Historical Problem
Last spring, a significant portion of the media coverage about the Arab Spring revolved around the protesters use of Facebook and Twitter to stay in contact with one another. At the time, I was writing yet another paper on Soviet dissidents and it caused me to start thinking about how that group of protesters communicated with one another without getting arrested.
At the most basic level, that’s what I’m looking to answer with my thesis. How did dissenters stay in contact with one another? And on a related note, how did they communicate to the USSR, and to the world, what they were working for? How did they communicate these ideas while trying to stay within the law.
Thesis Statement
I plan on using the birth and history of “The Chronicle of Current Events,” an underground dissident newspaper, as a structure for discussing the rise of the dissident movement in Soviet Russia, and as a way for examining the movement’s communication network. “The Chronicle” will serve as a framework to discuss other key aspects of dissident movement such as the popularity of self-published texts and the role of foreign radio.
Right now, I see my thesis having five main sections:
· The Context of “The Chronicle”-This is mainly the timeline described in this proposal
· How an underground newspaper reports news-using the dissident network
· How “The Chronicle” was published and disseminated- the history of samizdat publishing
· How the editors were able to get “Chronicle” stories on foreign radio and why this mattered
· How “The Chronicle” came to be published in the U.S.-the importance of the west in the dissident network
Critical Review
“The Chronicle of Current Events,” was translated and compiled by Peter Reddaway in Uncensored Russia: Protest and Dissent in the Soviet Union. [1] Rather than print whole issues, Reddaway sorted segments of each issue into various topics. For example, there are sections devoted to the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel and the Czech Invasion.
As The Chronicle serves as the framework of my thesis, it’s my most important primary source, but I’ll also be relying heavily on The Thaw Generation: Coming of Age in the Post-Stalin Era [2], a memoir by Ludmilla Alexeyeva, one of “The Chronicle’s” founders. Alexeyeva outlines her years as part of the dissident movement in general, and in particular her years as a contributor the paper. Her book is particularly helpful in explaining how “The Chronicle” was able to report and disseminate news over such a broad area, while avoiding the KGB.
Alexeyeva’s memoir, as well as her study of the dissident movement, Soviet Dissent: Contemporary Movements for National, Religious, and Human Rights[3] also help to contextualize “The Chronicle” within the wider dissident movement. One of her main arguments is that “The Chronicle” came out of a growing emphasis on openness following Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech[4]” at the Twentieth Party Congress and the publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich[5]. Both works focus on the need to expose the truth about what occurred in the Soviet Union, although Solzhenitsyn’s argument is much more radical. “The Chronicle” came out of this ideology of truth-telling.
The ultimate catalyst for the birth of The Chronicle was the publication of Alexander Ginzburg’s White Book[6], a transcript of the court case against Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, two Soviet writers sent to prison camps for publishing their texts abroad. Ginzburg’s book, and subsequent prosecution, caused such an uproar that it caused a group of Moscow dissidents, led by Natalya Gorbanevskaya to begin publishing “The Chronicle.” The White Book will likely play a key role in the first sectionsof my thesis, which will outline how “The Chronicle” came to be.
Mark Hopkins’ Russia’s Underground Press: The Chronicle of Current Events[7] is also helpful in explaining how “The Chronicle” came to be, but more importantly in describing how the newspaper was able to report and spread news while avoiding arrest. Hopkins book offers a unique perspective because, as far as I can tell, it’s the only history of “The Chronicle,” not written by one of its contributors. This raises a problem as almost anything written about the paper is written in glowing terms. Hopkins falls under this category as well; his book is dedicated to Ludmilla Alexeyeva and the editors of “The Chronicle.” This will be something I battle with as I begin my writing. It’s difficult not to be impressed by “The Chronicle’s” reporting. While its editors were unable to take notes or conduct interviews, its coverage was extensive. It was based out of Moscow but thoroughly covered the caucuses, mental hospitals and prison camps. This sense of wonder is evident in almost anything written about “The Chronicle.”
