Sinyavsky-Daniel trial
Encyclopedia
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. This show trial
is widely considered to mark the end of the period of Khruschev's liberalism
and was a major starting impulse for the modern Soviet dissident
movement.
The hearings, held in Moscow between February 10 and 14, 1966 under chairman of the court Lev Smirnov, were not open to the public or foreign observers, and only fragments of the proceedings reached the outside world. The affair was accompanied by a harsh propaganda
campaign in the media.
Sinyavsky and Daniel were convicted on February 14 under Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal code, anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda, which deals with "propaganda conducted for the purpose of undermining the state". The article was applied to fiction for the first time in this case. Unusual in the USSR, both writers entered a plea of not guilty. Daniel was sentenced to five, Sinyavsky to seven years of strict-regime labor camps
in Mordovia
, east of Moscow.
Daniel served his full term. After his release he lived in Kaluga
and Moscow until his death in 1988. Sinyavsky served six years. After his release he emigrated
to Paris
in 1973.
In 1991, the Supreme Court of the RSFSR rescinded the verdict and sentence and ordered the case closed for lack of the elements of a crime.
and the United States
. The trial was universally condemned in the Western media, including Socialist and Communist publications, and drew criticism from public figures from around the world.
, Izvestia
and Literaturnaya Gazeta
, which also published collective condemnation letters by Soviet citizens. Then-recent Nobel laureate Mikhail Sholokhov expressed his wishes that the defendants be executed.
Nonetheless the trial provoked protests. A group of Soviet luminaries sent petitions to Leonid Brezhnev
asking not to rehabilitate Stalinism
. Among them were the academicians Andrei Sakharov
, Vitaly Ginzburg
, Yakov Zeldovich, Mikhail Leontovich
, Igor Tamm
, Lev Artsimovich
, Pyotr Kapitsa
and Ivan Maysky
, writers Konstantin Paustovsky
and Viktor Nekrasov
, composer Dmitri Shostakovich
, actors Innokenty Smoktunovsky
, Maya Plisetskaya
, Oleg Yefremov
and others.
Another letter, which became known as the "Letter of the 63", was signed by members of the USSR Union of Writers
and addressed to the presidium of the Twenty-Third Congress of the Communist Party
. It called for the release of the writers on bail and argued that the trial itself did more harm than the works of the writers. Among the signatories were Korney Chukovsky
, Ilya Ehrenburg
, Viktor Shklovsky
, Venyamin Kaverin, Bella Akhmadulina, Bulat Okudzhava
and Arseny Tarkovsky
.
Several people, including Larisa Bogoraz
, sent independent letters in support of Sinyavsky and Daniel.
. Critics of the trial protested the harsh sentences meted out
to Sinyavsky and Daniel and continued to emphasize issues of creative freedom and the historical role of the writer in Russian society.
Others were troubled by the claims of the court that the trial was in full adherence to existing law and the human rights
guaranteed in the Soviet constitution. These concerns motivated the first public political demonstration in the Soviet Union after the Second World War, when on Soviet Constitution Day, December 5, 1965, friends of Sinyavsky and Daniel organized a protest on Moscow's Pushkin Square
with the call for a fair and open trial. Among the demonstrators were Alexander Esenin-Volpin
, Yuri Galanskov
and Vladimir Bukovsky
. Many of the participants were arrested on site, but released shortly, as their banners merely called for adherence to the rights formally guaranteed by the law. The demonstration became known as the Glasnost Meeting . It became an annual event in Moscow, eventually attracting luminaries such as Andrei Sakharov.
The demonstration was soon followed by an increase in open protest and samizdat
. In 1967, journalist Alexander Ginzburg
was arrested for compiling a report on the trial known as The White Book, which he sent to the Communist Party Central Committee
as well as to publishers abroad. He was sentenced to five years in a labor camp. His trial in 1968 in itself became a landmark in the Soviet human rights
movement.
Underground coverage of these and similar events ultimately led to the appearance of the Chronicle of Current Events in April 1968.
), and helped to initiate the retrenchment associated with the Brezhnev's epoch (Brezhnev Stagnation
). The further restrictions were achieved by an increase in arrests and persecutions as well as changes in the legal code itself. Shortly after the trial, in which the prosecution had found it difficult to prove the intent to do harm that was required by article 70, the Soviet legislature introduced amendments to Articles 142 and 190 of the RSFSR Criminal code. The changes made the "dissemination of known falsehoods that defame the Soviet political and social system" a criminal offense and did not stipulate any intention at all. As a direct response to the group demonstrations in support of Sinyavsky and Daniel, amendments were introduced that prohibited "violations of the public order by a group".
