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Helsinki Watch Committees in the Soviet Republics: Implications for Soviety Nationality Policy*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
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- Symposium (A Decade of Dissent in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: Meaning of the 1970s)
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- Copyright © 1981 by the Association for the Study of the Nationalities (USSR and East Europe) Inc.
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* This paper is based on the authors’ longer study, The Helsinki Watch Committees in the Soviet Republics: Implications for the Soviet Nationality Question, which was supported in whole or in part from funds provided by the National Council for Soviet and East European Research, under Council Contract Number 621-9. Travel to Garmisch-Partenkirchen has been — in Bilinsky's case — made possible by grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and the University of Delaware. The authors would like to thank their benefactors and explicitly stress that the authors alone are responsible for the contents of this paper. Paper presented at Second World Congress on Soviet and East European Studies, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, German Federal Republic, September 30 — October 4, 1980.Google Scholar
** We are not concerned with such more specialized groups within the Soviet Helsinki movement as the Christian Committee to Defend the Rights of Believers (established December 27, 1976), the Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes (established January 5, 1977), the Group for the Legal Struggle and Investigation of Facts about the Persecution of Believers in the USSR of the All-Union Church of the Faithful and Free Seventh-Day Adventists (established May 11, 1978), and the Catholic Committee to Defend the Rights of Believers (established November 13, 1978).Google Scholar
1. For the text of the Final Act see “Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe [CSCE], Final Act (Helsinki, August 1, 1975),” [US] Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 73, No. 1888 (September 1, 1975), pp. 323-350. Three good interpretations are Harold S. Russell, “The Helsinki Declaration: Brobdingnag or Lilliput?,” American Journal of International Law [AJIL], Vol. 70, No. 2 (April 1976), pp. 242-272; A. H. Robertson, “The Helsinki Agreement and Human Rights,” Notre Dame Lawyer, Vol. 53, No. 1 (Oct. 1977), pp. 34-48; and “The Helsinki Accord,” The Review of the International Commission of Jurists, No. 18 (June 1977), pp. 15-18. Russell, an Assistant Legal Advisor for European Affairs, Department of State, was the principal U.S. negotiator for the Helsinki Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations between Participating States. Robertson is Professeur Associé, University of Paris I, formerly Director of Human Rights, Council of Europe, Strasbourg. All three, Russell (pp. 246-49), Robertson (pp. 34-35), and the International Commission of Jurists Review (p. 15) stress the fact that the Act is not binding in international law. A very interesting comprehensive article is by McDougal, Myres S., et alii, “Human Rights and World Public Order: Human Rights in Comprehensive Context,” Northwestern University Law Review, Vol. 72 (May/June 1977), pp. 227-307.Google Scholar
2. Russell, loc. cit., p. 269.Google Scholar
3. See “International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” and “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” in AJIL, Vol. 61, No. 3 (July 1967), pp. 861-890. President Carter signed both documents (see N. Y. Times, 6 October 1977, p. 2) but the US Senate has not consented to the convenants as of the time of writing (June 1980).Google Scholar
4. “CSCE: Final Act,” loc. cit., p. 325.Google Scholar
5. Ibid.Google Scholar
6. Russell, loc. cit., p. 269.Google Scholar
7. Ibid., p. 268.Google Scholar
8. Ibid., p. 270.Google Scholar