A related issue is that there are few secondary studies on “The Chronicle” specifically. At this point, the majority of my bibliography consists of primary sources, or scholarly work done by dissidents or those sympathetic with their movement. Ann Komaromi, at the University of Toronto, has done some very recent work on samizdat publishing, so I’ll be looking to her and her bibliographies for more sources. Komaromi also launched an online samizdat database last month, which I’ll be working my way through. She’s promised a bibliography on samizdat sources in the coming weeks as well.
The final section I’ve focused my reading so far on is on radio. “The Chronicle” was able to drastically extend its reach because transcripts of its stories were frequently broadcast into the U.S.S.R by foreign broadcasters including the BBC, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. “The Chronicle’s” audience was not just those who were able to get a copy from the underground network, but anyone who had a radio. Kristen Roth-Ey’s Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire That Lost the Cultural Cold War [8] has been invaluable in explaining how important radio was to Soviet culture.
My goal, as I said, is to use “The Chronicle” as a framing device for discussing how dissidents were able to communicate between each other and the outside world. I’m hoping to weave the story of the dissident network, both in and out of the USSR, into the history of “The Chronicle.” The network came together in earnest during the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel, and subsequent protests. This network, which spread throughout Moscow, the prison camps and across the Atlantic, was responsible for reporting stories found in “The Chronicle.” From there, I want to look at how this network was able to disseminate The Chronicle, get their stories on foreign radio and have “The Chronicle” published abroad.
Timeline
Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech”: February 24-25 1956
Khrushchev made his famous speech, denouncing “the cult of personality” surrounding Stalin at the Twentieth Party Congress. Khruschev argued that it was time to expose the truth about the Stalin years. He exposed and denounced the party purges and made a push for openness.
Khrushchev’s speech was hardly radical though. He failed to mention Stalin’s persecution of intelligentsia or even the existence of forced labor camps. He argued that while it truth-telling was necessary, he also said, “We should not wash out dirty linen before their eyes.”[9] Exposing the truth would have to be done carefully, and not entirely.
Publication of Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1962
Khrushchev personally approved of Solzhenitsyn’s novel, which sought to rectify the omissions in the Premier’s speech. Solzhenitsyn believed it was necessary to expose the entire truth about the Stalin years and that it was his duty, as an artist, to tell the story of the camps. In one scene in the novel, two prisoners, Kh-123 and Tsezar, discuss the film Ivan the Terrible. Tsezar argues the film is a work of art because of its camera angles and aesthetic beauty. But Kh-123 responds, saying it’s a piece of propaganda. Tsezar believes the movie’s message is the only reason it made it past the censors. Kh-123 retorts, “A genius doesn’t adapt his treatment to the taste of tyrants!”[10] This scene embodies Solzhenitsyn’s core belief, and reason for writing the novel: the truth of the prison camps, and the Stalinist years needed to be exposed in full.
Solzhenitsyn’s dedication to truth-telling was incredibly influential among dissidents. This was a key part of their ideology and relates directly to the birth of “The Chronicle.” “The Chronicle” at its most base level was about exposing the truth.
Trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel 1965-1966
Sinyavsky and Daniel were arrested in 1965 for publishing anti-Soviet materials abroad. The pair of writers had already stood at the center of the burgeoning dissident movement. They served as the pallbearers at Boris Pasternak’s funeral, and had friends throughout the movement. Their arrest and trial sent shock waves throughout the dissident community as it became clear that Brezhnev would not be continuing Khrushchev’s “Thaw.”
Soviet Constitution Day- December 5, 1965
The dissidents disturbed by Sinyavsky and Daniel’s arrest organized a protest on Pushkin Square to call for the two men to receive a fair and open trial. The protest has since become known as the birthday of the dissident movement.
It became an annual event with hundreds of dissidents attending each year. In 1968, “The Chronicle” reported,
“On December 5th, 1968, the traditional demonstration to mark Constitution Day took play on Pushkin Square in Moscow. It is well known that the first demonstration at the Pushkin monument took place on December 5th, 1965, as a sign of protest against the arrest of Sinyavsky and Daniel and was held under the slogan 'Respect the Constitution!' The demonstration in 1968 was a silent meeting: about twenty people stood for ten minutes with head bared around the monument.”[11]
Publication of Alexander Ginzburg’s White Book 1966
Ginzburg compiled and clandestinely published a transcript of Sinyavsky and Daniel’s trial. This was the final catalyst for the editors of “The Chronicle” to begin publishing.
