Definición y significado de Vladimir_Bukovsky

  Vladimir Bukovsky, 2007

Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (Russian: Влади́мир Константи́нович Буко́вский; born December 30, 1942) is a leading member of the dissident movement of the 1960s and 1970s, writer,^[1] neurophysiologist,^[2][3] and political activist.

Bukovsky was one of the first to expose the use of psychiatric imprisonment against political prisoners in the Soviet Union. He spent a total of twelve years in Soviet prisons, labor camps and in psikhushkas, forced-treatment psychiatric hospitals used by the government as special prisons.

He is a member of the international advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.^[4]

  Early life

Vladimir Bukovsky was born in the town of Belebey, Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (now Bashkortostan), Russian SFSR, USSR, where his family was evacuated from Moscow during World War II. In 1959 he was expelled from his Moscow school for creating and editing an unauthorized magazine.

  Activism and arrests

From June 1963 to February 1965, Bukovsky was convicted (Article 70-1 of the Penal Code of the RSFSR) and sent to a psikhushka for organizing poetry meetings in the center of Moscow (next to the Mayakovsky monument). The official charge was an attempt to copy anti-Soviet literature, namely The New Class by Milovan Djilas.

In December 1965 he organised a demonstration at Pushkin Square in Moscow in defence of the writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel (see Sinyavsky-Daniel trial). Three days before the planned demonstration, Bukovsky was arrested. He was kept in various psikhushkas without any charges till July 1966.

In January 1967 he was arrested for organizing a demonstration in defence of Alexander Ginzburg, Yuri Galanskov and other dissidents (Article 190-1, 3 years of imprisonment); released in January 1970.

In 1971, Bukovsky managed to smuggle to the West over 150 pages documenting abuse of psychiatric institutions for political reasons in the Soviet Union. The information galvanized human rights activists worldwide (including inside the country) and was a pretext for his subsequent arrest in the same year. At the trial in January 1972 Bukovsky was accused of slandering Soviet psychiatry, contacts with foreign journalists and possession and distribution of samizdat (Article 70-1, 7 years of imprisonment plus 5 years in exile).

In 1974, Bukovsky and the incarcerated psychiatrist Semyon Gluzman wrote a Manual on Psychiatry for Dissenters,^[5][6] in which they provided potential future victims of political psychiatry with instructions on how to behave during inquest in order to avoid being diagnosed as mentally sick.^[7]

  Deportation

  Bukovsky was a guest at the 1977 AFL–CIO Convention in Los Angeles. He appears (center) with Tom Kahn (left, an assistant to AFL–CIO President George Meany) and Theodore Bikel (right, President of the Actors' Equity Association.^[8]

The fate of Bukovsky and other political prisoners in the Soviet Union, repeatedly brought to attention by Western human rights groups and diplomats, was a cause of embarrassment and irritation for the Soviet authorities.

In December 1976, in his eleventh year of psychiatric hospitals and prison camps, Bukovsky was exchanged by the Soviet government for the imprisoned Chilean Communist leader Luis Corvalán^[9] at Zürich airport and, after a short stay in the Netherlands, took up refuge in Great Britain where later moved from London to Cambridge for his studies in biology.^[10]:7 In his autobiographical book To Build a Castle, Bukovsky describes how he was brought to Switzerland handcuffed. This biography is available online at several sites.^[11][12][13]

  In the United Kingdom

Since 1976 Bukovsky has lived in Cambridge, England, focusing on neurophysiology and writing. He received a Masters Degree in Biology and has written several books and political essays. In addition to criticizing the Soviet government, he also picked apart what he calls "Western gullibility", a lack of a tough stand of Western liberalism against Communist abuses.

In 1983, together with Vladimir Maximov and Eduard Kuznetsov he cofounded and was elected president of the international anti-Communist organization Resistance International (Интернационал сопротивления). In 1985, together with Albert Jolis, Armondo Valladares, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Midge Decter and Yuri Yarim-Agaev he founded the American Foundation for Resistance International, later joined by Richard Perle and Martin Colman. It became the coordinating center for dissident and democracy movements seeking to overturn communism, organizing protests in the communist countries and opposing western financial assistance for the communist governments. It had a primary role in the coordination of the opposition that was instrumental in the demise of communism. It also created the National Council To Support The Democracy Movements (National Council For Democracy) which helped establish democratic rule-of-law governments and assisted with the writing of their constitutions and civil structures.