9. Compare, e.g., the extensive coverage in Pravda, August 1, 1975, pp. 1-3, and Aug. 2, 1975, pp. 1-6, including full text of agreement on pp. 2-6, with the relatively skimpy coverage in N. Y. Times, August 1, and 2, 1975.Google Scholar
10. See “CSCE: Final Act,” loc. cit. (Note 1, above), p. 349.Google Scholar
11. See “Ob obrazovanii Obshchestvennoi Gruppy Sodeistviia Vypolneniiu Khel'sinkskikh Soglashenii v SSSR,” of May 12, 1976, in Samisdat — Archiv, e.V., Sobranie dokumentov samizdata, Vol. 30 [SDS 30], pp. 3-5.Google Scholar
12. See Document No. 1 (May 18, 1976), “The Case of Mustafa Dzhemilev, a Crimean Tatar”; and Doc. No. 9, (Oct. 12,1976), “The fate of Jews in the village of Ilinki,” both listed in Dr. Boiter's introduction in SDS 30, p. 2.Google Scholar
13. See the following documents: #10 (Nov. 10, 1976), “Repression of the Crimean Tatars”; #12 (Dec. 2, 1976), “Ukrainian refugees”; #15 (Dec. 8, 1976), “Dismissal of seven students from Vilnius school”; #18 (Jan. 14, 1977), “The situation of the Meskhetians”; #19 (Jan. 10, 1977), “Disruption of Moscow seminar on Jewish culture”; #22 (Apr.-May 1977), “The right of ethnic Germans to emigrate”; #24 (Nov. 4, 1977), “The discrimination against Crimean Tatars continues”; #28 (Dec. 31, 1977), “In defense of Petr Vins, Ukrainian Group member”; #31 (Feb. 2, 1978), “In defense of Levko Lukianenko, Ukrainian Group member”; #40 (March 15, 1978), “On the case of A. Shcharansky”; #41 (March 15, 1978), “Deprivation of P. Grigorenko's citizenship”; #43 (April 6, 1978), “Discrimination against M. Dzhemilev upon his release”; #59 (Aug. 20, 1978), “Trial of Levko Lukianenko, member of the Ukrainian Group”; #60 (Sept. 2, 1978), “Discrimination against Crimean Tatars continues”; #79 (Jan. 25, 1979), “Persecution of the Helsinki Groups”; #82 (Mar. 15, 1979), “Flagrant violations of human freedoms and rights in the Ukraine, Moscow, Leningrad, and Tashkent”; #84 (Apr. 14, 1979), “On the condition of Petr Vins who is making efforts to emigrate to Canada”; #93 (June 11, 1979), “Freedom to all imprisoned members of the Helsinki Groups!”; and #99 (Aug. 1979), “Repressions on ideological grounds from August 1978 to August 1979 (main emphasis on repressions in the Ukraine.”) See Boiter, SDS 30, p. 2, for ## 10-51 and Mrs. L. Alekseeva's letter to Y. Bilinsky of November 7, 1979, for contents of subsequent documents.Google Scholar
14. See A. Boiter, SDS 30, p. 143.Google Scholar
15. Wrote M. Rudenko: “As far as my political views were concerned, that question was not discussed at all. A. D. Sakharov and V. F. Turchin possess such a broad perspective and such tolerance, which make them genuine democrats.” See Rudenko, Ekonomichni Monolohy (New York: Suchasnist', 1978), p. 106n.; emphasis in original.Google Scholar
16. Reference is to the declaration and the eighteen memoranda of the Ukrainian Group. It should be noted, however, that Memoranda Nos. 3, 10, 12-17 have not reached the West as of June 1980.Google Scholar
17. See Rudenko's letter to Dr. A Zwarun and B. Yasen of January 1, 1977. Copy consulted in Smoloskyp archives, courtesy of Mr. Osyp Zinkewych, one of Smoloskyp's editors.Google Scholar
18. See Ivan Dzyuba, Internationalism or Russification? (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968). See also the underground Ukrainian Herald (especially Dissent in Ukraine: The Ukrainian Herald Issue 6 [of March 1972] [Baltimore: Smoloskyp, 1977] and Ethnocide of Ukrainians in the USSR: The Ukrainian Herald Issue 7-8 [of Spring 1974] [Baltimore: Smoloskyp, 1976]). The neoMarxist Leonid Plyushch told at a hearing in the US Congress: “Most of the people who are labeled as bourgeois nationalists [in the Ukraine] are only demanding that their culture be permitted to develop freely. In this instance I am more Catholic than the Pope himself, because I believe that the development of Ukrainian culture is utopian within the framework of the Soviet Union. Therefore, I am for the secession of the Ukraine from the Soviet Union …” (See US Congress [94th: 2nd session], House of Representatives, Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Organizations, Hearing: Psychiatric Abuse of Political Prisoners in the Soviet Union — Testimony by Leonid Plyushch [March 30, 1976], p. 22). Secondary literature on Ukrainian dissent in the 1970's is rather voluminous. See, among others, Julian Birch, “The Nature and Sources of Dissidence in Ukraine,” in Peter J. Potichnyj, ed., Ukraine in the Seventies (Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1975), pp. 307-330; Bohdan Bociurkiw, “Soviet Nationalities Policy and Dissent in the Ukraine,” The World Today, Vol. 30 (May 1974), pp. 214-226; Wsewolod W. Isajiw, “Migratsiia do mist, suspil'ni zminy i rukh oporu na Ukraini,” in Suchasnist' (Munich), Vol. 20, No. 1 (Jan. 1980), pp. 75-85; Jaroslaw Pelenski, “Shelest and His Period in Soviet Ukraine (1963–1972): A Revival of Controlled Ukrainian Autonomism,” in Ukraine in the Seventies, pp. 283-305; also Roman Szporluk, “The Ukraine and the Ukrainians,” in Zev Katz et alii, eds., Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities (New York: Free Press, 1975), pp. 21-48. Very interesting and informative is the comprehensive recent article by Gerhard Simon, “Die nichtrussischen Völker in Gesellschaft und Innenpolitik der UdSSR,” Osteuropa, Vol. 29, No. 6 (June 1979), pp. 447-467 (see p. 464 on Ukrainian dissent). See also Y. Bilinsky: “The Communist Party of Ukraine After 1966,” in Ukraine in the Seventies, pp. 239-266; “Politics, Purge, and Dissent in the Ukraine since the Fall of Shelest,” in Ihor Kamenetsky, ed., Nationalism and Human Rights: Processes of Modernization in the USSR (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1977), pp. 168-185; and “Political Aspirations of Dissenters in Ukraine,” in Ukraïns'ky istoryk (The Ukrainian Historian, Munich), Vol. 15, No. 1-3 (1978), pp. 30-39.Google Scholar
19. See Rudenko's open letter on Ukraine's participation in the Belgrade Conference and the creation of the Ukrainian [Helsinki] Group, of November 14, 1976, in Komitet Hel'sinks'kykh Garantii dlia Ukräiny, Vashington (Helsinki Guarantees for Ukraine Committee, Washington, USA), Osyp Zinkewych, comp., Ukraïns'kyi pravozakhysnyi rukh: Dokumenty i materialy kýivs'ko'i Ukrdins'koi Hromads'kói Hrupy Spryiannia vykonanniu Hel'sinks'kykh Uhod (Baltimore: Smoloskyp, 1978), p. 17. Source henceforth cited as UPR. Letter has been translated into English in Y. Bilinsky and Tönu Parming, The Helsinki Watch Committees in the Soviet Republics: Implications for the Soviet Nationality Question (henceforth: HWC) (unpublished ms, March 1980), pp. A-35 to A-38.Google Scholar
20. See their announcement about the formation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, reproduced in UPR, p. 10. The relevant sentences read: “We draw attention to the fact that those who on the territory of the Ukraine attempt to gather and transmit to the public information about violations of human rights, and especially those who want to transmit such information to heads of state — encounter extraordinarily difficult obstacles. This contradicts both the spirit and the letter of the Helsinki Accords … The creation of the Ukrainian Public Group under the circumstances which prevail in the Ukraine is an act of great manliness.”Google Scholar
21. The Ukrainian SSR signed both covenants March 20, 1968, and ratified them in the fall of 1973 — see Radians'ka Ukrdina, Oct. 31, 1973, or Digest of the Soviet Ukrainian Press, Dec. 1973, p. 29.Google Scholar
22. The resentment at being excluded from the Helsinki conference appears clearly in the first Declaration of the Ukrainian Group of November 9, 1976; in Rudenko's Open Letter of November 14, 1976; and above all in the Group's Memorandum No. 2 (Concerning the Participation of Ukraine in the Belgrade Conference, 1977), of January 20, 1977. Ukrainian text in UPR, pp. 11-14, 15-17, and 99-102. English translation in HWC, pp. A-09 ff., A-35 ff., and A-39 ff., or in US Congress, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe [US CSCE], Reports of Helsinki-Accord Monitors in the Soviet Union: Documents of the Public Groups to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the USSR …, [Vol. I], February 24, 1977, pp. 96-98 (Declaration), US CSCE, Reports of Helsinki Accords Monitors in the Soviet Union, Vol. III of the Documents of the Public Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the USSR …, November 7, 1978, pp. 130-133.Google Scholar