Coverage of the trial
Other
Andrei Sinyavsky
Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky was a Russian writer, dissident, political prisoner, emigrant, Professor of Sorbonne University, magazine founder and publisher...
and 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:...
, which took place in the Supreme Court of the RSFSR in 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...
between September 1965 and February 1966. This show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
is widely considered to mark the end of the period of Khruschev's liberalism
Khrushchev Thaw
The Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were partially reversed and millions of Soviet political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps, due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and...
and was a major starting impulse for the modern Soviet dissident
Dissident
A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
movement.
The Trial
In September 1965, well-known literary writer and critic Andrei Sinyavsky and writer and translator Yuly Daniel were arrested and accused of having published anti-Soviet material in foreign editorials using the respective pseudonyms Abram Tertz and Nikolai Arzhak.The hearings, held in Moscow between February 10 and 14, 1966 under chairman of the court Lev Smirnov, were not open to the public or foreign observers, and only fragments of the proceedings reached the outside world. The affair was accompanied by a harsh propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
campaign in the media.
Sinyavsky and Daniel were convicted on February 14 under Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal code, anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda, which deals with "propaganda conducted for the purpose of undermining the state". The article was applied to fiction for the first time in this case. Unusual in the USSR, both writers entered a plea of not guilty. Daniel was sentenced to five, Sinyavsky to seven years of strict-regime labor camps
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
in Mordovia
Mordovia
The Republic of Mordovia , also known as Mordvinia, is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the city of Saransk. Population: -Geography:The republic is located in the eastern part of the East European Plain of Russia...
, east of Moscow.
Daniel served his full term. After his release he lived in Kaluga
Kaluga
Kaluga is a city and the administrative center of Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River southwest of Moscow. Population: It is served by Grabtsevo Airport.-History:...
and Moscow until his death in 1988. Sinyavsky served six years. After his release he emigrated
Emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving one's country or region to settle in another. It is the same as immigration but from the perspective of the country of origin. Human movement before the establishment of political boundaries or within one state is termed migration. There are many reasons why people...
to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1973.
In 1991, the Supreme Court of the RSFSR rescinded the verdict and sentence and ordered the case closed for lack of the elements of a crime.
Reaction Abroad
Although the trial was closed to the Western press, the defendants' wives smuggled out their own handwritten transcripts, which were published abroad in FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The trial was universally condemned in the Western media, including Socialist and Communist publications, and drew criticism from public figures from around the world.
Internal Reaction
The proceedings were framed by denunciations in the media, headed by the newspapers PravdaPravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
, Izvestia
Izvestia
Izvestia is a long-running high-circulation daily newspaper in Russia. The word "izvestiya" in Russian means "delivered messages", derived from the verb izveshchat . In the context of newspapers it is usually translated as "news" or "reports".-Origin:The newspaper began as the News of the...
and Literaturnaya Gazeta
Literaturnaya Gazeta
Literaturnaya Gazeta is a weekly cultural and political newspaper published in Russia and Soviet Union.- Overview :...
, which also published collective condemnation letters by Soviet citizens. Then-recent Nobel laureate Mikhail Sholokhov expressed his wishes that the defendants be executed.
Nonetheless the trial provoked protests. A group of Soviet luminaries sent petitions to 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...
asking not to rehabilitate Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
. Among them were the academicians Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and human rights activist. He earned renown as the designer of the Soviet Union's Third Idea, a codename for Soviet development of thermonuclear weapons. Sakharov was an advocate of civil liberties and civil reforms in the...
, Vitaly Ginzburg
Vitaly Ginzburg
Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg ForMemRS was a Soviet theoretical physicist, astrophysicist, Nobel laureate, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and one of the fathers of Soviet hydrogen bomb...
, Yakov Zeldovich, Mikhail Leontovich
Mikhail Leontovich
Mikhail Alexandrovich Leontovich was a Soviet physicist, member of USSR Academy of Sciences, specializing in plasma and radiophysics....
, Igor Tamm
Igor Tamm
Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm was a Soviet physicist and Nobel laureate who received most prestigious Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov and Ilya Frank, for the discovery of Cherenkov radiation, made in 1934.-Biography:Tamm was born in Vladivostok, Russian Empire , in a...
, Lev Artsimovich
Lev Artsimovich
Lev Andreevich Artsimovich was a Soviet physicist, academician of the Soviet Academy of Sciences , member of the Presidium of the Soviet Academy of Sciences , and Hero of Socialist Labor .- Academic research :Artsimovich worked on the...