  Judgement in Moscow

In April 1991 Vladimir Bukovsky visited Moscow for the first time since his forced deportation. In the run-up to the 1991 presidential election Boris Yeltsin's campaign considered Bukovsky as a potential vice-presidential running-mate (other contenders included Galina Starovoitova and Gennady Burbulis).^{[citation needed]} In the end, the vice-presidency was offered to Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Rutskoy.

In 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, President Yeltsin's government invited Bukovsky to serve as an expert to testify at the CPSU trial by Constitutional Court of Russia, where the communists were suing Yeltsin for banning their party. The respondent's case was that the CPSU itself had been an unconstitutional organization. To prepare for his testimony, Bukovsky requested and was granted access to a large number of documents from Soviet archives (then reorganized into TsKhSD). Using a small handheld scanner and a laptop computer, he managed to secretly scan many documents (some with high security clearance), including KGB reports to the Central Committee, and smuggle the files to the West.^[14] The event that many expected would be another Nuremberg Trial and the beginnings of reconciliation with the Communist past, ended up in half-measures: while the CPSU was found unconstitutional, the communists were allowed to form new parties in the future. Bukovsky expressed his deep disappointment with this in his writings and interviews:

It took several years and a team of assistants to compose the scanned pieces together and publish it (see Soviet Archives, collected by Vladimir Bukovsky, prepared for electronic publishing by Julia Zaks and Leonid Chernikhov). The same collection of documents is also massively quoted in Bukovsky's Judgement in Moscow, which was published in 1994 and translated to French as Jugement à Moscou and some other languages, but not in English. According to Bukovsky, Random House “tried to force me to rewrite the whole book from the liberal left political perspective.” Bukovsky replied that “due to certain peculiarities of my biography I am allergic to political censorship.” The contract was canceled, the book was never published in English, and no other publisher has shown interest in it.^[16]

  Post-1992

In 1992 a group of liberal deputies of the Moscow City Council proposed Bukovsky's candidacy for elections of the new Mayor of Moscow, following the resignation of the previous Mayor, Gavriil Popov. Bukovsky refused the offer. In early 1996 a group of Moscow academics, journalists and intellectuals suggested that Vladimir Bukovsky should run for President of Russia as an alternative candidate to both incumbent President Boris Yeltsin and his Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov. No formal nomination was initiated. In any case, Bukovsky would not have been allowed to run, as the Russian Constitution stipulates that any presidential candidate must have lived in the country continuously for ten years prior to the election.

In 1997, during the General Meeting in Florence, Bukovsky has been elected General President of the "Comitatus pro Libertatibus–Comitati per le Libertà–Freedom Committees", the international movement aimed to defend and empower everywhere the culture of liberties. Re-elected since then, Bukovsky promoted together with Dario Fertilio and Stéphane Courtois, a writer and an historian, the Memento Gulag, or Memorial Day devoted to the victims of communism, to be held each year, on 7 November (anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution). Since then, the Memento Gulag has been celebrated in Rome, Bucharest, Berlin, La Roche sur Yon and Paris.

In 2002 Boris Nemtsov, a member of the Russian Duma (parliament) and leader of the Union of Rightist Forces, and former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, visited Vladimir Bukovsky in Cambridge to discuss the strategy of the Russian opposition. Bukovsky told Nemtsov that, in his view, it is imperative that Russian liberals adopt an uncompromising stand toward what he sees as the authoritarian government of President Vladimir Putin. In January 2004, together with Garry Kasparov, Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir V. Kara-Murza and others, Vladimir Bukovsky co-founded the Committee 2008, an umbrella organization of the Russian democratic opposition, whose purpose is to ensure free and fair presidential elections in 2008.

