Alexander Ginzburg
Alexander Ilyich Ginzburg (Russian Александр Ильич Гинзбург, born November 21, 1936 in Moscow, † July 19, 2002 in Paris) was a Russian journalist, author, publisher and civil rights activist.
Ginsburg is considered one of the leading dissidents of the Soviet Union and was the editor of the first important samizdat journal. The authorities accused him of anti-communist propaganda. He was sentenced to imprisonment in labor camps three times: in 1960, two in 1968 to five in 1978 and eight years. In April 1979, he was expatriated and replaced together with four other prisoners against two Soviet spies. After almost one and a half years of stay in the U.S., he moved with his family to Paris.
Background and education
Alexander Ginzburg was born in 1936 in Moscow. His father Sergei Sergeyevich Chizhov, who came from the Russian gentry, had studied in the 1930s as a Soviet student of Le Corbusier in France Architecture; In 1936 he was arrested in the wake of the Great Terror and in 1937, he died in custody. His mother Lyudmila Ilyinichna Ginsburg worked according to their commercial training in the planning department of a company. Alexander grew up without siblings. His mother caused that on the birth certificate her name was entered.
He attended the Moscow School No. 12, many children went to the Soviet squad out of the house on the quayside and children of residents of the house of the writer. In 1952, he began a career as an actor. One of the first stops was the youth theater in Novosibirsk, where he also began with directing.
Early journalistic activities and first samizdat
In 1956 he took up his journalism studies at the University of Moscow. As a young journalist Ginsburg worked Komsomolets, among others, in the editorial of Moskovsky. He avoided work for propaganda departments of newspapers, and devoted himself ostensibly apolitical topics such as sports or ballet.
The narrow limits set by the censorship of literary publications, employed Ginsburg and other artists of the non - official range. 1959, therefore, he was the first time the magazine Sintaksis (Russian " Синтаксис " ) out, named after a dog from a story by Anton Chekhov. The Sintaksis was the first samizdat journal of the Soviet Union, which reached a larger distribution and has been reprinted. She was also the first unofficial magazine to appear with full name and address of the publisher, which made a great impression on the reader. This normality Attribution should be demonstrated. The significance of this action expressed in the human rights activist Yuri Nikolayevich Jarym - Agajew with the following words:
The articles published in the journal poems were from unknown as known poets such as Bulat Okudzhava, Bella Akhmadulina and Joseph Brodsky.
The Izvestia published 1960 on the Sintaksis a mocking article entitled The Loafers climb Parnassus.
Getting detention
During the preparation of the fourth edition Sintaksis who could not appear, the KGB Ginsburg arrested in July 1960 for possession of " anti-Soviet literature." The investigation went a long time without any tangible result. Ginsburg in 1960 eventually accused of forgery - he had about a year previously dissolved a written examination paper for a friend - and sentenced to a prison term of two years; the prosecution for possession of " anti-Soviet literature " has been dropped against. The continuation of his correspondence course at Moscow University was forbidden him. Ginsburg served his detention in WjatLag in the Kirov Oblast and had to perform logging operations there. On 14 July 1962 he was dismissed.
White Paper and second adhesive
After his release, Ginsburg worked with the unofficial magazines and Sphinx 65 Phoenix 61.
On 14 February 1966, a Soviet court sentenced the writer Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, because they had published in the West under a pseudonym non-conforming literature ( " Tamisdat "). The West criticized this show trial and the verdict sharp. Against this background, Ginsburg presented together with the wives of convicts and some of her friends together a documentary, which he presented to the KGB and of which he announced a publication, if the judgments are not released. He also spoke with deputies of the Supreme Soviet. A copy of the manuscript arrived in the West, where its publication was announced. Subsequently, the Soviet authorities arrested Ginsburg once again and sentenced him in 1968 for "propaganda against the state " to five years in a labor camp.
The compiled by Ginsburg process documentation was published in Germany in 1966 in Russian under the title " Белая книга » по делу писателей Андрея Синявского и Юлия Даниэля and 1967 operated in German translation as a White Paper in terms Siniavskii -Daniel in the of the anti-communist exile organization Federation of Russian Solidarists Possev Publishers.
Ginsburg spent the first part of his imprisonment in Mordovia labor camps Potma. In the summer of 1969, he sat with the help of hunger strike, the marriage with his fiancée Irina Sokolovskaya by, a university lecturer. As a wedding date, the authorities set up to August 21, 1969, the first anniversary of the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in Czechoslovakia. Ginsburg and fellow prisoners managed repeatedly to smuggle manuscripts and audio recordings from the camp Potma who later published in the West, or were sent. The authorities punished him for it by laying in the Vladimirovka.
Human rights work, and third adhesive
After his release from prison in January 1972 Ginsburg was not allowed to return to his wife and two children to Moscow. He moved then to around 100 kilometers away Tarusa. Meanwhile, he was considered one of the leading dissidents. He became secretary of Andrei Sakharov, and also the Nobel Prize for Literature Alexander Solzhenitsyn got in touch with him. After his expulsion in February 1974 Ginsburg took over the administration of the Russian Society fund to support the victims of persecution and their families (also: Solzhenitsyn Fund), who received the income from Solzhenitsyn's work, The Gulag Archipelago and donations of Soviet citizens. The fund supported political prisoners of the Soviet Union and their families. 1976 Ginsburg was one of the founding members of the Moscow Helsinki Group, which watched over the observance of the 1975 negotiated human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act.
The Soviet authorities arrested him on February 3, 1977 again. This time, she accused him of breach of exchange. By decree of Leonid Brezhnev, the statutory maximum period of twelve months has been exceeded remand. The trial of Ginsburg began in July 1978 and attracted international attention again. According to his wife, who watched the proceedings, Ginsburg was treated with high doses of neuroleptics, and therefore could hardly follow the trial. The court in Kaluga sentenced him to eight years in a prison camp. An appeal rejected by the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union.
Expatriation and exile
Shortly after the third arrest Ginsburg's mother asked the mother of the American president Jimmy Carter, to use for her son. At the urging of the American president and his national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski began secret negotiations with representatives of the USSR. The negotiators of the Soviet Union and the United States finally agreed on the exchange of two spies of the USSR against five prisoners in the USSR. Were exchanged Vladik Enger and Rudolf Tschernjajew, who had been sentenced in the U.S. to long prison terms, against Ginsburg, Valentin Moroz, Eduard Kusznezow, Georgi Vins and Mark Dimtschiz.
On April 27, 1979 Ginsburg was expatriated and flown to the United States, of which Irina Ginsburg learned only from a radio broadcast of the Voice of America. The beginning of 1980 she was able to follow in the U.S., the 19-year unofficially adopted son Sergei Schibatew remained the exit denied the two biological children. Ginsburg was first guest of Solzhenitsyn in Cavendish, and gave a series of lectures in the United States. He also continued to participate in the management of the Solzhenitsyn Fund.
In the summer of 1980, Ginsburg and his family moved to Paris. There he took over the leadership of the Russian Cultural Center and worked as a journalist, primarily for the émigré journal Russkaya Mysl (Eng. "Russian idea " ), and as a lobbyist for the Soviet dissident movement.
Ginsburg commented after the collapse of the Soviet Union from Paris, the human rights situation is critical, for example in Chechnya. The chances of a liberal-democratic development in Russia, he looked skeptical. After 18 years of efforts, he received In 1998, supported by public protests, the French citizenship.
Publications
- White Paper in terms Siniavskii -Daniel. Possev, Frankfurt am Main, 1967.