GINZBURG, ALEKSANDR ILYICH (November 21, 1936, Moscow – July 19, 2002, Paris)
Journalist, public figure. Ginzburg's name is associated with the emergence of several key forms of dissident activity in the USSR—samizdat periodicals, documentary collections on political persecution, and organized assistance to political prisoners and their families. He was a central figure in the “trial of the four”—one of the most high-profile political trials of the 1960s. He was the first manager of the Fund for Aid to Political Prisoners and Their Families. A member of the Moscow Helsinki Group.
The son of the famous architect S. Chizhov, who died in prison, Ginzburg took his mother's surname when receiving his internal passport in 1953, as a sign of protest against the state-sponsored antisemitism campaign. From 1956, he studied at the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University, worked in theater and on television, acted in films, and was a correspondent for the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets.”
In 1959–60, under his own name and address, he published three issues of the poetry almanac “Sintaksis”—the first samizdat periodical. It was reprinted abroad.
After the KGB’s unsuccessful attempts to fabricate charges under Article 7 of the “Law on State Crimes” of December 25, 1958, he was arrested in July 1960 and sentenced to two years on the criminal charge of “forgery of documents” (he had taken an exam for a friend at an evening school). After his release, he worked as a laborer. In 1964, he was detained for books received from guides at foreign exhibitions. In 1966, he enrolled in the evening department of the Moscow State Institute for History and Archives. In 1966, he compiled “The White Book” on the case of A. Sinyavsky and Y. Daniel, thereby initiating the documentary genre in samizdat.
On January 23, 1967, he was arrested and sentenced to five years in the “trial of the four,” along with Y. Galanskov, A. Dobrovolsky, and V. Lashkova, on charges of producing and distributing anti-Soviet literature. This sparked the first petition campaign of 1968, which played a decisive role in consolidating the human rights movement in the USSR. A letter in their support was also signed by 139 Ukrainians—from academics to factory workers—for which the “signatories” were fired from their jobs and expelled from universities and the Party.
He served his sentence in the Mordovian political camps and in Vladimir Prison.
After his release, he settled in the town of Tarusa (Kaluga Oblast). With his help, Nina Strokata-Karavanska and Svyatoslav Karavansky, along with other political prisoners, also settled there after their release. Tarusa came to be known as the “dissident capital.” He was placed under open police surveillance. In 1974, he became the manager of the Russian Public Fund for Aid to Political Prisoners and their Families, established by A. Solzhenitsyn. A significant portion of its funds was sent to Ukraine through Vira Lisova, Olena Antoniv, and Yevhen Zakharov. He traveled to Kyiv and Lviv on this matter.
Ginzburg was a co-founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group (May 12, 1976). At a press conference in his Moscow apartment on November 9, 1976, Mykola Rudenko announced the creation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.
In January 1977, KGB Chairman Y. V. Andropov submitted a memorandum to the CPSU Central Committee proposing the arrest of activists of the Helsinki movement in the USSR, including Ginzburg.
On February 2, 1977, the “Literaturnaya Gazeta” published an article titled “Liars and Pharisees,” signed by a writer named Aleksandr Petrov-Agatov, a recently released political prisoner. The article accused Ginzburg of working for foreign subversive centers and of personal profiteering in the Fund's affairs. Ginzburg managed to call a press conference where he provided a report on the Fund's activities over three years. On February 3, 1977, with the approval of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, Ginzburg was arrested along with other leaders of the Helsinki movement (Y. Orlov, M. Rudenko, T. Venclova). He was sentenced on July 10–13, 1978, by the Kaluga Oblast Court under Article 70, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to 8 years of imprisonment and 3 years of exile, and was declared an especially dangerous recidivist. The charges were mainly based on documents from the Moscow Helsinki Group. He served his sentence in the special-regime camp in the settlement of Sosnovka, Mordovia.
In April 1979, as a result of high-level negotiations between the USA and the USSR, Ginzburg, without his knowledge or consent, was exchanged along with four other political prisoners for two Soviet citizens accused of espionage in the US.
He lived in the United States, and then in France. He was the head of the Russian Cultural Center in Montgeron, and then, until 1997, a leading columnist for the newspaper “Russkaya Mysl” (Russian Thought) in Paris. He is buried in Paris at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Bibliography:
Interview [with P. Litvinov] // Khronika zashchity... [A Chronicle of the Defense…]. – 1979. – No. 34. – pp. 41-49.
Portrait of a Dissident: [A Conversation with A. Latynina] // Lit. gaz. – 1990. – July 18.
Istoriya odnoy golodovki: May – iyun 1969 g. [The Story of One Hunger Strike: May – June 1969] / [Comp. A. Zholkovskaya]. – Frankfurt-am-Main: Posev, 1971. – 132 p. – Anonymous.
Vladimov, G. The Face of My People?: From the Trial of A. Ginzburg // Khronika zashchity… [A Chronicle of the Defense…] – 1978. – No. 32. – pp. 28-30.
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. 138–142. https://museum.khpg.org/1184357158;
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. 188–189; 2nd ed.: 2012, pp. 207–208.
Gennady Kuzovkin. Moscow. Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, based on materials from Moscow “Memorial.” Translated, abridged, and supplemented with Ukrainian material by Vasyl Ovsiyenko; last reviewed on August 26, 2006, and August 4, 2016.