23. On the date of Rudenko's and Tykhy's arrests (Feb. 5, 1977) see Ukrainian Group Memorandum No. 4 — UPR, pp. 103-104; HWC, pp. A-44 to A-45; and US Congress (95th: 1st Session), Basket III: Implementation of the Helsinki Accords: Hearings Before the CSCE … on Implementation of the Helsinki Accords, Vol. IV: Soviet Helsinki Watch, Reports on Repression June 3, 1977; U.S. Policy and Belgrade Conference June 6, 1977 (Washington: US G.P.O., 1977), pp. 69-70. Ginzburg had been arrested earlier (Feb. 3, 1977), Orlov was arrested Feb. 10, 1977 — see US CSCE, Profiles: The Helsinki Monitors (revised Dec. 10, 1979), pp. unnumbered. On Rudenko's and Tykhy's trial, see UPR, pp. 265-342.Google Scholar
24. A full inventory of the documentary output of the Ukrainian Group has not yet been made. According to the US CSCE the Group published through the late summer of 1979 over 30 declarations and appeals and ten information bulletins (US CSCE, comp., Fact Sheet: Update on the Soviet Helsinki Movement, rev. Dec. 10, 1979, pp. unnumbered). UPR contains 56 documents exclusive of the information bulletins. Berdnyk's memoranda are apparently those numbered No. 5 and 7.Google Scholar
25. See HWC, p. A-61 or US CSCE, Basket III Hearings, Vol. IV, pp. 75 ff., or UPR, pp. 109 ff.Google Scholar
26. Documents consulted at Prolog Research Corporation, New York. They are being published.Google Scholar
27. Bilinsky's interview with Mr. Petro Vins, September 30, 1979.Google Scholar
28. Interview with Professor Tomas Venclova, October 11, 1979. See also below.Google Scholar
29. See Lituanus, Vol. 23 (No. 3, 1977), p. 57.Google Scholar
30. Interview with Professor Tomas Venclova, October 11, 1979.Google Scholar
31. Ibidem.Google Scholar
32. Document No. 8 (June 2, 1977), “Persecution of the Vasilev Family, Russian Pentecostals Living in Vilnius, Lithuania,” in HWC, pp. A-92 to A-93 or US CSCE, Reports of Helsinki Accord Monitors in the Soviet Union …, Vol. III (7 November 1978), pp. 163-64.Google Scholar
33. Document No. 6 (March 19, 1977), “On Discrimination Against the Volga Germans in the USSR,” in HWC, p. A-90 or US CSCE, ibid., p. 161.Google Scholar
34. Document No. 1 (November 25, 1977), “On the Situation of Two Lithuanian Catholic Bishops,” in HWC, pp. A-84 to A-85; also SDS 30, pp. 67-68, and US CSCE, Reports of the Helsinki-Accord Monitors in the Soviet Union … [Vol. I] (February 24, 1977), p. 121. Note that only the SDS 30 version has Alekseeva's and Orlov's cosignatures, which have, however, been authenticated by Tomas Venclova. Technically the document is counted as one of the Lithuanian, not the Moscow Group. Secondly, Moscow Group Document No. 15 (December 8, 1976), “On the Expulsion of 7 Students from Venuolis High School (Vilnius), From the Lithuanian Public Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Accords in the USSR,” signed by L. Alekseeva and Tomas Venclova, see US CSCE, Reports of Helsinki-Accord Monitors in the Soviet Union …, Vol. II (June 3, 1977), pp. 32-33. Technically, this is a document of the Moscow Group alone, de facto it is a joint document. L. Alekseeva has vividly told the story of this last document in her first testimony before the US CSCE, June 3, 1977 — see US Congress (95th: 1st Session), CSCE, Basket III: Implementation of the Helsinki Accords, Hearings … on the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords, Vol. IV: Soviet Helsinki Watch, Reports on Repression June 3, 1977 …, (Washington, 1977), pp. 34-36.Google Scholar
