Larisa Bogoraz
Encyclopedia
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Лариса Иосифовна Богораз-Брухман; August 8, 1929 - April 6, 2004) was a dissident
Soviet dissidents
Soviet dissidents were citizens of the Soviet Union who disagreed with the policies and actions of their government and actively protested against these actions through either violent or non-violent means...
in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Born into a family of Communist Party bureaucrats, she graduated as a linguist from Kharkov University in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, and in 1950, married her first husband, Yuli Daniel
Yuli Daniel
Yuli Markovich Daniel was a Soviet dissident writer, poet, translator and political prisoner.He frequently wrote under the pseudonyms Nikolay Arzhak and Yu. Petrov .-Early life and World War II:...
, a writer. Together, they moved to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
.
Her marriage to Daniel would ultimately lead to her becoming involved in activism. In 1965, Daniel
Yuli Daniel
Yuli Markovich Daniel was a Soviet dissident writer, poet, translator and political prisoner.He frequently wrote under the pseudonyms Nikolay Arzhak and Yu. Petrov .-Early life and World War II:...
and a friend of his, Andrei Sinyavsky
Andrei Sinyavsky
Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky was a Russian writer, dissident, political prisoner, emigrant, Professor of Sorbonne University, magazine founder and publisher...
, were arrested for a number of writings that they had had published overseas under pseudonyms (see Sinyavsky-Daniel trial
Sinyavsky-Daniel trial
The Sinyavsky-Daniel trial was a trial against Russian writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, which took place in the Supreme Court of the RSFSR in Moscow between September 1965 and February 1966...
). The trial of the two men was the beginning of a crackdown on dissent under General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
. They were both sent to terms in forced labor camps. After their detention, Bogoraz wrote to Brezhnev in protest, despite knowing that such an act could land her in prison.
Red Square
Red Square is a city square in Moscow, Russia. The square separates the Kremlin, the former royal citadel and currently the official residence of the President of Russia, from a historic merchant quarter known as Kitai-gorod...
against the Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
at the 1968 Red Square demonstration
1968 Red Square demonstration
The 1968 Red Square demonstration took place on August 25, 1968 at Red Square, Moscow, Soviet Union, to protest the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies, that occurred during the night of 20–21 August 1968, crushing the so-called Prague spring, a set of...
, together with Pavel Litvinov
Pavel Litvinov
Pavel Litvinov is a Russian physicist, writer, human rights activist and former Soviet-era dissident. He is the grandson of Maxim Litvinov, Joseph Stalin's foreign minister during the 1930s, and as such was born and raised amongst the Soviet elite...
, Natalya Gorbanevskaya
Natalya Gorbanevskaya
Natalya Yevgenyevna Gorbanevskaya is a Russian poet, translator of Polish literature and civil rights activist. She is also a citizen of Poland.- Life :Gorbanevskaya graduated from Leningrad University in 1964 and became a technical editor and translator...
, Vadim Delaunay
Vadim Delaunay
Vadim Nikolaevich Delaunay was a Russian poet and dissident, who participated in the1968 Red Square demonstration of protest against military suppression of the Prague Spring.- Biography :...
and other protesters. Although, KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
was not successful to determine who of participants kept each banner, all the banners were qualified as "antisoviet
Anti-Sovietism
Anti-Sovietism and Anti-Soviet refer to persons and activities actually or allegedly aimed against the Soviet Union or government power within the Soviet Union.Three different flavors of the usage of the term may be distinguished....
". For this, she was arrested, tried and sentenced to four years of exile in Siberia, which she spent in a woodworking plant. L.Bogoraz is mentioned in the song Ilyich (in Russian) by Yuliy Kim
Yuliy Kim
Yuliy Chersanovich Kim is one of Russia's foremost bards and playwrights. His most famous works, encompassing everything from mild humor to biting political satire, include songs for movies such as Bumbarash, The Twelve Chairs, and An Ordinary Miracle, as well as the songs "The Brave Captain,"...
, available at several sites. That song is about reaction of L.Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
on the demonstration catches the
espiritu of the epoc of Brezhnev stagnation
Brezhnev stagnation
The Era of Stagnation, also known as Brezhnev stagnation or the Stagnation Period, refers to a period of economic stagnation under the rules of Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko in the history of the Soviet Union which started in the mid-1970s.-Terminology:Various authors...
, although at the time of writing of the song, the text of the letter of Andropov
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was a Soviet politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death fifteen months later.-Early life:...
to Central Committee was not available.
Daniel was released in 1970, while Bogoraz was still in Siberia. Their marriage did not survive much longer, and they soon divorced. However, soon after her release, Bogoraz resumed her resistance of the Soviet regime. She signed many public appeals to the authorities. She co-wrote an underground book, Memory, which detailed Stalin's terror and was subsequently published overseas. She also contributed to the underground publication Chronicle of Current Events
Chronicle of Current Events
The information bulletin Chronicle of Current Events was one of the longest-running and best-known samizdat periodicals in the USSR dedicated to the defense of human rights...
. In 1975, she wrote a letter to Yuri Andropov
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was a Soviet politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death fifteen months later.-Early life:...
, who was the head of the KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
at the time, requesting that he open the organization's archives.
She later married Anatoly Marchenko
Anatoly Marchenko
Anatoly Tikhonovich Marchenko was an influential and well-known Soviet dissident, author, and human rights campaigner...
, another prominent dissident. Together, they co-wrote a number of appeals. However, he was arrested in 1980, and unlike Daniel, did not survive his sentence. Bogoraz launched a campaign in 1986 to have all political prisoners freed. The campaign was successful, as the following year, General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
began releasing them. This came too late for Marchenko, who died as a result of a hunger strike
Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
shortly before the initial release.
In 1989, Bogoraz joined, and subsequently became chairwoman of, the newly re-founded Moscow Helsinki Group
Moscow Helsinki Group
The Moscow Helsinki Group is an influential human rights monitoring non-governmental organization, originally established in what was then the Soviet Union; it still operates in Russia....
. She acted as a bridge between the old guard of dissidents, and the new generation that were arising as the Soviet Union dissolved
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
.
After the demise of the Soviet Union, Bogoraz continued her activism, visiting prisoners and holding seminars on the defense of human rights. She also became chairwoman of the Seminar on Human Rights, a joint Russian-American nongovernmental organization. She resigned from the latter in 1996, but continued to exert influence in human rights circles up until her death.
Not long before her death, she issued an open letter condemning both the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the 2003 Iraq War. She died on April 6, 2004, aged 74, after a series of strokes
Links
- Obituary: Larisa Bogoraz, The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, April 10, 2004 - Obituary: Larisa Iosifovna Bogoraz, http://www.artukraine.com/historical/bogoraz.htm
- CAUCASIAN KNOT / PERSONS. Bogoraz, Larissa Iosifovna http://eng.kavkaz.memo.ru/printperson/engperson/id/656175.html