from Gorbanevskaya's interview for Ekho Moskvy, 21 June 2011
Natalya Yevgenyevna Gorbanevskaya (Russian: Ната́лья Евге́ньевна Горбане́вская, IPA:[nɐˈtalʲjəjɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvnəɡərbɐˈnʲefskəjə]ⓘ; 26 May 1936 – 29 November 2013) was a Russian poet, a translator of Polish literature and a civil-rights activist. She was one of the founders and the first editor of A Chronicle of Current Events (1968–1982). On 25 August 1968, with seven others, she took part in the 1968 Red Square demonstration against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. In 1970 a Soviet court sentenced Gorbanevskaya to incarceration in a psychiatric hospital. She was released from the Kazan Special Psychiatric Hospital in 1972, and emigrated from the USSR in 1975, settling in France. In 2005, she became a citizen of Poland.
Life in Moscow
Gorbanevskaya was born in Moscow. She graduated from Leningrad University in 1964 and became a technical editor and translator.[1] Only nine of her poems had been published in official journals by the time she quit the USSR in 1975; the rest circulated privately (samizdat) or were published abroad (tamizdat).
Dissident activities
From 1968 onwards Gorbanevskaya was active in what was later called the Soviet "dissident movement."
She was founder and first editor of A Chronicle of Current Events, a samizdat publication that focused on the violation of basic human rights in the Soviet Union. Her contribution was to compile and edit the reports, and then type the first six carbon copies of the issue, the "zero-generation" copy, for further replication and distribution.[2]
Gorbanevskaya was also one of eight protesters in the 25 August 1968 Red Square demonstration against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.[1] Having recently given birth, she was not immediately tried with the other demonstrators. She used this time to follow the trial in the Chronicle of Current Events,[3] and published the accumulated documentation abroad in French and Russian (Polden). The book appeared in English in 1972 as Red Square at Noon.
In 1969, she signed An Appeal to The UN Committee for Human Rights.[4]
In December 1969 Gorbanevskaya was arrested.[5] In July of the following year she was put on trial and found guilty of offences under Article 190-1 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, committed while of unsound mind. Gorbanevskaya was sentenced to indefinite confinement in a psychiatric hospital where she would be treated for "sluggish schizophrenia", a diagnosis commonly applied to dissidents.[6] Gorbanevskaya was released from the Kazan Special Psychiatric Hospital in February 1972.[7]
Life in emigration
In December 1975, Gorbanevskaya emigrated to Paris.[1] There, French psychiatrists at their request examined Gorbanevskaya and found her to be mentally normal.[8] They concluded that in 1969–72 she had been committed to a psychiatric hospital for political, not medical reasons.[8]
For a time Gorbanevskaya was a celebrity figure in the West. In 1976 Joan Baez released a song dedicated to Gorbanevskaya called "Natalia", written by Roy Apps, Shusha Guppy and G.T. Moore, on the live album From Every Stage. Introducing the song, Baez criticized Gorbanevskaya's internment in the psychiatric hospital and said: "It is because of people like Natalya Gorbanevskaya, I am convinced, that you and I are still alive and walking around on the face of the earth."[1][9]
Adrienne Rich also wrote "For a Sister," from the book Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971–1972, in acknowledgement of Gorbanevskaya and other women and their wrongful imprisonment.[10]
For thirty years, however, Gorbanevskaya was stateless until Poland granted her citizenship in 2005.
On 29 November 2013, Gorbanevskaya died in her house in Paris.[1][12]
Commemoration rally on Red Square, 2013
In August 2013, on the 45th anniversary of her arrest in Red Square, Ms. Gorbanevskaya returned there with nine other demonstrators to commemorate the protest. They were arrested on charges of holding an unsanctioned rally.[13]
Awards
In 2008, October, Gorbanevskaya received Poland's Marie Curie Award.[14][15][16][17] The same year, Gorbanevskaya was nominated for the Angelus Central European Literature Award.[18]
On 22 October 2013 Gorbanevskaya received an honorary medal from Charles University in Prague for her lifelong commitment to the struggle for democracy, freedom and human rights.[19]
On 27 October 2014 Gorbanevskaya was awarded posthumously the highest Slovak award, the Order of the White Double Cross, for her lifelong efforts to defend democracy and human rights.[20]
Books and other publications
Gorbanevskaya, Nathalia (November 1968). "Lettre de Moscou" [Letter from Moscow]. Esprit (in French). 375 (11): 509–510. JSTOR24259381.
Gorbanevskaya, Natalya (1970). Midi Place Rouge. Dossier de la manifestation du 25 août 1968 sur la Place Rouge [The Red Square at Noon: The case on the demonstration of 25 August 1968 at the Red Square] (in French). Paris: Robert Laffont. ASINB003OS1I6A.
Gorbanevskaya, Nathalia (1982). "Témoignage" [Testimony]. In Galanskov, Youri (ed.). Le manifeste humain précédé par les témoignages de V. Boukovsky, N. Gorbanevskaïa, A. Guinzbourg, E. Kouznetsov [Human manifesto preceded by testimonies of V. Bukovsky, N. Gorbanevskaya, A. Ginzburg, E. Kuznetsov] (in French). Lausanne: Editions L'Age d'Homme. pp. 32–39. ISBN978-2825109205.
Kublanovsky, Yury (2002). "Natalya Gorbanevskaya". Modern Poetry in Translation (20). Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2008-09-22. (English translation from a review, published in Novy Mir, No.7, 1997, p. 67–68).
Reid, Allan (September–December 2003). ""Nothing turns out right, but something still emerges:" On the Poetry of Natalia Gorbanevskaia". Canadian Slavonic Papers. 45 (3–4): 351–370. doi:10.1080/00085006.2003.11092332. JSTOR40870887. S2CID154140951.