35. The initial declaration, the 12 first documents and the 2 Belgrade declarations have been reproduced in HWC, pp. A-82 to A-115 or see US CSCE, Reports …, Vol. I, pp. 120-23; Vol. III, pp. 158-76; and US CSCE, The Right to Know, the Right to Act. Documents of Helsinki Dissent from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (May 1978), pp. 96-103. On Document No. 14 see Jonas Papartis, “Lithuanian Helsinki Group Issues New Document,” Radio Liberty Research RL 162/79 (May 29, 1979) and on No. 18 — same, “Lithuanian Helsinki Group Protests Arrest of Terleckas,” RL 15/80 (Jan. 8, 1980).Google Scholar
36. See Documents No. 3 (December 23, 1976), “In Defense of Mart Niklus”; No. 7 (May 26, 1977), “On Erik Udam and KGB Attempts to Enlist Him as a ‘Dissident'” and No. 11 (June 26, 1977), “On the Persecution of Enn Tarto” — see HWC, pp. A-87 to A-87a, A-91 and A-99, or US CSCE, Reports …, Vol. III, pp. 158, 162, 168.Google Scholar
37. Interview with Professor Tomas Venclova, Oct. 11, 1979.Google Scholar
38. See on this the following secondary sources: V. Stanley Vardys, ed., Lithuania Under the Soviets (New York: Praeger, 1965); Algirdas Budreckis, “Lithuanian Resistance, 1940-52,” In Albertas Gerutis, ed., Lithuania 700 Years (New York: Manyland, 1969); Tönu Parming, “Contrasts in Nationalism in the Soviet Baltic” (Paper given at the 15th annual meeting of the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies, University of Virginia, 21-23 October 1976). Also see V. Stanley Vardys, The Catholic Church, Dissent and Nationality in Soviet Lithuania (Boulder, Colo.: East European Quarterly, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1978); and Thomas Remeikis, “Political Developments in Lithuania during the Brezhnev Era,” in George W. Simmonds, ed., Nationalism in the USSR and Eastern Europe in the Era of Brezhnev and Kosygin (Detroit: University of Detroit Press, 1977).Google Scholar
39. “Announcement of Formation and Statement,” last paragraph of statement, in HWC, p. A-82 or US CSCE, Reports …, Vol. I, p. 120.Google Scholar
40. “Statement to the Belgrade Conference on the Present Situation in Lithuania (July 17, 1977),” 1st Paragraph, in HWC, p. A-108 or US CSCE, The Right to Know … Documents … (May 1978), p. 96.Google Scholar
41. According to the 1959 population census, there were 407,886 Russians living in Georgia where they accounted for 10.1% of the total population. The 1970 census listed 396,694 (8.5%) Russians. The 1979 census showed only 372,000 (7.4%) Russians. See Richard B. Dobson, “Georgia and the Georgians,” in Katz et alii, eds., Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities, Table 8.1, p. 168 and Ann Sheehy, “Data from the Soviet Census of 1979 on the Georgians and the Georgian SSR,” Table 5, p. 10, in Radio Liberty Research RL 162/80 (May 2, 1980), RLB, Vol. 24, No. 19 (May 9, 1980). For interpretations of modern nationalism in Georgia see, above all, Ronald Grigor Suny, Soviet Georgia in the Seventies, 14 pp. (Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies Occasional Paper No. 64, May 15, 1979, prepared for the conference on the Soviet Caucasus co-sponsored by the US International Communication Agency, the Kennan Institute, and the Wilson Center) and Mark Kipnis, “The Georgian National Movement: Problems and Trends,” Crossroads (Jerusalem), Autumn 1978, pp. 193-215. Suny develops the idea of “the demographic, political, and cultural re-nationalization of the Georgians,” particularly after 1953 (p. 4).Google Scholar
42. “On the Persecution of V. Rtskhiladze (Press Release),” March 1977, see SDS 30, pp. 75-76; HWC, pp. A-156 and A-157; or US CSCE, The Right to Know … (May 1978), pp. 104-105.Google Scholar
43. Notably the movements of the Georgian Meskhetians in the 1960's, the Georgian Jews (since 1969), the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in Georgia (since the summer of 1974). Gamsakhurdia, Kostava and Rtskhiladze belonged to the last group.Google Scholar
44. See “Zviad Gamsakhurdia's Letter to Minister of Culture of the Georgian SSR O[tar] Taktakishvili, First Deputy Minister of Culture N. Gurabanidze,” February 28, 1977 — see HWC, p. A-158 or AS 3115 in Materialy samizdata (MS), No. 4/78 (Jan. 20, 1978); secondly, “Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Merab Kostava: V. Zhvaniia has been Sentenced for Bombings,” March 19, 1977, see HWC, pp. A-159 to A-161 or AS 3114 in MS, No. 4/78.Google Scholar