In 2005 Bukovsky participated in They Chose Freedom,^[17] a four-part documentary on the Soviet dissident movement. In 2005, with the revelations about captives in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, Abu Ghraib and the CIA secret prisons, Bukovsky criticized the rationalization of torture.^[18] Bukovsky warned about some parallels between the formations of the Soviet Union and the European Union.^[19]

Vladimir Bukovsky is a member of the Board of Directors of the Gratitude Fund, and a member of the International Council of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation. In the United Kingdom, he is Vice-President of The Freedom Association (TFA) and a patron of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). He holds that Russia is too big and should be broken up into several smaller countries.^[20]

Bukovsky is among the 34 first signatories of the online anti-Putin manifesto "Putin must go", published on 10 March 2010.

  Candidate for Russian Presidential Election, 2008

  V. Bukovsky, 2007

On the 28th May 2007, Bukovsky agreed to become a candidate in the Russian presidential election.^[21]

The group that nominated Bukovsky as a candidate included Yuri Ryzhov, Vladimir V. Kara-Murza, Alexander Podrabinek, Andrei Piontkovsky, Vladimir Pribylovsky and others.^[22] Activists and writers Valeria Novodvorskaya, Victor Shenderovich, Vladimir Sorokin favored Bukovsky.^[23][24]

In their answer to pro-Kremlin politicians and publicists who expressed doubt in Bukovksy's electoral prospects, his nominators refuted a number of frequently repeated statements.^[25]

More than 800 participants nominated Bukovsky for president on December 16, 2007 in Moscow. Bukovsky secured the required turnout and submitted his registration to the Central Election Commission on December 18, 2007.^[26][27][28]

The Initiative Group refuted pro-government media's early claims of Bukovsky's failure in the presidential race and Constitution court appeals.^[29][30]

The Election Commission turned down Bukovsky's application on December 22, 2007, claiming that he failed to give information on his activity as a writer when submitting documents to the Election Commission, that he was holding a British residence permit, and that he has not been living on Russian territory over the past ten years. Bukovsky appealed the decision in Supreme Court on December 28, 2007, then in its cassation board on January 15, 2008.^[31]

  Publications

  Decision of Russian Supreme Court on Bukovsky's appeal, December 28, 2007

• Soviet Archives, collected by Vladimir Bukovsky, prepared for electronic publishing by Julia Zaks and Leonid Chernikhov.
• List of publications of Vladimir Bukovsky at The Gratitude Fund.
• EUSSR: The Soviet Roots of European Integration, 2004. ISBN 0-9540231-1-0
• Vladimir Bukovsky. To Build a Castle, Samizdat", 1978 (И возвращается ветер, (Russian) Vehi.net
• Soul of Man Under Socialism, 1979. ISBN 0-89633-029-X
• Bukovskiĭ, Vladimir (1979). To Build a Castle. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 978-0-670-71640-1. 
• Soviet Hypocrisy and Western Gullibility, 1987. ISBN 0-89633-113-X
• Judgement in Moscow (Московский процесс) based on his 1992 visit to Russia and the "Soviet Archives".
• To Choose Freedom Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 1987. ISBN 0-8179-8442-9
• Vladimir Boukovsky. L’Union européenne, une nouvelle URSS ? Editeur: Le Rocher, Publication: 1/9/2005, ISBN 2-268-05546-9, 180 pages.
• Vladimir Boukovsky (Auteur), Pavel Stroilov (Auteur), Pierre Lorrain (Traduction). L'Union européenne, une nouvelle URSS ?, 2005. A review at Librairie Catholique.

