at the trial of the Red Square demonstrators in October 1968. See the transcript in N. Gorbanevskaya, Red Square at Noon.
[76] Vladimir Shveisky was also defence counsel to A. Dobrovolsky, B. Talantov and A. Amalrik (CCE 1.1, 10.2 and 17.1).
Defendant’s Final Words
[77] Extracts from Bukovsky’s final speech have been published in The Times and other newspapers, 8 January 1972.
[78] See Russian text of Bukovsky’s transcript of this interview in Russkaya mysl, 3 and 10 February 1972, and a slightly condensed translation in the New York Review of Books, New York, 9 March 1972.
[79] Bukovsky’s hunger-strike lasted from 9 to 21 December, and on 22 December his mother saw him for the first time in nine months and found him pale and haggard. See UPI dispatch of 23 December.
[80] In addition, in a letter to the Moscow City Court, Academician Sakharov had asked that three such people, ex-inmates, be summoned to testify, as documents written by them showed that Bukovsky had publicized “not defamatory inventions but true facts”. See an AP dispatch from Moscow of 3 January.
[81] Numerous protests and appeals were made against Bukovsky’s sentence, notably an appeal of 22 January by 52 of his friends to UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim (text and signatories in Russkaya mysl, 23 March), a letter to The Times (31 January) from 39 prominent British writers, scholars and politicians, an appeal by 75 Swiss writers, members of the Swiss Writers’ Association, to Kosygin (text and signatures in Der Bund, Bern, 20 January), and an appeal to Brezhnev by Academician Sakharov (The Guardian, London, 21 January).
Nevertheless, the sentence was confirmed on 22 February at a two-hour session of the RSFSR Supreme Court, to which neither Bukovsky’s friends, nor Academician Sakharov, nor independent journalists were admitted, but only his mother. See an A.P. dispatch of 22 February and The Times, 23 February. An A.P. dispatch from New York of 2 March reported that Bukovsky had been sent to Vladimir Prison, and that his friends feared for his survival in view of his heart condition.
[80 a] For a new document by Bukovsky (June 1970) see Russkaya mysl, Paris, 3 and 10 February 1972.
A Chronicle of Current Events 