Alexeyeva writes in her memoir, “I was amazed by the thought of Ginzburg openly handing it to the KGB. The implication was that transcript of the trial, supplemented with appeals to the court, open letters of protest, and clippings from the Soviet and foreign press, did not constitute slander of the USSR. By saying he had nothing to hide, Ginzburg was deliberately taking glasnost to its logical extreme. He was staying within the law as it was written and waiting to be arrested.”[12]
This was the attitude “The Chronicle” took on when it began publishing. It reported just the facts and stayed away from offering opinions, in an attempt to stay within the law. The paper followed Ginzburg’s lead, not just with legal matters, but also in his dedication to openness and full transparency. Just as Ginzburg had reported the facts about the trial, “The Chronicle” would about human rights violations in the U.S.S.R.
Publication of the first issue of “The Chronicle” –April 30, 1968
The first issue of “The Chronicle” focused on 1968 as “International Human Rights Year” and juxtaposed those values with the Ginzburg’s arrest and trial. It opened with, “One December 10th, 1967, “Human Rights Year” began all over the world. On December 11th, the trial was due to begin in the case of Yury Galanskov, Alexander Ginzburg…”[13]
We see here that the founding editors of The Chronicle felt their work was intertwined with Ginzburg and, in turn, Sinyavsky and Daniel. The dissident network was a small, tight-knit community, so there were personal connections. But it was also thematically linked, as “The Chronicle” was deeply concerned with respect for law and openness.
Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia and subsequent protests- August 1968
The entirety of issue three of “The Chronicle” is devoted to the invasion of Czechoslovakia and the arrests of those who protested it. This is particularly strong example of how “The Chronicle” reported news using the dissident network, as its founding editor, Natasha Gorbanevskaya, was arrested at the protest. She was able to use “The Chronicle” to disseminate what she and very few others knew about the goals of the protestors and how they were treated by the KGB.
Key Themes
We see three main themes running through these events and the subsequent issues of “The Chronicle:” openness, obligation to truth, and devotion to the rule of law.
Openness: Beginning with Khrushchev’s speech, we see an emphasis on exposing the truth about the Soviet regime. The Secret Speech is a problematic place to begin this theme, as Khrushchev wasn’t completely dedicated to telling the whole truth, he wanted a whitewashed version of it.
Solzhenitsyn embodies this idea, and in his wake, so does “The Chronicle.” The paper was entirely dedicated to ensuring the Soviet people knew of human rights abuses going on in the empire[14]. As Reddaway writes in his introduction, “‘The Chronicle's’ aim is openness, non-secretiveness, freedom of information and expression. All these notions are subsumed in the one Russian word glasnost.”[15]
Obligation: This is, again, best seen in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovic. In the novel, Solzhenitsyn argues that survivors have an obligation to describe what’s going on in the USSR. The dissidents took it to heart. As their friends were sent to prison camps, mental institutions or exiled, “The Chronicle” reported on the circumstances. They had an obligation to the dissident network, and to the U.S.S.R as whole, to make sure the truth was known.
Rule of Law: We see this idea in Alexeyeva’s reaction to Ginzburg’s “White Book.” Ginzburg insisted he acted entirely within the law by reporting only on events as they happened. “The Chronicle” took up this model. Redaway writes of the paper’s theory, “The Chronicle regards itself as legal because it merely compiles an accurate recrod of events and there is truth there can--legally speaking--be no 'libel,' 'anti-Soviet' or otherwise.”[16]
One of “The Chronicle’s” goals was to establish “some measure rule of law.”[17] The paper sought to prevent the arbitrary nature of arrests and searches in Soviet society, as part of their quest for basic human rights in the Soviet state. This is reflected not just in the very publication of the newspaper, but in the news it reported. It sought to hold the government accountable for its abuse of law.