45. See extract from Khronika tekushchikh sobytii, No. 44 (March 16, 1977) (New York: Khronika Press, 1977), p. 27. In HWC, p. A-155 or SDS 30, p. 74. Incidentally, unlike Drs. Orlov and Sakharov, the Goldshtein brothers have a so-called kandidat degree (junior Ph.D.).Google Scholar
46. According to a very competent and careful oral source, neither of the two had really joined the Group. Mrs. Pailodze belonged, however, to the kindred Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in Georgia.Google Scholar
47. He was dismissed March 9, 1977. See Note 42, above.Google Scholar
48. See, above all, “Attempts to Russify the University of Tbilisi” and “Russification of One Department of the Academy of Art” in Georgian Herald, No. 1, pp. 16-18, translated in HWC, pp. A-135 to A-138. The Georgian writer Revaz Dzhaparidze eloquently publicized those issues at the Eighth Congress of Georgian Writers in April 1976 — see “Georgian Writer Speaks out Against Russification,” Radio Liberty Special Report RL 406/76 or AS No. 2583, MS 23/76 (July 14, 1976), also Suny, op. cit., pp. 7-8.Google Scholar
49. See UPI dispatch from Moscow, April 4, 1977.Google Scholar
50. See the following interpretative articles: (1) Mary K. Matossian, “Armenia and the Armenians,” in Katz et alii eds., Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities, pp. 143-160; (2) Vahakn D. Dadrian, “Nationalism in Soviet Armenia — a Case Study of Ethnocentrism,” in Simmonds, ed., Nationalism in the USSR and Eastern Europe …, (3) Garo Chichekian, “Recent Trends in the Distribution and Ethnic Homogeneity of the Armenians in the U.S.S.R.: A Brief Statistical Survey,” Armenian Review [AR], Vol. XXVIII, No. 3-111 (Autumn 1975), pp. 325-331; (4) Ann Sheehy, “Armenians Increase Their Share of the Population of the Armenian SSR,” RL 39/80 in RLB, Vol. 24, No. 5 (February 1, 1980); (5) see also a very interesting and important piece by Haig Sarkissian, “An Eyewitness Account: 50th Anniversary of the Turkish Genocide as Observed in Erevan,” AR, Vol. XIX, No. 4-76 (Winter 1966), pp. 23-28.Google Scholar
51. See the following primary sources on Karabagh: (1) “Appeal to Khrushchev by the Armenians of Mountainous Karabagh,” see AR, XXI/3-83 (Autumn 1968), pp. 61-66 or HWC, pp. A-183 to A-187 — in Armenian, see Levon Mrktchian, Hairenakan dzainer (Munich: Institut für armenische Fragen, 1978), pp. 26-34; (2) E. H. Hovhanissian's letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, between Nov. 25, 1964 and April 24, 1965 — see AR, XX/1-77 (Spring 1967), pp. 64-71; HWC, pp. A-188 to A-194; Mrktchian, pp. 47-56; (3) “The Appeal of the Armenians of Artsakh to the People and Leaders of Armenia [1967],” HWC, pp. A-195 to A-198; Mrktchian, pp. 91-96; (4) “A Letter-Document on the Conditions of the Armenians of Artsakh [1972],” HWC, pp. A-199 to A-202; Mrktchian, pp. 104-110; and (5) “Cero Khanza-dian's Letter to Brezhnev about Karabagh [1978?],” HWC, pp. A-203 to A-205, document courtesy of Professor Vahakn N. Dadrian. Among the secondary sources should be mentioned: (1) Dr. James H. Tashjian, “The Problem of Karabagh (Annex to a Memorandum Addressed to the Soviet Union, the United Nations and the Peoples of the World),” AR, XXI/1-81 (Spring 1968), pp. 3-49; (2) V. N. Dadrian, “Those Audacious Armenians,” Christian Science Monitor, January 10, 1978; (3) Raymond H. Anderson, “Armenians Ask Moscow for Help, Charging Azerbaidzhan with Bias,” N.Y. Times, December 11, 1977; (4) Ronald G. Suny, “Historical Perspectives on the Regions of Karabagh and Nakhichevan,” public lecture Southfield, Michigan, March 17, 1978.Google Scholar
52. Interview with Mr. Ambartsum Khlgatyan, September 26, 1979.Google Scholar
53. See “Supplement [to Appeal to Armenians Abroad, of February 8, 1978]: A Collection to Aid Political Prisoners and Their Families,” February 1976, PS of May 1977, US CSCE, Reports Helsinki Monitors III, pp. 182-183; HWC, pp. A-181 to A-182.Google Scholar
