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Sinyavsky–Daniel trial
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Sinyavsky–Daniel trial
The Sinyavsky–Daniel trial (Russian: Проце́сс Синя́вского и Даниэ́ля) was a show trial in the Soviet Union against the writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel in February 1966. Sinyavsky and Daniel were convicted of the offense of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda in a Moscow court for publishing their satirical writings of Soviet life abroad under the pseudonyms Abram Tertz and Nikolai Arzhak. The Sinyavsky–Daniel trial was the first Soviet show trial where writers were openly convicted solely for their literary work, provoking appeals from many Soviet intellectuals and other public figures outside the Soviet Union. The Sinyavsky–Daniel led to the Glasnost meeting, the first spontaneous public political demonstration in the Soviet Union after World War II. Sinyavsky and Daniel pled not guilty, unusual for a political charge in the Soviet Union, but were sentenced to seven and five years in labor camps, respectively.
The Sinyavsky-Daniel case is widely considered to mark the end of the liberal Khrushchev Thaw period and the rise of political repression in the Soviet Union under hardliner Leonid Brezhnev, and a major starting impulse for the Soviet dissident movement.
Andrei Sinyavsky, a well-known literary critic and writer in the Soviet Union, and his friend Yuli Daniel, a writer and translator, had begun sending their works to be published in the West due to strong censorship in the Soviet Union. Sinyavsky and Daniel often wrote topical stories and novellas that were satirical or critical of Soviet society, and would naturally be rejected for publication by the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Sinyavsky and Daniel's works were smuggled out of the Soviet Union as samizdat (illegal self-published writings) to the West and published in foreign editorials under pseudonyms to protect their identities. Sinyavsky began publishing under the pen name Abram Tertz in Paris in 1959, and Daniel began publishing under the pen name Nikolai Arzhak in 1961. The publication of Daniel's This is Moscow Speaking and Sinyavsky's The Trial Begins in the West between 1959 and 1962 caught the attention of the KGB, the main security agency and secret police of the Soviet Union. Although the KGB was not familiar with the authors, they soon discovered that Arzhak, the author of This is Moscow Speaking, was the pseudonym of Yuli Daniel, and that Tertz was the pseudonym of his friend Andrei Sinyavsky. Both writers were placed under round-the-clock surveillance and their apartments were secretly searched. Information was also gathered from Sinyavsky and Daniel's colleagues acting as informants as well as KGB agents posing as neighbors' relatives.
On 13 September 1965, Andrei Sinyavsky was arrested, and Yuli Daniel's arrest followed five days later. Initially, leaders of the CPSU were hesitant about prosecuting Sinyavsky and Daniel, but the trial pressed ahead under the initiative of General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, the new leader of the Soviet Union. Brezhnev personally consulted with Konstantin Fedin, the head of the Union of Soviet Writers of which Sinyavsky was an official member. Fedin, who had been criticized in an essay by Sinyavsky, urged him to make an example of the writers. On 13 January 1966, Brezhnev made the final decision to go ahead with the trial. In October 1965, Sinyavsky and Daniel's detention became publicly known when Giancarlo Vigorelli, the Secretary General of the European Community of Writers, raised the question at a meeting of the organization in Rome. In November, General Secretary of the Union of Soviet Writers Alexey Surkov admitted that the writers were in custody and gave an assurance that "legality" of the trial would be observed. The Soviet public learned of the arrest of the writers only in January 1966, three months after their arrest, when Izvestia published an article about the case entitled "The Turncoats", described Sinyavsky and Daniel as "were-wolves" and "renegades" guilty of "high treason". Referencing foreign criticism, it warned that no leniency would be shown to the defendants.
Sinyavsky and Daniel's offenses were not illegal under Soviet law, as neither publication abroad nor the use of pseudonyms were prohibited. Instead, Sinyavsky and Daniel were charged, under the recently minted Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, with the offense of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. The article punished
Agitation or propaganda carried on for the purpose of subverting or weakening of the Soviet regime ['vlast'] or of committing particular, especially dangerous crimes against the state, or the circulation, for the same purpose of slanderous fabrications which defame the Soviet state and social system, or the circulation or preparation or keeping, for the same purposes, of literature with such content.
Sinyavsky and Daniel's works published abroad were considered to consciously intend to subvert and weaken the Soviet system and constitute anti-Soviet propaganda – the first time that the article was applied to fiction.
The hearings began on February 10, 1966, in Moscow City Court under chairman of the court Lev Smirnov. The trials of Sinyavsky and Daniel were not open to the public or foreign observers, and only fragments of the proceedings reached the outside world.