  See also

• The Soviet Story - documentary

  References

  External links

• Official Presidential campaign site
• Unofficial Presidential campaign site
• Bio at The Gratitude Fund
• Faces of Resistance in the USSR: V. Bukovsky. The Andrei Sakharov Archives and Human Rights Center at Brandeis University
• Dissidents, 1970-1979 contain materials concerning activities, arrests and exchange of Bukovsky
• An Open Letter to President G.W. Bush by Vladimir Bukovsky and Elena Bonner (2003-03-27)
• The West Lost The War: Vladimir Bukovsky (2001)
• A Conversation With Vladimir Bukovsky - by Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine.com May 30, 2003
• Conservatives Debate: Is the Threat of Islamic Terrorism More Dangerous to America than Communism Was? By Vladimir Bukovsky, Daniel Pipes, Paul Hollander, and Michael Ledeen
• (Russian) Bio and writings
• (Russian) Press-conference in Warsaw 1998
• Voices of Dissent An expose film of alleged human rights abuse presented by Vladimir Bukovsky (2006)
• HRO.org Press Conference, Warsaw, 1998
• Wladimir Bukowski, "Europa auf dem Weg in die Diktatur? Teil I." A transcript of Vladimir Bukovsky's Salzburg speech, 2000-10-26. Part 1.
• Wladimir Bukowski, "Europa auf dem Weg in die Diktatur? Teil II." A transcript of Vladimir Bukovsky's Salzburg speech, 2000-10-26. Part 2.
• "Former Soviet Dissident Warns For EU Dictatorship." A transcript of Vladimir Bukovsky's Brussels speech, 2006-02-23, and a brief interview.
• Video Interview with Vladimir Bukovsky Video Interview made on February 18, 2010.

Soviet dissidents Andrei Amalrik Mykola Bakay Anna Barkova Vasile Bătrânac Yuri Bezmenov Larisa Bogoraz Yelena Bonner Leonid Borodin Alexei Borovoi Vladimir Bougrine Joseph Brodsky Vladimir Bukovsky Valery Chalidze Lev Chernyi Viacheslav Chornovil Lydia Chukovskaya Yuli Daniel Vadim Delaunay David Devdariani Mihai Dolgan Ivan Drach Alexander Esenin-Volpin Eliyahu Essas Benjamin Fain Viktor Fainberg Moysey Fishbein Ilya Gabay Yuri Galanskov Alexander Galich Zviad Gamsakhurdia Alexander Ginzburg Yevgenia Ginzburg Semyon Gluzman Natalya Gorbanevskaya Pyotr Grigorenko Vasily Grossman Paruyr Hayrikyan Oleksa Hirnyk Mykola Horbal Grigory Isayev Boris Kagarlitsky Romas Kalanta Sofiya Kalistratova Ihor Kalynets Vitaliy Kalynychenko Dina Kaminskaya Ivan Kandyba Ephraim Kholmyansky Yuliy Kim Lev Kopelev Boris Korczak Anatoly Koryagin Merab Kostava Lina Kostenko Sergei Kovalev Zoya Krakhmalnikova Jüri Kukk Eduard Kuznetsov Anatoly Kuznetsov Yaroslav Lesiv Eduard Limonov Pavel Litvinov Levko Lukyanenko Kronid Lyubarsky Michail J. Makarenko Guram Mamulia Nadezhda Mandelstam Osip Mandelstam Anatoly Marchenko Valeriy Marchenko Myroslav Marynovych Roy Medvedev Zhores Medvedev Naum Meiman Yosef Mendelevitch Ion Moraru Viktor Muravin Mustafa Abdülcemil Qırımoğlu Lev Navrozov Viktor Nekipelov Alexander Nekrich Valeria Novodvorskaya Vasile Odobescu Yuri Orlov Boris Pasternak Yekaterina Peshkova Leonid Plyushch Alexandr Podrabinek Grigory Pomerants Irina Ratushinskaya Maria Rozanova Mykola Rudenko Ain Saar Andrei Sakharov Dmitri Savitski Shmuel Schneurson Efraim Sevela Igor Shafarevich Varlam Shalamov Vladimir Shelkov Danylo Shumuk Andrei Sinyavsky Victor Sokolov Sergei Soldatov Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Vladimir Strelnikov Vasyl Stus Sultan Galiev Nadiya Svitlychna Vasyl Symonenko Les Tanyuk Alexander Tarasov Valery Tarsis Enn Tarto Georgi Vins Georgi Vladimov Vladimir Voinovich Michael Voslenski Gleb Yakunin Yevgeny Zamyatin Aleksandr Zinovyev Yosyf Zisels