54. Interview with Mr. Ambartsum Khlgatyan, September 26, 1979.Google Scholar
55. On the NOP see David Kowalewski, “The Armenian National Unity Party: Context and Program,” AR, XXXI/4-124 (April 1979), pp. 362-70. A samizdat report on the activity of NOP on pp. 364-70, quotations from pp. 365-266. See also “Secret Political Trials in Soviet Armenia: ‘An Unendorsed Communique,'” AR, XXXI/3-123 (March 1979), pp. 265-302 which reproduces materials from the 2nd Airikyan trial of October 1974, at which he was sentenced to seven years of prison camp and three years of exile.Google Scholar
56. See the following documents of the Armenian Group: (1) “Declaration,” April 1, 1977 — Mrktchian, pp. 122-127; SDS 30, pp. 78-81; (2) “Announcement to Belgrade Conference,” June 1977 — US CSCE, The Right to Know … (May 1978), pp. 106-112; SDS 30, pp. 85-94; (3) “To Delegates of the Belgrade Conference and Armenian Fellow-Countrymen, Supplement,” September 12, 1977, US CSCE, Reports of Helsinki Accord Monitors, III (Nov. 7, 1978), p. 177; (4) “Statement of Armenian Helsinki Group member Robert Nazaryan with a Request for Acceptance into the Helsinki Agreement Implementation Group,” Oct. 26, 1977 — see ibid., p. 178; (5) “An Appeal to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR,” December 4, 1977 — ibid., pp. 179-180; (6) “An Appeal to Armenians Abroad,” February 8, 1978 — ibid., p. 181 (citation in text is from this document); and No. 7 — see Note 53, above. All those documents have been reproduced in HWC, pp. A-163 to A-182.Google Scholar
57. Simon, loc. cit. (note 18, above), p. 454. The American secondary literature on the Soviet nationality question is voluminous. Singled out should be: (1) Pipes, Richard, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917–1923 (New York: Atheneum, 1968, rev. ed.); (2) Allworth, Edward, ed., Soviet Nationality Problems (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971); (3) Katz, Zev et alii, eds. Handbook of Major Soviet Nationalities (New York: Free Press, 1975); (4) Kamenetsky, Ihor, ed., Nationalism and Human Rights: Processes of Modernization in the USSR (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1977; published for Association for the Study of the Nationalities [USSR and East Europe]); (5) Azrael, Jeremy R., ed., Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (New York: Praeger, 1978); (6) Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone's illuminating article, “The Dialectics of Nationalism in the USSR,” Problems of Communism, Vol. 23, No. 3 (May-June 1974), pp. 1-12. In French literature, indispensable is D'Encausse, Hélène Carrère, L ‘Empire éclaté: la révolte des nations en U.R.S.S. (Paris: Flammarion, 1978).Google Scholar
58. Simon, pp. 454-455 and A. Shtromas, “The Legal Position of Soviet Nationalities and Their Territorial Units According to the 1977 Constitution of the USSR,” Russian Review, Vol. 37 (1978), pp. 265-272.Google Scholar
59. Best source is Ann Sheehy, “The National Languages and the New Constitutions of the Transcaucasian Republics,” RL 98/78 in RLB, Vol. 22, No. 19 (May 12, 1978). Mrs. Sheehy may, however, underestimate the importance of the language demonstration or near-riot in Tbilisi. See our HWC, pp. 5-63 to 5-65, 5-76.Google Scholar
60. Aleksandr Ginzburg's testimony before the US CSCE, May 11, 1979, see US Congress (96th: 1st session), CSCE, Basket III: Implementation of the Helsinki Accords, Hearing … on Implementation of the Helsinki Accords, Vol. X: Aleksandr Ginzburg on the Human Rights Situation in the U.S.S.R. (Washington, 1979), p. 10.Google Scholar
61. On February 24, 1977, see US Congress (95th: 1st session), CSCE, Basket III …, Hearings … on the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords Vol. I: Human Rights. February 23 and 24, 1977 … (Washington, 1977), pp. 53-61.Google Scholar
62. On June 3, 1977, see loc. cit. (note 34, above), pp. 29-37.Google Scholar
63. See note 60, above, pp. 8-21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
