Chronicles of one case. The trial of Sergei Kovalev

Common sense squeaks and runs away. Do you know what I'm reading now? Criminal case of Sergei Adamovich Kovalev from 1975. He was arrested in December 1974. The criminal case contains 30 volumes, the shortest volume contains 236 pages. And in the longest - 1040. True, many volumes are accompanied by samizdat, for example, “The Gulag Archipelago”, which creates this monstrous volume. Well, let's take a look inside this case.

According to the Chronicle of Current Events, a chronicle of those times, on December 27, 1974, Sergei Kovalev was arrested in Moscow. Before that, on December 23, his home was searched, one of many searches that took place that day in Moscow and Lithuania in connection with “Case N345” of the Lithuanian KGB. The search began early in the morning and lasted 12 hours. Statements and letters from political prisoners, statements in their defense, issues of “Chronicle of Current Events”, “Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church”, a list of 135 Lithuanian prisoners, 43 photographs (P. Grigorenko, I. Gabai, P. Litvinov, L. Bogoraz and etc.), texts of court verdicts, “The Gulag Archipelago”, V. Chalidze’s book “The Soviet Union and Human Rights”, letters, notebooks. After the search, S. Kovalev and his wife were taken away for interrogation as witnesses. During interrogation, Kovalev told investigator A.V. Trofimov that he refused to participate in the investigation, citing numerous violations of the law in the practice of conducting cases related to the dissemination of information. After the interrogation, Kovalev was given a summons the next day. After waiting for about two hours in the reception area on December 24, he left, leaving his passport at the pass office. On December 26, investigator Trofimov invited Kovalev by phone to come at any time convenient for him to pick up his passport and for a short, “10 minutes” conversation. On the 27th S. Kovalev arrived at Lubyanka at 10 o’clock in the morning. In the evening it became known about his arrest. The next day - that he was sent by plane to Vilnius. (“Chronicle of Current Events,” Issue 34.)

Kovalev was charged with Article 70 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. “Agitation or propaganda carried out with the aim of undermining or weakening Soviet power or committing certain especially dangerous state crimes, dissemination for the same purposes of slanderous fabrications discrediting the Soviet state and social system, as well as the distribution or production or storage of literature of the same kind for the same purposes.” content." Punishable by imprisonment for a term of six months to seven years and with reference to a term of two to five years.

To understand what exactly he is accused of, I turn again to the Chronicle: he is accused of participation in the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights, numerous statements and appeals written since 1969. Kovalev is also accused of the fact that, while participating in a press conference at A.D. Sakharov’s apartment on “Day of Political Prisoners” on October 30, 1974, he transferred abroad materials about Soviet camps, which in the indictment are qualified as “slanderous information.” Kovalev is charged with resuming the publication of the Chronicle of Current Events, collecting materials, compiling, editing and transmitting abroad issues of the Chronicle from 28 to 34.

The indictment uses the coincidence of the materials taken from Kovalev during the search with the contents of the Chronicle, as well as Kovalev’s notes on some documents. The accusation of transferring the Chronicle abroad is based on a statement by S. Kovalev together with T. Velikanova and T. Khodorovich in May 1974 about their intention to promote the dissemination of the Chronicle, as well as on the fact that issues 28-34 were published by the publishing house Chronicle Press in New York.

Kovalev is accused of possessing three issues of the Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church and using their contents in the Chronicle of Current Events.

S. Kovalev is also accused of distributing A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s book “The Gulag Archipelago”. A xerographic copy and part of a typewritten copy of the book were found at his home. The main evidence for this charge is the book taken from V. Maresin during an attempt to reshoot it and handed over to the KGB, and a letter from S. Kovalev to Andropov (October 1974) demanding that his book be returned to him.

The verdict recognizes almost all the charges as proven. The subjective side - the presence of a goal to undermine or weaken Soviet power - is seen, despite Kovalev’s denial of this goal, in the very content of the incriminated documents and in the fact that they were used by foreign propaganda. Punishment - 7 years in maximum security camps with reference to 3 years. (“Chronicle of Current Events,” Issue 38.)

We'll talk about the trial in more detail next time... In the meantime, a few words about the investigation. I read the interrogation reports - from January to August 1975. At almost every interrogation, Sergei Adamovich said something like the following: “I refuse to answer this and other questions of the investigation, to participate in any investigative actions... The reasons for my refusal are as follows. In the processes known to me under Art. Art. 190-1 and 70, procedural norms were systematically violated. In not a single case that I know of, either the preliminary investigation or the court, has proven the deliberate falsity of the information the accused were accused of disseminating. However, they were all convicted. “I have no reason to assume that in case No. 24 the investigation and the court will act differently.” (End of Sergei Kovalev’s statement, written by him in his own hand.)

P.S. Recently, at a public political event, I conducted a survey among young people under 30 years old. Of the 10 respondents, only one knew what “Chronicle of Current Events” was...sic...