VELIKANOVA, TATYANA MIKHAILOVNA (b. February 3, 1932, Moscow - d. September 19, 2002, Moscow).
Programmer, mathematician. A member of the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR. For many years, she was an organizer of the publication of the “Chronicle of Current Events.”
Born into the family of a famous Soviet hydrologist who, in 1939, became a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Of the seven Velikanov siblings, almost all participated to one degree or another in the human rights movement.
Velikanova graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University (MSU) in 1954. She worked as a teacher in the Northern Urals and then, from 1957, as a programmer and mathematician in Moscow.
She was present on Red Square on August 25, 1968, during the “demonstration of the seven” (one of the participants was her husband, Konstantin Babitsky), but she did not take part in the demonstration itself; at the trial of the demonstrators, she testified as a defense witness.
She became actively involved in human rights activities after her husband’s arrest, from the second half of 1968. Velikanova’s signature appears on many human rights petitions. In May 1969, she joined the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR (IG) and participated in drafting most of its documents.
She was an active participant in the publication of the “Chronicle of Current Events” (CCE). After the arrest of Natalya Gorbanevskaya, she took on the main organizational and administrative functions: maintaining and replenishing the archive, collecting and systematizing incoming materials, finding apartments for collaborative work, distributing tasks among the issue’s contributors, arranging their meetings for joint editing of the text, retyping individual manuscripts and draft layouts of the issue, and creating and distributing the “zero-generation copy” (i.e., the first 10-12 typewritten copies of an issue’s print run). Velikanova remained the main organizer of the CCE’s work until her arrest.
She took part in a meeting of dissidents in January 1973, where, due to blackmail from the KGB, it was decided to cease publication; in the fall of 1973, she was one of the initiators of its revival. In May 1974, immediately after the simultaneous release of issues 28, 29, and 30 of the CCE, which broke a year-and-a-half-long pause, Velikanova, Sergei KOVALYOV, and Tatyana Khodorovich stated in writing and openly that they assumed responsibility for the further distribution of the bulletin, preemptively rejecting any potential blackmail involving third parties.
On October 30, 1974, Velikanova participated in a press conference at Andrei SAKHAROV’s apartment, dedicated to declaring this date the Day of the Political Prisoner in the USSR. Together with S. KOVALYOV, she delivered the 33rd special issue of the CCE, containing only information about political camps and political prisoners, to foreign journalists.
In the 1970s, Velikanova’s apartment gradually became one of the main centers where information about political persecution from all corners of the country flowed. Velikanova participated in Mark Popovsky’s attempts to create an independent human rights information agency. She visited Kyiv, and Ukrainian human rights activists, including O. MESHKO, came to see her. Velikanova spoke out in defense of O. SERHIENKO, M. RUDENKO and O. TYKHY, L. LUKIANENKO, and other Ukrainians.
In 1976, she was fired from her job; her apartment was repeatedly searched. On November 1, 1979, Velikanova was arrested. She was charged with the texts of the IG’s appeals to the UN, issues of the CCE, and her connections with the bulletin’s foreign publishers (a letter to her from Pavel LITVINOV in New York was presented at the trial). On August 29, 1980, the Moscow City Court sentenced Velikanova under Article 70, Part 1 of the RSFSR Criminal Code to 4 years in strict-regimen camps and 5 years of exile.
Even before the trial, a Committee for the Defense of Tatyana Velikanova was organized in Moscow, which included Leonard Ternovsky, Alexander Lavut, Malva Landa, and others.
She served her sentence in the women’s zone of the Mordovian camp ZhKh-385/3-4, at Barashevo station, and participated in protest actions alongside Ukrainian women Raisa RUDENKO, Olha HEIKO, Oksana POPOVYCH, and Iryna RATUSHYNSKA. At the end of 1983, she was sent into exile in the Mangyshlak Oblast (Western Kazakhstan). In May 1987, during Gorbachev’s campaign to pardon political prisoners, Velikanova was informed that she had been pardoned; however, she refused to accept the pardon and remained at her place of exile until December 1987.
After returning to Moscow, she worked in a school, teaching mathematics and Russian language in the junior grades.
