Preface
The Chronicle of Current Affairs was one of the most important private publications of the dissident movement in the Soviet Union, and most researchers call it "the originator of the private publication of dissidents."
Although between 1959 and 1960 there was a private publication edited by Alexander Ginzberg Syntax, and a magazine edited by the informal literary group of young intellectuals in the early 60s, the magazine "CMOT" (the association of the youngest geniuses), the publications of "Syntax" and "CMOT" were mainly lyrical poetry and anthologies, while the "Chronicle of Current Affairs" was mainly devoted to reporting on the dissident movement.
Therefore, the real representative of the dissident media should be the Chronicle of Current Affairs. The appearance of the Chronicle of Current Affairs in 1968 began the history of the Russian liberal press in the second half of the 20th century, "that is, the history of the main private publications of the dissident movement."
Overview of the publication of the Chronicle of Current Affairs
The Chronicle of Current Affairs is a regular machine-printed information bulletin of the dissident pro-rights faction, published every two months. The founder, Natalia Gorbanevskaya, planned and edited the first nine issues, and after her arrest, the publication was continued by someone else.
From its inception in 1968 to its closure in 1983, a total of 65 issues were edited in 15 years, of which only 63 issues were actually published. Issue 59 was printed, but was found confiscated by the KGB and was not issued. Although the 65th issue was ready for editing, it was not printed due to the arrest of the editor Sykhanovich and was kept in the hands of the editors, and we can see all the 65 issues of the magazine today.
In 1968, the United Nations proclaimed the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights as the World Year of Human Rights. It was one of the harshest years of persecution of dissidents in the Soviet Union during the Brezhnev era.
At the beginning of the year, trials began for A. Ginzberg, O. Garanskov, B. Lashkova and A. Dobrovolysky, who edited and published the White Paper on the Siniawski and Danielle cases. All four of them were evening college students, "Garanskov and Ginzberg were sentenced to 7 and 5 years in prison, respectively, Doblovorisky for 2 years, and Raskova was deprived of liberty for a year. ”
Lashkova was a typist who was sentenced for helping print the White Paper. It was in this context that the Chronicle of Current Affairs was published in August when demonstrations against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia were held on Red Square in Moscow.
At the top of the title page of the first issue of the Chronicle of Current Affairs is printed: "The Year of Human Rights in the Soviet Union", at the bottom is the title "Chronicle of Current Affairs", and further down is the text of Article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to freedom of belief and speech; This right includes the freedom to seek, access and disseminate information and ideas, independently and without hindrance, by any means of one's own will. ”
Judging from the original intention of the first editor, Gorbanevskaya, to call it the "Year of Human Rights in the Soviet Union" and the Chronicle of Current Affairs was only a subtitle, the editors did not intend to publish the bulletin for a long time.
But readers accepted the publication and took the Chronicle of Current Affairs as a name, and the Year of Human Rights in the USSR became a headline slogan. Since then, the title slogan of the "Chronicle of Current Affairs" has been constantly changing, and the name has been fixed. In 1969, the title was "The Soviet Human Rights Year Continues", and later it was successively used as "The Soviet Movement for Human Rights Continues", "The Soviet Movement for Human Rights Continues", and "The Soviet Union's Action for Human Rights Continues".
The main task of the Chronicle of Current Affairs was to publish various information, and its structure was determined in the first few issues, and the content of the report was divided into two parts. The first part is a detailed account of what the editors consider to be the most important events: the second part consists of a number of fixed columns: "Arrests, arrests, interrogations", "Persecution out of court", "In prisons and concentration camps", "News for private publications", "Newsletters", "Revisions and supplements", organized by title or subject character. With the expansion of the horizons of the rights protection movement, the content of the column is also increasing.
For example, soon there was "persecution of believers", "persecution of the Crimean Tatars", "repression in Ukraine". At the beginning of 1972 there was a "persecution of Lithuanian religious believers", and in the middle of the same year a new, broader topic: "Events in Lithuania" became a permanent title. In 1976, when the Soviet dissident movement for rights entered the Helsinki period, the Chronicle of Current Affairs also expanded its coverage to the activities of the Helsinki groups.
The editors of the Chronicle of Current Affairs did not publicly announce their names and addresses, but for the first year and a half of their editors Gorbanevskaya was widely known. The Chronicle of Current Affairs has a unique way of obtaining information, that is, using the system of "dissemination and return" of private publications, that is, relying on the spontaneous contribution of materials from readers.
In the appeal to readers at the end of the fifth issue of the Chronicle of Current Affairs, it is clearly stated: "The Chronicle of Current Affairs is not an illegal publication under any circumstances, but its working conditions are crowded out by special concepts of legitimacy and freedom of information, which have developed in certain organs of the Government.
Therefore, it is not possible for the Chronicle of Current Affairs to write its mailing address on the last page of the magazine, as other magazines do. In addition, everyone who was interested in keeping all sectors of the Soviet society informed of the events taking place in the country could easily relay what he knew to the Chronicle of Current Affairs.
Please tell the information to the person who got the Chronicle of Current Affairs from him, and the person he will tell him about the Chronicle of Current Affairs, and so on. Just don't try to do it all alone in order to make others think of you as a whistleblower. ”
In the mid-'70s, the dissident movement and various activist organizations emerged, and their information briefings opened up an important source of information for the Chronicle.