64. On July 19, 1979. See US Congress (96th: 1st session), CSCE, Basket III…, Hearings …, Vol. XI …. On Human Rights Violations in Ukraine, July 19, 1979 (Washington, 1979), pp. 121-138.Google Scholar
65. See, however, Dante B. Fascell, “Did Human Rights Survive Belgrade?,” Foreign Policy, No. 31 (Summer 1978), pp. 104-118 and US Congress (95th: 2nd session), CSCE, The Belgrade Followup Meeting to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe: A Report and Appraisal; transmitted to the Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, May 17, 1978 (Washington, 1978), 105 pp.Google Scholar
66. We have documented this at length in our HWC, pp. 8-9 ff.Google Scholar
67. On February 24, 1977. See Note 61, above, pp. 62-76.Google Scholar
68. On April 28, 1977. See US Congress (95th: 1st session), CSCE, Basket III…, Vol. II: Religious Liberty and Minority Rights in the Soviet Union, April 27 and 28, 1977 … (Washington, 1977), pp. 134-162.Google Scholar
69. See its document No. 7, as cited in Note 36, above.Google Scholar
70. US CSCE, Profiles: The Helsinki Monitors (rev. Dec. 10, 1979), unpaged. See also Note 61, above, documenting Venclova's appearance before the US CSCE.Google Scholar
71. Profiles … Google Scholar
72. Ibid.Google Scholar
73. Ibid.Google Scholar
74. Number as of December 1979. See HWC, pp. A-02 to A-06 for details.Google Scholar
75. For instance, in February 1979, Vasyl Ovsienko, an associate of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group was sentenced to three years “for resisting the militia in the performance of their duty” — see AS No. 3594, MS 18/79. January 21, 1980 another associate of that Group, Mykola Horbal got five years for “attempted rape” — Svoboda (Jersey City, N.J.), January 31, 1980, p. 1. June 3, 1980, there started a trial in Yakutsk. The defendant is the well-known responsible Ukrainian dissident journalist and new [since the fall of 1979] Ukrainian Group member Viacheslav Chornovil. The charge is attempted rape. (Svoboda, June 5, 1980, p. 1). June 6, 1980, Chornovil was sentenced to five years of labor camp (ibid., June 11, 1980, p. 1).Google Scholar
76. See the protest of his wife Raisa in MS, 15/78 (April 18, 1978) and the article of his friend Gen. Hryhorenko, “Nezlamni …,” Part 2, Svoboda, Nov. 24, 1979, p. 2.Google Scholar
77. We have discussed Gamsakhurdia's involved career in detail in HWC, pp. 5-54 to 5-59 and 5-65 to 5-69.Google Scholar
78. There is first the secret trial and exceedingly hasty execution of three Armenians (Stepan S. Zatikyan, Akop Stepanyan and Zoven Bagdasaryan) in the last days of January 1979. They had been accused of causing an explosion in the Moscow subway January 8, 1977, which killed several passengers (see on this especially Malva Landa's lengthy expose, Stepan Zatikyan, Akop Stepanyan i Zovan Bagdasaryan prigovoreny k smertnoi kazni po stal'sifitsirovanym obvineniam (February-May 1979), AS No. 3676, in MS 28/78). Shagen Arutyunyan of the Armenian Helsinki Group had known Zatikyan as a co-founder of NOP, had been closely questioned in that affair. Or take the case of the very popular nonconformist Ukrainian rock composer Ivasiuk. He left the Lviv Conservatory in the company of a stranger during Easter, April 22-24, 1979. Within days the militia began to speculate that he probably committed suicide. In about a month his body was discovered hanging high up in a tree in a forest. If the samizdat reports rather than the official version are correct, his eyes had been gouged out, which would make it the strangest suicide ever (see “Ivasiuk Volodimir,” n.d., n. place, MS No. 45/79 [December 24, 1979], 2 pp. AS No. 3800.) Also “Big Brother is Everywhere,” TIME, June 23, 1980, p. 39. Ukrainian Group members Sichko father and son attend the funeral, give an oration, are soon arrested and then jailed. On Dec. 4, 1979, Petro Sichko (Sr.) is sentenced to 3 years of severe regimen camp, Vasyl Sichko (Jr.) to 3 years of moderate regimen camp. See Svoboda: The Ukrainian Weekly, January 20, 1980, p. 1 and Smoloskyp, Vol. 2, No. 6 (Winter 1980), p. 2 of Ukrainian inset.Google Scholar