, Pyotr Kapitsa
Pyotr Kapitsa
Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was a prominent Soviet/Russian physicist and Nobel laureate.-Biography:Kapitsa was born in the city of Kronstadt and graduated from the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute in 1918. He worked for over ten years with Ernest Rutherford in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge...
and Ivan Maysky
Ivan Maysky
Ivan Mikhailovich Maisky was a Soviet diplomat, historian, and politician, notable as that country's ambassador to London during much of World War II...
, writers Konstantin Paustovsky
Konstantin Paustovsky
Konstantin Georgiyevich Paustovsky was a Russian Soviet writer nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature in 1965.-Early life:Konstantin Paustovsky was born in Moscow. His father, descendant of the Zaporizhia Cossacks, was a railroad statistician, and was “an incurable romantic and Protestant”....
and Viktor Nekrasov
Viktor Nekrasov
Viktor Platonovich Nekrasov was a Russian writer, journalist and editor.-Biography:Nekrasov was born in Kiev and graduated with a degree in architecture in 1936. Between 1937 and 1941, he was an actor and set designer with the Kiev Russian Drama Theater...
, composer Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
, actors Innokenty Smoktunovsky
Innokenty Smoktunovsky
Innokentiy Mikhailovich Smoktunovsky was a Soviet actor acclaimed as the "king of Soviet actors". He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1974 and the Hero of Socialist Labour in 1990....
, Maya Plisetskaya
Maya Plisetskaya
Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya , born is a Russian ballet dancer, frequently cited as one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century. Maya danced during the Soviet era at the same time as the great Galina Ulanova, and took over from her as prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi in 1960...
, Oleg Yefremov
Oleg Yefremov
Oleg Nikolayevich Yefremov was a Soviet/Russian actor and Moscow Art Theatre producer. People's Artist of the USSR , Hero of Socialist Labour ....
and others.
Another letter, which became known as the "Letter of the 63", was signed by members of the USSR Union of Writers
USSR Union of Writers
The USSR Union of Writers, or Union of Soviet Writers was a creative union of professional writers in the USSR. It was founded in 1932 on the initiative of the Central Committee of the Communist Party after disbanding a number of other writers' organizations: RAPP, Proletkult, and VOAPP.The aim of...
and addressed to the presidium of the Twenty-Third Congress of the Communist Party
23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union took place in Moscow, RSFSR between 29 March and 8 April 1966. It was the first Congress during Leonid Brezhnev's leadership of the Party and state...
. It called for the release of the writers on bail and argued that the trial itself did more harm than the works of the writers. Among the signatories were Korney Chukovsky
Korney Chukovsky
Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky was one of the most popular children's poets in the Russian language. His poems, Doctor Aybolit , The Giant Roach , The Crocodile , and Wash'em'clean have been favourites with many generations of Russophone children...
, Ilya Ehrenburg
Ilya Ehrenburg
Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg was a Soviet writer, journalist, translator, and cultural figure.Ehrenburg is among the most prolific and notable authors of the Soviet Union; he published around one hundred titles. He became known first and foremost as a novelist and a journalist - in particular, as a...
, Viktor Shklovsky
Viktor Shklovsky
Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky was a Russian and Soviet critic, writer, and pamphleteer.-Life:...
, Venyamin Kaverin, Bella Akhmadulina, Bulat Okudzhava
Bulat Okudzhava
Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, musician, novelist, and singer-songwriter. He was one of the founders of the Russian genre called "author song"...
and Arseny Tarkovsky
Arseny Tarkovsky
Arseny Alexandrovich Tarkovsky was a prominent Soviet and Russian poet and translator. He is considered one of the great 20th century Russian poets. He was also the father of influential film director Andrei Tarkovsky.-Origin:...
.
Several people, including Larisa Bogoraz
Larisa Bogoraz
Larisa Iosifovna Bogoraz was a dissident in the Soviet Union....
, sent independent letters in support of Sinyavsky and Daniel.
Dissident Movement
For many members of the intelligentsia, the Sinyavsky–Daniel case marked a return to the show trials of the 1930s, a sign that the Brezhnev Politburo was preparing to reverse the gains of Khrushchev's de-StalinizationDe-Stalinization
De-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in March 1953...
. Critics of the trial protested the harsh sentences meted out
to Sinyavsky and Daniel and continued to emphasize issues of creative freedom and the historical role of the writer in Russian society.