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Sinyavsky–Daniel trial
The Sinyavsky–Daniel trial (Russian: Проце́сс Синя́вского и Даниэ́ля) was a show trial in the Soviet Union against the writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel in February 1966. Sinyavsky and Daniel were convicted of the offense of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda in a Moscow court for publishing their satirical writings of Soviet life abroad under the pseudonyms Abram Tertz and Nikolai Arzhak. The Sinyavsky–Daniel trial was the first Soviet show trial where writers were openly convicted solely for their literary work, provoking appeals from many Soviet intellectuals and other public figures outside the Soviet Union. The Sinyavsky–Daniel led to the Glasnost meeting, the first spontaneous public political demonstration in the Soviet Union after World War II. Sinyavsky and Daniel pled not guilty, unusual for a political charge in the Soviet Union, but were sentenced to seven and five years in labor camps, respectively.
The Sinyavsky-Daniel case is widely considered to mark the end of the liberal Khrushchev Thaw period and the rise of political repression in the Soviet Union under hardliner Leonid Brezhnev, and a major starting impulse for the Soviet dissident movement.
Andrei Sinyavsky, a well-known literary critic and writer in the Soviet Union, and his friend Yuli Daniel, a writer and translator, had begun sending their works to be published in the West due to strong censorship in the Soviet Union. Sinyavsky and Daniel often wrote topical stories and novellas that were satirical or critical of Soviet society, and would naturally be rejected for publication by the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Sinyavsky and Daniel's works were smuggled out of the Soviet Union as samizdat (illegal self-published writings) to the West and published in foreign editorials under pseudonyms to protect their identities. Sinyavsky began publishing under the pen name Abram Tertz in Paris in 1959, and Daniel began publishing under the pen name Nikolai Arzhak in 1961. The publication of Daniel's This is Moscow Speaking and Sinyavsky's The Trial Begins in the West between 1959 and 1962 caught the attention of the KGB, the main security agency and secret police of the Soviet Union. Although the KGB was not familiar with the authors, they soon discovered that Arzhak, the author of This is Moscow Speaking, was the pseudonym of Yuli Daniel, and that Tertz was the pseudonym of his friend Andrei Sinyavsky. Both writers were placed under round-the-clock surveillance and their apartments were secretly searched. Information was also gathered from Sinyavsky and Daniel's colleagues acting as informants as well as KGB agents posing as neighbors' relatives.
On 13 September 1965, Andrei Sinyavsky was arrested, and Yuli Daniel's arrest followed five days later. Initially, leaders of the CPSU were hesitant about prosecuting Sinyavsky and Daniel, but the trial pressed ahead under the initiative of General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, the new leader of the Soviet Union. Brezhnev personally consulted with Konstantin Fedin, the head of the Union of Soviet Writers of which Sinyavsky was an official member. Fedin, who had been criticized in an essay by Sinyavsky, urged him to make an example of the writers. On 13 January 1966, Brezhnev made the final decision to go ahead with the trial. In October 1965, Sinyavsky and Daniel's detention became publicly known when Giancarlo Vigorelli, the Secretary General of the European Community of Writers, raised the question at a meeting of the organization in Rome. In November, General Secretary of the Union of Soviet Writers Alexey Surkov admitted that the writers were in custody and gave an assurance that "legality" of the trial would be observed. The Soviet public learned of the arrest of the writers only in January 1966, three months after their arrest, when Izvestia published an article about the case entitled "The Turncoats", described Sinyavsky and Daniel as "were-wolves" and "renegades" guilty of "high treason". Referencing foreign criticism, it warned that no leniency would be shown to the defendants.
Sinyavsky and Daniel's offenses were not illegal under Soviet law, as neither publication abroad nor the use of pseudonyms were prohibited. Instead, Sinyavsky and Daniel were charged, under the recently minted Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, with the offense of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. The article punished
Agitation or propaganda carried on for the purpose of subverting or weakening of the Soviet regime ['vlast'] or of committing particular, especially dangerous crimes against the state, or the circulation, for the same purpose of slanderous fabrications which defame the Soviet state and social system, or the circulation or preparation or keeping, for the same purposes, of literature with such content.
Sinyavsky and Daniel's works published abroad were considered to consciously intend to subvert and weaken the Soviet system and constitute anti-Soviet propaganda – the first time that the article was applied to fiction.
The hearings began on February 10, 1966, in Moscow City Court under chairman of the court Lev Smirnov. The trials of Sinyavsky and Daniel were not open to the public or foreign observers, and only fragments of the proceedings reached the outside world.