Content deleted Content added
m replaced: History Department → history department, Physics Department → physics department |
Filled in 2 bare reference(s) with reFill 2 + 1 |
||
Line 1:
{{Short description|Soviet-Georgian human rights activist}}
{{
{{Infobox scientist
|native_name = Валерий Николаевич Чалидзе
Line 10:
|birth_date = 25 November 1938
|birth_place = [[Moscow]], [[USSR]]
|death_date = {{death date and age|3 January 2018
|death_place = United States
|residence =
Line 33:
Author and publisher '''Valery Nikolaevich Chalidze''' ({{lang-ru|Вале́рий Никола́евич Чали́дзе}}; {{lang-ka|ვალერი ჭალიძე}}: 25 November 1938 – 3 January 2018) was a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[dissident]] and [[human rights]] activist, deprived of his USSR citizenship in 1972 while on a visit to the US.
His Georgian father was killed during World War Two. His mother, Francheska Jansen, was an architect and designer, descended from Poles exiled to Siberia for their opposition to the Tsarist regime. Chalidze himself challenged the Soviet regime by mastering Soviet law, then demanding that the dictatorship comply with its own laws.<ref name="auto">
Chalidze was born in [[Moscow]] and educated as a [[physicist]] at the universities of [[Moscow State University|Moscow]] and [[Tbilisi State University|Tbilisi]] in Georgia. In the 1960s he joined the nascent Soviet human rights movement: he began publishing ''Social Issues'' in 1969, and helped to found the Committee for Human Rights the following year. In 1972 Chalidze was deprived of his Soviet citizenship and spent the rest of his life in the United States.
Line 39:
==''Social Issues''==
In August 1969 the underground periodical ''Social Issues'' (Obshchestvennye problemy) made its first appearance. Set up and edited by Chalidze, it covered a range of themes in the humanities and social sciences, including both original articles and translated work. It had a constant focus on the application of law, in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and the defense of human rights.<ref>[https://chronicleofcurrentevents.net/2014/08/03/16-11-samizdat-news/ ''A Chronicle of Current Events'' No 16, 31 October 1970 — 16.11 "Samizdat update – item 2 ''Social Issues'' No 6"].</ref> As part of his publishing activities Chalidze became adept at mending mechanical typewriters, the essential tool of [[samizdat]] publication and distribution.<ref
Under his guiding hand, ''Social Issues'' constantly opened new horizons for discussion. For example, he contributed to discussion of the definition, under Soviet conditions, of the term [[political prisoner]] and its practical application. The periodical championed the right of all Soviet citizens to emigrate to another country of their choosing and, in particular, he upheld the right of Jews to leave the USSR.
Chalidze wielded Soviet law in defense of many different people, including Crimean Tatars, students, Jews, Orthodox Christians, political prisoners, Baptists, and Muslims.<ref>To DEFEND TERSE RIGHTS: HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE SOVIET UNION. By Valery Chalidze (translated by Guy Daniels). New York: Random
House, 1974. Pp. viii, 340.</ref> He went further than many dissidents in calling openly for the repeal of the Stalin-era law criminalizing homosexual relations between adult males. It was a stance that concerned some of his colleagues, and led to an attempt by the Soviet regime to discredit him among the wider population by suggesting (wrongly) that he was himself gay—an assertion that could have paved the way for criminal prosecution of him.<ref name="auto2">[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/obituaries/valery-chalidze-soviet-dissident-forced-into-exile-dies-at-79.html "Valery Chalidze, Soviet dissident forced into exile, dies at 79", ''New York Times'', 22 January 2018].</ref>
==The Moscow Human Rights Committee==
Line 52:
The Committee was among the first non-governmental organizations in the post-Stalin history of the Soviet Union (cf. "[[Action Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR]]", set up in May 1969),<ref>[https://chronicleofcurrentevents.net/2013/09/28/8-10-appeal-to-the-un-commission-on-human-rights/ ''A Chronicle of Current Events'' No 8, 30 June 1969 — 8.10 "An Appeal to the UN Commission on Human Rights"].</ref> and eventually became affiliated with the [[United Nations]]. Its purpose was to offer free legal advice to persons whose human rights had been violated by the Soviet authorities, and also to advise those authorities on their legal obligations in regard to human rights under international and Soviet law.
Chalidze was an innovative strategist of the Soviet human-rights movement, who described himself as an "evolutionary" rather than a revolutionary.<ref>http://www.rutlandherald.com/articles/chalidze-remembered-for-human-rights-work/</ref> After educating himself on Soviet and international law as they pertained to human rights, Chalidze invited the Soviet dictatorship into a dialogue on human rights issues, utilizing the Committee both to offer free legal advice to those whose rights had been violated, and to the Soviet government itself. In addition to demanding that the authorities comply with the law, Chalidze also adhered to the position that the dissidents, too, must obey the law.<ref name="auto1">
==Life and activities in USA==
Line 66:
In 1979, he founded Chalidze Publications, a second New York-based publishing house. It focused primarily on culturally important, non-fiction works in Russian that for reasons of censorship were unavailable to Soviet readers. Among the books issued by Chalidze Publications were original memoirs of historically important figures (such as [[Nikita Khrushchev]]), memoirs of Soviet dissidents whose work was banned in their home country, Russian translations of classic Western works of political philosophy, and original analyses of social problems.
In 1979
===Move to Vermont===
In 1980
▲In 1980 he met Lisa Leah Barnhardt on a visit to Oregon. They were married shortly thereafter. Upon her completion of law school in New York, they moved to [[Benson, Vermont]] in 1983, which became the new home of Chalidze Publications and Khronika Press. Chalidze resided in Benson until his death on January 3, 2018, when he died unexpectedly at his home.<ref>[https://www.rutlandherald.com/articles/good-deeds/, 30 January 2018]</ref>
In Vermont, Chalidze continued to publish several journals and edited others such as ''Internal Contradictions'' (Vnutrennie protivorechiya). For a number of years he was a visiting scholar in the history department at Middlebury College (Middlebury, Vermont).
Line 92 ⟶ 91:
==Citizenship and Death==
During [[perestroika]] the Soviet regime of Mikhail Gorbachev offered to restore Chalidze's USSR citizenship. He rebuffed the offer. "You had no right to take it away," he said, "and you certainly have no right to give it back."<ref
Chalidze never returned to the Soviet Union (or the Russian Federation after 1992); he did not see his mother again. His sister Francheska, sacked from her job as a scientist in retribution for her brother's dissident activities, emigrated to the US and settled in San Diego.<ref
==Works==
| |||