Andrei Amalrik

Andrei Alekseyevich Amalrik (Russian: Андрей Алексеевич Амальрик; born May 12, 1938 in Moscow, † November 12, 1980 in Guadalajara, Spain) was a Russian historian, journalist, writer and dissident. After numerous clashes with the Soviet state violence he left in 1976 emigrate to the proposal. Only four years later overtook him in Spain a fatal car accident.

• 3.1 Russian editions during his lifetime
• 3.2 Russian editions after death
• 3.3 German editions

Life

Amalric was the son of the historian and archaeologist Alexei Sergeyevich Amalric and his wife Zoja Grigorijewna Amalric (born Schablejewa ). The young Amalrik shone at school more often by their absence, enjoyed playing ice hockey and led to the puppet theater on his own pieces. Childhood and youth were marked, moreover, by the era of Stalinism.

Study and avant-garde

From 1959/1960 onwards he studied at the History Department of Moscow State University. In a paper he represented - by Western historians represented, on the other hand rejected by the Soviet historians school - thesis, in the founding of the first Russian state Norman Varangians had played the leading role. He was expelled from the university because of that one year before graduating in 1963 and worked in the following years as a postman, a technical translator and timekeepers at sport events.

From the Communist Party in the sixties, the art of Socialist Realism had been enacted. Amalrik collected since the late fifties avant-garde contemporary works by Soviet artists; he himself wrote plays that were based on the theater of the absurd.

Getting detention

As one of the first dissidents of the Russian Civil Rights Movement Amalrik sought deliberately to contact accredited in Moscow Western diplomats and journalists. In January 1965, the exhibition of Soviet expressionist artist Anatoly Zverev and underground was opened in Moscow; Zverev itself was surveyed on in Amalriks apartment of an American journalist - this time in the Soviet Union, a punishable offense. The militia and KGB searched on Amalrik, he was summoned for questioning.

On May 15, 1965, he was summoned to the prosecutor's office and imprisoned in the Butirka. His home was searched. After temporary release, he was put on trial and sentenced to two and a half years of exile with hard labor, formally known as Tagedieb ( Russian: тунеядец ) due to parasitism. A conviction for parasitism was common in the Soviet Union, particularly in critical intellectuals.

In June 1965, Amalric was brought to stations in the prisons of Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk and Tomsk in Siberian village Gurjewka, where he worked in the kolkhoz Kalinin. After the death of his father, he received permission to Moscow in late September to drive. There he made Gjusel Kowylewna Makudinowa, a painter of Tatar nationality, to marry him. In the autumn he traveled with her back into exile in the village Gurjewka and married her there. In December, Ms. Amalriks back to Moscow.

Freedom and human rights movement

On July 29, 1966 Amalric returned to his release to Moscow, where he lived with his wife in a so-called Kommunalka in a room. 1966 and 1967 he worked on his first book Involuntary journey to Siberia (Russian: Нежелательное путешествие в Сибирь ). He managed to have smuggled the completed manuscript to the pressure in the West. Amalrik again took part in the life of the Moscow art scene. He also wrote articles on cultural issues for the state news agency Novosti.

From 1968 to 1970 worked Amalrik strengthened as a human rights activist. He helped prepare Chronicle of Current Events ( Хроника текущих событий ) the Soviet samizdat publication and put together a documentary about the trial of dissidents. With this however, he was caught in September 1968 at a train station, arrested and released. After the invasion of the USSR in Czechoslovakia already started a more intensive monitoring of dissidents by the KGB. Amalrik now had to return to work as a postman, his home was searched twice. Nevertheless, he succeeded in this time the book Experience the Soviet Union in 1984? (Russian: Доживет ли Советский Союз до 1984 года? ) finish and smuggled back into the West. For the publication of the book he gave an interview to American correspondents, which he drew the attention of the security forces on again.

Second imprisonment, illness and exile

On February 21, 1970 Amalriks was searched apartment, on May 21, he was arrested for the second time. On November 12, the trial, which earned him three years of forced labor began. He served his sentence in Kolyma and Magadan in the region, especially there in the warehouse 261/3 in the village Talaja, where he worked as a cleaner. During the detention period, he contracted meningoencephalitis.

In 1973 Amalrik the dissemination of anti-Soviet propaganda in prisons was accused. Then he went on a hunger strike, which he broke off after five days. On 13 August, he was again sentenced to three years, this time intensified forced labor. He entered again into hunger strike and was forcibly fed. As the judgment of intensified forced labor was mitigated to exile, he ended the hunger strike. During the period of exile, he lived in Magadan and worked at an institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In January 1975, the KGB he made ​​the suggestion to apply for his departure to Israel.

Release and departure

On 6 May 1975 Amalric was released and went to Moscow. His application for a passport and residence permit for Moscow was rejected. He got a residence permit for the hamlet Worsino at Borovsk in the district of Kaluga. He held illegally in Moscow and helped with the establishment of the Helsinki Group, citing the Helsinki Final Act called for the respect of human rights in the aftermath.

After he had received from Holland an invitation Amalrik agreed to the exit and took again the last opportunity to take a tour of Russia. On May 17, 1976, he received an exit visa for the Netherlands and Israel. On July 15, he traveled to Amsterdam.

Exile and death

The following years worked as a writer and publicist Amalrik in exile. On the trip to Madrid for a conference on human rights issues he died in a car accident on November 12, 1980 in near the Spanish city of Guadalajara.

Quote

• The dissenters accomplished an act of ingenious simplicity - in an unfree country, they started to behave like free people.

Works

Russian editions during his lifetime

• Experience the Soviet Union in 1984? Amsterdam, Hearts Foundation, 1969 ( Russian: Просуществует ли Советский Союз до 1984 года Амстердам: . Фонд им Герцена, 1969). In Russia a wide audience for the first time in 1990 in the journal Ogonek No. 9, page 18 to 22 made ​​excerpts available.
• Involuntary journey to Siberia ( Нежеланное путешествие в Сибирь ) New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970 Online in Russian here.
• Plays Amsterdam, Hearts Foundation 1970 (: Амстердам Пьесы: Russian. Фонд им Герцена, 1970. )
• Articles and letters Amsterdam, Hearts Foundation 1971 ( Russian: Статьи и письма: 1967-1970 Амстердам: Фонд им Герцена, 1971 100 с Б - ка Самиздата; № 2. .. . )
• The USSR and the West in a boat London, Overseas Publications Interchange 1978 ( Russian: СССР и Запад в одной лодке Лондон. OPI, 1978 241 с )

Russian editions after death

• Notes of a dissident Ann Arbor Ardis in 1982 (Russian: Записки диссидента Анн - Арбор Ардис, 1982. )
• Rasputin. Documentary narrative ( Распутин. Документальная повесть ) Moscow, Slovo 1992

German editions

• Will the Soviet Union to experience the 1984? Diogenes Verlag, Zurich 1970.
• Involuntary journey to Siberia. Wegner Verlag, Hamburg 1970.
• USSR - 1984 and no end. Essays. Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1981.
• Notes of a revolutionary. Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983.
• Will the Soviet Union to experience the 1984? German -language edition, Diogenes Verlag, Zurich 1992 ( = Diogenes Paperback; 20005 ), ISBN 3-257-20005-6. ( With an afterword by Christoph Neidhart: Andrej Amalriks Guide to the demise of the Soviet Union is a historic document.. )