Plan for Completing Research
October: The single most important thing for me to do right now is to finish organizing my notes. While most of them have moved from my notebook to my computer, they haven’t all been typed. And the notes that have been typed aren’t all on my blog, which is serving as the organizational structure of my thesis so far. My blog began as a way to back up my notes, and has turned into an integral part of my thinking process.
Moving forward, I need to finish Hopkins’ book, which I was only recently able to find a copy of. It’s going to be very helpful in understanding the basics of how “The Chronicle” functioned as an underground newspaper.
From there, I’ll turn my attention to Ann Komaromi’s works and the bibliography she has compiled on samizdat. I also need to find more sources on radio.
The one area that I’m still very foggy on is how “The Chronicle” was smuggled into the U.S. and published here. Professor Gerstein has a friend, Ed Klein, who helped in this process. She’s said I can interview him and I think that will help clear things up.
November: Come November 1, I need to be outlining. I am a notoriously slow outline writer, mainly because I tend to write ridiculously long and detailed outlines. It’s not unusual for me to write a twelve-page outline for a twenty-page paper, or to have to write an outline of my outline. So I have a feeling writing a thesis outline will take me a bit. Outlining will allow me to figure out where the holes in my research are, and starting early will give me some time to fill time before I start writing.
December: I’ll put my outline to work and begin writing the introduction.
Working Bibliography
Primary Sources
Alexeyeva, Ludmilla and Paul Goldberg, trans. The Thaw Generation: Coming of
Age in the Post-Stalin Era. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993.
Hayward, Max, trans. On Trial: The Soviet State versus “Abram Tertz” and “Nikolai Arzhak.” New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1966.
Khrushchev, Nikita. “The Secret Speech—On the Cult of Personality, 1956.” Modern History Source Book. Fordham University. Last modified July 1998. www.fordham.edu.
Puddington, Arch. Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2000.
Reddaway, Peter, trans. Uncensored Russia: The Unofficial Moscow journal, a Chronicle of Current Events. New York: American Heritage Press, 1972.
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.
Secondary Sources
Alexeyeva, Ludmilla. Soviet Dissent: Contemporary Movements for National,
Religious, and Human Rights. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1987.
Hopkins, Mark. Russia’s Underground Press: The Chronicle of Current Events.” New York: Praeger Publishers, 1983.
Kenez, Peter. A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Komaromi, Ann. “The Material Existence of Soviet Samizdat.” Slavic Review 63, no. 3 (2004): 597-618. www.jstor.org
Roth-Ey, Kristen. Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire That Lost the Cultural Cold War. New York: Cornell University Press, 2011.
Roth-Ey, Kristen. ““Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire that Lost the Cultural Cold War.” University of Pennsylvania’s Anneberg School of Communications. September 16, 2011.
Shatz, Marshall. Soviet Dissent in Historical Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
[1] Peter Reddaway, trans, Uncensored Russia: Protest and Dissent in the Soviet Union: The Unofficial Moscow Journal, a Chronicle of Current Events, (New York: American Heritage Press), 1972.
[2] Ludmilla Alexeyeva and Paul Goldberg, The Thaw Generation: Coming of Age in the Post-Stalin Era, (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press), 1993.
[3] Ludmilla Alexeyeva, Soviet Dissent: Contemporary Movements for National, Religious, and Human Rights, (Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press), 1987.
[4] Nikita Khrushchev, “The Secret Speech—On the Cult of Personality, 1956,” Modern History Source Book, Fordham University, July 1998, www.fordham.edu.
[5] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 2005.
[6] Max Hayward, trans., On Trial: The Soviet State versus “Abram Tertz” and “Nikolai Arzhak,” (New York: Harper and Row Publishers), 1966.
[7] Mark Hopkins, Russia’s Underground Press: The Chronicle of Current Events, (New York: Praeger Publishers), 1983.
That Lost the Cultural Cold War, (New York: Cornell University Press), 2011.
[9] Khrushchev, “Secret Speech”
[11] Ed. Reddaway, 71
[12] Alexeyeva, The Thaw Generation, 141
[13] Ed. Reddaway, 53
[14] Ed. Reddaway, 25
[15] Ed. Reddaway, 26
[16] Ed. Redaway, 26
[17] Ed. Reddaway, 7
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