In her dissident activities, Velikanova always strictly adhered to the principle of not cooperating with repressive organs. In particular, she refused not only to give substantive testimony but also to participate in any procedural actions, including the formalization of interrogation protocols, because, as she repeatedly stated, all activities aimed at suppressing dissent are a priori illegal. She is one of the few who managed to consistently maintain these principles during her investigation and trial. Velikanova is among the most respected and authoritative participants in the human rights movement in the USSR.
“T. Velikanova is one of those people who, in my eyes, embody the human rights movement in the USSR, its moral pathos, its purity and strength, its historical significance. She is a person of strong will and a sound mind. T. Velikanova’s participation in the human rights movement reflects her deep inner conviction in its moral, vital necessity” (from Andrei SAKHAROV’s “Memoirs”).
She is buried at the Novo-Khovanskoye Cemetery in Moscow.
Bibliography:
Khronika tekushchikh sobytiy [Chronicle of Current Events]: [Samizdat] / Ed. T. Velikanova et al. - Nos. 28-30, 32-34, 35-53. - Moscow, 1972-1979. - Anonymous.
O prave na zashchitu [On the Right to a Defense] // Khronika zashchity... [Chronicle of the Defense...] - 1975. - No. 18. - pp. 8-11. - Co-authored with A. Lavut, Y. Orlov.
Initsiativnaya gruppa. 1976 [The Initiative Group. 1976]. - From the contents: Texts signed by V.: pp. 5-69; Biographical note: p. 70.
Komitet zashchity Tatiany Velikanovoy: (Inform. byul. №1) [Committee for the Defense of Tatyana Velikanova: (Information Bulletin No. 1)] // “Zhenshchina i Rossiya” [“Woman and Russia”]. - Frankfurt am Main: Possev, 1980. - pp. 35-75. - (Volnoye slovo; Issue 38).
Chronicle of the Women’s Camp in Mordovia, USSR / Foundation Committee Vladimir Bukovsky. - Amsterdam: Publ. Second World Press, 1985. - 44 p.
Khronika barashevskoy zony [Chronicle of the Barashevo Zone] / Foundation for Soviet studies. - Silver Spring (MD): S.n., 1986. - pp. 5, 7, 9, 12, 53-61, 65.
Ratushinskaya I. Seryy – tsvet nadezhdy [Grey is the Color of Hope]. - London: OPI, 1989. - pp. 35, 40-42, 44, 51, 54-55, 62, 64-66, 68, 88, 90, 93, 97, 108-110, 112-117, 119-120, 125-129, 139-140, 277, 286, 300, 316, 319.
Letopis, za kotoruyu platili svobodoy. Chelovek, kotoryy znal vsyo [A Chronicle for Which They Paid with Freedom. The Person Who Knew Everything] // Express-Khronika. - 1993. - April 27 (No. 17): photo, biographical note.
P. Grigorenko. V podpolye mozhno vstretit tolko krys... [In the Underground You Can Only Meet Rats...] / Prefaces by Grigorenko A.P. and Kovalev S.A. - Moscow: Zvenya, 1997. - pp. 487-488, 557, 568, 577.
Ternovsky L.B. Tayna IG [The Secret of the IG] // Karta. - Ryazan, 1999. - No. 22/23. - pp. 68-96.
Kovalev S.A. Polyot beloy vorony: Glavy vospominaniy [Flight of a White Crow: Chapters of Memoirs] // Novoye vremya. - 1997. - No. 19. - pp. 36-38; No. 20. - pp. 34-37.
Mizhnarodnyi biohrafichnyi slovnyk dysydentiv krain Tsentralnoi ta Skhidnoi Yevropy y kolyshnoho SRSR. T. 1. Ukraina. Chastyna 1 [International Biographical Dictionary of Dissidents in Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR. Vol. 1. Ukraine. Part 1]. - Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group; “Prava Liudyny,” 2006. - pp. 92-95. https://museum.khpg.org/1184354760
Rukh oporu v Ukraini: 1960 - 1990. Entsyklopedychnyi dovidnyk [The Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960 - 1990. An Encyclopedic Guide] / Preface by Osyp Zinkevych, Oles Obertas. - Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010. - p. 101; 2nd ed.: 2012, - p. 112.
Alexander Daniel. From the materials of the Moscow Helsinki Group. Translation and additions about Ukraine by V. Ovsiyenko, June 17, 2006; August 30, 2006. Final reading August 3, 2016.
