SOLZHENITSYN REGAINS SOVIET CITIZENSHIP
Author: Associated Press
Date: Friday, August 17, 1990
Page: 12
Section: NATIONAL/FOREIGN
MOSCOW -- President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, apologizing for two decades of
political repression, has restored the citizenship of exiled writer Alexander
Solzhenitsyn and 22 other literary, scientific and cultural figures, officials
said yesterday.
In addition to Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel laureate charged with treason in
1974, Gorbachev's presidential decree returns citizenship to chess champion
Victor Korchnoi; writers Vasily Aksyonov, Vladimir Voinovich, Lev Kopelev,
Georgi Vladimov and Valeri Tarsis, who died in exile in 1983; scientists Yuri
Orlov and Valeri Chalidze; and artist Oskar Rabin, Soviet media reported.
The names of the other 12 were not announced. There had been speculation
that the list would include writer Joseph Brodsky, a Nobel Prize laureate who
emigrated to the United States in 1972 under threat of imprisonment for his
dissidence.
The full list of writers, academics and musicians deprived of citizenship
between 1966-88 and regaining it under Wednesday's presidential decree will be
published later this month, said a spokesman for Gorbachev.
"These political repressions were justifiably condemned in this country,
and I believe it is now our duty to, if you please, absolve the guilt before
our countrymen," said Gennady Cheremnykh, head of the citizenship and
pardoning department of the Supreme Soviet's Secretariat.
"The decree is a conveyance of apologies of sorts. Although it is belated,
it is an apology," he said in an interview with the government daily Izvestia.
Cheremnykh said 175 Soviets were stripped of their citizenship from
1966-88. About 60 of them are Armenians who emigrated to the United States and
Canada. The rest are dissidents, he said.
Under Leonid I. Brezhnev, the Kremlin revoked the citizenship of prominent
authors and performing artists who spoke out against repression. Their works
were barred from appearing in their homeland.
Citizenship revocation orders were routinely signed by Brezhnev himself,
reflecting the level of revulsion felt by the leadership toward their
dissident views.
The practice continued during Gorbachev's first three years in office, but
he later abandoned it. In individual decrees, he has restored the citizenship
of a number of them, notably cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and
his wife, singer Galina Vishnevskaya; dissident historian Zhores Medvedev; and
theater director Yuri Lyubimov. Of these, only Lyubimov has returned to live
in the Soviet Union.
No conditions were put on those identified yesterday.
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