KOVALYOV, SERGEI ADAMOVICH (b. March 2, 1930, in Seredyna-Buda, Sumy Oblast)
Biophysicist. Human rights activist, member of the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR, editor of “A Chronicle of Current Events.” Political and public figure.
Born into the family of a railroad employee. In his childhood and youth, he lived in the workers’ settlement of Podlipki near Moscow. In 1952, he graduated from the Faculty of Biology at Moscow State University (MGU), and in 1955, he completed his postgraduate studies there. He holds a Candidate of Biological Sciences degree. Author of over sixty scientific papers, he researched the electrophysiology of myocardial tissue. From 1965 to 1969, he was a senior researcher and head of the department at the Interfaculty Laboratory of Mathematical Methods in Biology (MGU), and one of the laboratory’s leading specialists. From 1969 to 1974, he was a senior researcher at the Moscow Experimental Station of Fish Farming and Land Reclamation.
Kovalyov’s rejection of communist ideology and Soviet social life took shape in his childhood. This very fact led him to abandon the idea of becoming a humanities scholar—a lawyer or historian—and to choose a career as a natural scientist. However, in 1948, when Kovalyov entered the university, the era of the undivided dominion of “Lysenkoism” began; thus, the situation in biology turned out to be no less ideologized than in the humanities.
Kovalyov’s first stand against the doctrines of T.D. Lysenko dates back to 1956, when he co-authored a letter to the dean’s office of the MGU Faculty of Biology on the need for a fundamental revision of the university's genetics courses to reflect other scientific views. Under pressure from Party and Komsomol functionaries, most of the signatories withdrew their names; Kovalyov was among the few who refused to do so. However, this act had no consequences for him, although it was likely then that he came to the attention of the KGB (the story of the letter surfaced six months later in a conversation with state security officers who were trying to recruit him as an informant).
The impetus for the start of his human rights activity was the Sinyavsky-Daniel trial: although he did not know the writers personally, Kovalyov organized several letters in their defense at the Institute of Biophysics. In 1967–1968, he took part in the protest campaigns surrounding the “trial of the four” and the trial of the participants in the “demonstration of the seven.”
In May 1969, together with his closest friend and colleague from MGU, Alexander Lavut, he became a member of the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR; after this, he was forced to leave his job. His signature appears on most of the group’s documents.
From September 1974, he was a member of the Soviet section of Amnesty International.
From early 1972, he became part of the circle of publishers of “A Chronicle of Current Events” (KhTS) and soon began editing the bulletins. He was one of the creators of the ideology and style of information presentation in the KhTS (as precise and dry as possible, with references to existing legal norms), which later became the stylistic basis for most human rights documents. Under his general editorship, issues 24–33 (and, partially, 34) were prepared.
On May 7, 1974, after a year-and-a-half-long break in publication, Kovalyov, Tatyana Khodorovich, and Tatyana Velikanova handed over three issues of the KhTS to a group of Western correspondents and published a statement in which they took responsibility for its further publication.
He maintained close ties with Lithuanian dissidents, helping to transmit the “Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church” to the West. From 1969, he was constantly subjected to extrajudicial repression: interrogations, searches, and on December 28, 1974, he was arrested in Moscow and transferred under guard to Vilnius. On December 12, 1975, the Supreme Court of the Lithuanian SSR sentenced him under Article 70, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (the equivalent of Article 62 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR) to seven years in labor camps and three years of exile. He pleaded not guilty at the trial and actively argued with the prosecutor and the judge, for which he was removed from the courtroom. Andrei Sakharov, with whom Kovalyov had a long-standing friendship, and other Moscow human rights activists traveled to Vilnius for the trial. A broad international campaign was launched in defense of Kovalyov; the petition “Freedom for Sergei Kovalyov” (January 1976) was signed by 178 people, and the letter was supported by political prisoners in the Perm political camps, Dubravlag, and Vladimir Prison. The arrest and conviction of his father led his son, Ivan Kovalyov, to join the human rights movement.
He served his term in the Perm political camps. He was an active participant in camp resistance actions. In 1980, he was transferred to Chistopol Prison for “violating the regime.” From 1982 to 1984, he served his exile in the settlement of Matrosovo, Magadan Oblast (where V. Stus and Z. Popadyuk had previously served sentences), working as a general laborer and then as a laboratory assistant.
After his release, he settled in the city of Kalinin (now Tver). In 1987, he returned to Moscow. He immediately immersed himself in public activities, taking an active part in democratic initiatives: he was a co-founder of the Glasnost press club (1987–1989), one of the organizers of the International Public Seminar (December 1987), and a member of the revived Moscow Helsinki Group in 1989. In January 1989, at the first congress of the Memorial society, he was elected to its board.
On May 30, 1988, he was invited to a reception with U.S. President Ronald Reagan during his first visit to Moscow, where he gave a speech.
From mid-1989, at the invitation of A. Sakharov, he became one of the co-chairs of the human rights project group of the International Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humanity.
In January 1990, he joined the “Democratic Russia” electoral bloc (which became the “Democratic Russia” movement in October 1990), but he never held an elected position in it.
In March 1990, he was elected a People’s Deputy of the RSFSR. At the First Congress of People’s Deputies (May-June 1990), he was elected a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and Chairman of the Human Rights Committee of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. He secured amnesty for all remaining political prisoners (the last ten were released in February 1992). He was one of the authors of the Law on the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression. On his initiative, legislative changes were made to ensure the rights of prisoners and improve their conditions. Many participants in the human rights movement worked in his Committee's apparatus, including Yuri Shikhanovich, Arseny Roginsky, and Nadezhda Yemelkina.
Kovalyov was one of the organizers of the First International Sakharov Memorial Congress, “Peace, Progress, and Human Rights,” held in Moscow on May 21–25, 1991. He regularly participates in human rights congresses and conferences held in Russia.
In October 1993, he approved the dissolution of the Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation but protested against police actions on the streets of Moscow during the state of emergency. By a decree of President B. Yeltsin, he was appointed Chairman of the Presidential Commission on Human Rights in Russia.
In 1993, 1995, and 1999, he was a deputy of the State Duma. As the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation from December 1994 to 1996, he was at the center of protests against the military operation in Chechnya. In June 1995, he was a mediator in the negotiations between the Russian government and the terrorists who took hostages in Budyonnovsk, Stavropol Krai. In January 1996, he resigned as Chairman of the Presidential Commission on Human Rights in protest of the continuing war.
Kovalyov is the co-chairman of the Russian society “Memorial.” He lives in Moscow.
Bibliography:
Mizhnarodnyy biohrafichnyy slovnyk dysydentiv krayin Tsentralnoyi ta Skhidnoyi Yevropy y kolyshnyoho SRSR. T. 1. Ukrayina. 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 Lyudyny,” 2006, pp. 310–313. https://museum.khpg.org/1184396877
Rukh oporu v Ukrayini: 1960–1990. Entsyklopedychnyy dovidnyk [The Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960–1990. An Encyclopedic Guide]. Foreword by Osyp Zinkevych, Oles Obertas. Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010, pp. 302–303; 2nd ed.: 2012, pp. 337–338.
N. A. Mitrokhin. Moscow “Memorial,” 2006. Last reviewed on August 9, 2016.