The first issue of the Chronicle of Current Affairs
Published on April 30, 1968, the catalogue contains seven items: "(1) Proceedings of Garanskov, Ginzberg, Doblovorisky, Lashkova (2) Protest trial (3) Suppression of protests (4) Appeal to the meeting of the Communist Party and Workers' Party of Budapest (5) Political prisoners (6) Interrogation in Leningrad (7) Arrest of B. Prusakov. ”
In the proceedings of the four persons, the chronicle details the course of the trial. Although the trial was nominally public, no one was allowed to attend the trial, except for the defendant's wife and parents. In the end, Garanskov, Ginzberg, Doblovolysky, and Lashkova were all sentenced for editing and publishing a White Paper on the Siniavsky case in the West.
Chronicle of Current Affairs, No. 36
Published on 31 May 1975, it consists of 57 pages and is entitled "The Soviet Union's Speech on the Defense of Human Rights Continues". The contents of the directory are:
"(1) Arrest of A. Tverdokhlebov (2) April 18 (3) Arrest of Turkin (4) Trial of Jews Nashpits and Zitlionok (4) Continuation of the Psychiatric Persecution of Plyuci (5) Internment Camps and Prisons (6) Torture of Political Prisoners During Interrogation in Georgian Prisons (7) Events in Lithuania (8) Arrest of Believers and Other Forms of Persecution (9) Text Messages (10) Letters and Statements (11) New Private Publications (12) Letters to the Chronicle of Current Affairs (13) Revisions and Additions. ”
The thirty-sixth issue of the Chronicle of Current Affairs first reported on the arrest by the KGB of Moscow of A. Tverdokhlebov, one of the founders of the Soviet human rights organization, on charges of spreading and spreading rumors that defamed the political and social system of the Soviet Union. He is also accused of founding the "73 Group", an organization belonging to an international human rights organization that helps the families of political prisoners, and privately publishing Amnesty International's collection of documents, among other things.
Issue 52
Published on March 1, 1979, it was titled "The Soviet Union's Struggle for Human Rights Continues" and the main table of contents is as follows: "(1) The subway bombing case (2) The death of Glisnekirev (3) The trial of Ovshchenko (3) Arrest, arrest, Interrogation (4) in prisons and concentration camps (5) in penal colonies (6) in psychiatric hospitals (7) after release (8) persecution of the Crimean Tatars (9) events in Lithuania (10) persecution of believers (11) right to leave the country (12) protection of the rights of persons with disabilities (13) collections of private works of different authors of the same era (14) other information (15) letters and statements (16) private publications and news (17) official documents (18) revisions and additions. ”
The first article of the fifty-second issue of the Chronicle of Current Affairs is about the bombing of the Moscow metro on 8 January 1977 and the authorities' attempt to link this terrorist act with the activities of dissidents.
The Chronicle reproduces the statement published in the newspaper Izvestia on January 31, 1979: "The Committee of Criminal Procedure of the Supreme Court of the USSR openly tried a criminal case alleging that habitual offender C. Chatikyan and his two particularly dangerous accomplices committed a crime in a Moscow metro car in January 1977, resulting in casualties.
In the course of the trial of the case, sufficient evidence was provided against the defendant's crimes. C. Chatikyan and his accomplices were sentenced to an extraordinary penalty: the death penalty. The sentence has been executed. ”
variation
Through the investigation of the above three issues of the "Chronicle of Current Affairs", we can find that both in terms of the number of columns and the coverage of the content of rights protection, the later periodicals have been significantly expanded and deepened compared with the previous period.
The first issue consisted of 7 columns, 13 in the 36th issue and 18 in the 52nd issue: the first issue mainly carried news about the dissidents' rights defense activities in Moscow and the Leningrad region, while the 52nd issue extended to many regions of the Soviet Union and extended the content to include not only the dissidents' rights defense activities, but also other important social news.
Although the columns and content of the Chronicle of Current Affairs are constantly expanding and changing, we see that "its style is fixed, that is, restrained, without commentary, and speaking with facts." In addition, there is its question E: the violation of basic human rights and freedoms by the Soviet government, the actions of dissidents to defend their rights and freedoms, and other clandestine activities in Soviet society, etc.
At the same time, the Chronicle of Current Affairs has always maintained its own publishing principles, which are to pursue maximum accuracy, completeness and objectivity of information. To this end, it has set up a special column for revisions and supplements, which corrects and supplements the reported events.
Although the Chronicle was suspended several times by the KGB and many editors and disseminators lost their freedom for it, it soon continued to publish until the eve of the end of the dissident movement in 1983.
Perhaps it was its policy of not exaggerating and accurately presenting the facts, neither violently attacking the government authorities, nor grossly distorting the facts, that prevented the state security organs from suppressing them under the pretext of spreading false rumors, because it was not so easy to accuse a journal of purely publishing information, many of which was true and reliable, for anti-Soviet propaganda.
It is precisely the long-term existence of the journal that can provide a platform for the dissident movement to collect, exchange and disseminate important information, thus greatly promoting the in-depth development of the rights protection movement.