Others were troubled by the claims of the court that the trial was in full adherence to existing law and the human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
guaranteed in the Soviet constitution. These concerns motivated the first public political demonstration in the Soviet Union after the Second World War, when on Soviet Constitution Day, December 5, 1965, friends of Sinyavsky and Daniel organized a protest on Moscow's Pushkin Square
Pushkin Square
Pushkinskaya Square or Pushkin Square in Moscow, historically known as Strastnaya Square and renamed for Alexander Pushkin in 1937, is located at the junction of the Boulevard Ring and Tverskaya Street, 2 km northwest of the Kremlin...
with the call for a fair and open trial. Among the demonstrators were Alexander Esenin-Volpin
Alexander Esenin-Volpin
Alexander Sergeyevich Esenin-Volpin is a prominent Russian-American poet and mathematician.Born on May 12, 1924 in the former Soviet Union, he was a notable dissident, political prisoner, poet, and mathematician...
, Yuri Galanskov
Yuri Galanskov
Yuri Timofeyevich Galanskov was a Russian poet, historian, human rights activist and dissident. For his political activities, such as founding and editing samizdat almanac Phoenix, he was incarcerated in prisons, camps and forced treatment psychiatric hospitals ...
and Vladimir Bukovsky
Vladimir Bukovsky
Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky is a leading member of the dissident movement of the 1960s and 1970s, writer, neurophysiologist, and political activist....
. Many of the participants were arrested on site, but released shortly, as their banners merely called for adherence to the rights formally guaranteed by the law. The demonstration became known as the Glasnost Meeting . It became an annual event in Moscow, eventually attracting luminaries such as Andrei Sakharov.
The demonstration was soon followed by an increase in open protest and samizdat
Samizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
. In 1967, journalist Alexander Ginzburg
Alexander Ginzburg
Alexander Ilyich Ginzburg , was a Russian journalist, poet, human rights activist and dissident.During the Soviet period, Ginzburg edited the samizdat poetry almanac Sintaksis. Between 1961 and 1969 he was sentenced three times to labor camps...
was arrested for compiling a report on the trial known as The White Book, which he sent to the Communist Party Central Committee
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka", earlier was also called as the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party ...
as well as to publishers abroad. He was sentenced to five years in a labor camp. His trial in 1968 in itself became a landmark in the Soviet human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
movement.
Underground coverage of these and similar events ultimately led to the appearance of the Chronicle of Current Events in April 1968.
Political and Legal Consequences
The trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel brought to the end the period of Khrushchev's liberalism (Khrushchev ThawKhrushchev Thaw
The Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were partially reversed and millions of Soviet political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps, due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and...
), and helped to initiate the retrenchment associated with the Brezhnev's epoch (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...
). The further restrictions were achieved by an increase in arrests and persecutions as well as changes in the legal code itself. Shortly after the trial, in which the prosecution had found it difficult to prove the intent to do harm that was required by article 70, the Soviet legislature introduced amendments to Articles 142 and 190 of the RSFSR Criminal code. The changes made the "dissemination of known falsehoods that defame the Soviet political and social system" a criminal offense and did not stipulate any intention at all. As a direct response to the group demonstrations in support of Sinyavsky and Daniel, amendments were introduced that prohibited "violations of the public order by a group".
External Links
Trial transcripts and documents Белая Книга по делу А. Синявского и Ю. Даниэля. Посев: Франкфурт на Майне, 1967. Факсимильное воспроизведение издания в pdf — самое полное издание стенограммы процесса Синявский и Даниэль на скамье подсудимых. Нью Йорк, 1966. Факсимильное воспроизведение издания в pdf- Soviet Writers' Appeal for the Release of Sinyavsky and Daniel, HU OSAOpen Society ArchivesThe Open Society Archives , abbreviated as OSA, is an archive and center for research and education located in Budapest, Hungary. Its collections and activities relate to the period after the Second World War, mainly the Cold War, the history of the formerly communist countries, Human rights, and...
63-3-117 - Protest Letter of Lidiya Chukovskaya to Mikhail Sholokhov (in response to his calls for a harsher punishment of the writers), HU OSA 63-3-119
Coverage of the trial
- Soviet Union: Notes from Underground, Time magazine, Oct. 29, 1965
- Russia: The Trial Begins, Time magazine, Feb. 18, 1966
- Russia: A Bit of Fear, Time magazine, Feb. 25, 1966
- World: A Day in the Life of Yuli Daniel, Time magazine, Jun. 06, 1969
Other
- Obituary: Andrei Sinyavsky, 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...
, Feb. 27, 1997 - Frank, Joseph: The Triumph of Abram Tertz, The New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
, Vol. 38, No. 12, Jun. 27, 1991 40 лет процессу над Синявским и Даниэлем — Ирина Уварова, Кристина Горелик. Радио Свобода, 10 сентября 2005 г.