Idealist with a capital letter

In the Andreevsky Monastery on November 15, they said goodbye to Valery Senterov, the Soviet dissident, mathematician and publicist. He died at the 70th year of his life after a serious illness.

Since the end of the 1970s, Valery Sentorov participated in the activities of the People’s Wolidarists (NTS) and the International Human Rights Society banned in the USSR. Starting to teach in the 2nd Moscow Physical and Mathematics School, Sentorov drew attention to the fact that his Jewish students, regardless of their abilities, fail at the entrance exams at Moscow State University. On the air of Radio Liberty, he said : “Already in 1967-1968 it was practically impossible to do. It was almost impossible. It was a worked out system that was partially dictated from above. Although it was allowed a lot of initiative, it was by no means instructions. But this initiative was encouraged and supported, it fled into the overall structure of the state and society.” In Samizdat, Valery Senterov published an article “Intellectual Genocide” on the discrimination of Jews in Soviet universities and, together with Boris Kanevsky, founded a circle in which they prepared Jewish applicants for admission to Mehmat, explaining how to prevent the examiner from “filling up”.

In the transfer of Radio, Liberty dedicated to the NTS , Valery Sentorov said that his acquaintance with this organization founded in 1930 began by reading the magazine "Sowing" in Germany. " I did not consider myself a member for a very long time, although I maintained strong contacts. For the law of the so -called, of course, it doesn’t matter, but internally for me these are different things, I am not a political person at all. We must simplify everything, the political struggle is a simple thing, and then I saw myself already a member, although in reality I was just a tight employee."

In 1982, Valery Sentorov was arrested on charges of anti -Soviet propaganda and agitation and sentenced to seven years in a maximum security camp with subsequent reference to 5 years. In March 1987 - along with other political prisoners - he was ahead of schedule.

He was one of the most striking heroes of political Moscow at the end of the 80s, participated in dissident discussions and human rights seminars held in private apartments, published a typewritten philosophical magazine, actually headed the NTS representative office in the USSR, and only at that time he himself first met real members of this anti-Soviet Union, who worked in its Frankfurts headquarters.

The former political prisoner Pavel Protsenko, who was going through his case, speaks of Valeria Senderov.

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Pavel Protsenko about Valeria Senderov

- I met him formally on June 22, 1982. I was seized near my house people in civilian clothes. And later it turned out that this was in the case of Valery Senderov, whom I did not know, I only heard. They took advantage of the pretext, as he was arrested at that time, and searches were carried out in Moscow, Kyiv and other cities. So they came to me. Many years passed, and in 1987, when I was already freed from the camp, I arrived in Moscow and visited Valera. So in the fall of 1987, our real acquaintance began.

- Sentorov was a brave man. To cooperate with the NTS, the main anti -Soviet organization, an extraordinary courage was required. He had an absolutely uncompromising position.

He simply decided that he would live according to other laws

- Yes, he was a man of extraordinary courage. But the courage was also among the people's volumes, revolutionaries-bombers. Valery Senderov had a completely different character. In the world, incredibly formalized, when the country was ruled through laws, decrees, through a bureaucracy, which had swollen incredibly even compared to the tsarist time, he simply decided that he would live according to other laws. And it was the law of conscience. For him, he was identified with the Christian law. And he decided - I will not obey them. And he became a man with whom this system simply cannot do anything. He was an incredible person, with a huge range of action, with determination of the most incredible things. NTS was a terrible scarecrow for everyone, people spoke in a whisper. You can engage in human rights, but not with NTS, because it is an anti -Soviet, an almost armed struggle. And Valera decided that, yes, I am an open member of the NTS, and stated this at the investigation, then at the trial. It seemed that it was a suicidal thing. But he survived. In 1987, he felt a huge surge of strength, capabilities, actions for Russia, in the future of which he believed, and, of course, for his ideas, idealistic ideas that were above all. In this sense, he, of course, is a knight without fear and reproach.

- I think his profession played a role here. After all, he was a mathematician and approached social problems in terms of strict scientific logic.

- Yes, in his personality this was amazingly connected. He is a magnificent talented mathematician. Back in the 70s, friends who ended Fizteh told me about him, with the enthusiasm that this is a unique mathematician by their gift, with a huge future who chose such an unusual path-non-conformism. They did not understand why, but they believed that this is a person who was not related to matter, an idealist with a capital letter. It combined this amazing logic, clarity of thinking and evidence base. No wonder the article on the persecution of Jews upon admission to universities is very evidently, very clearly written. And at the same time, a wide inner horizons, very free, relaxed, which people of the humanities dream of having, so ease in searching for a mental one. All this was combined. Such an extraordinary person.

- You said that he was inspired by perestroika. How did he perceive what happened in recent years, in Putin's time? Was he suppressed, disappointed?

He believed that power could be enlightened

- There is such a nodal point when in 1987 the deputy prosecutor general met with him in Chistopol prison. He was offered to write paper with a request for release. He wrote approximately the following: if I was released under any law of the last legal government of Russia (and this is the Provisional Government), then I will not mind. In this he is all. He believed that it is impossible to act in a revolutionary way that you need to go to a reasonable dialogue with the authorities. It was his belief. And on the other hand, he understood that the path of compromises could not be immense. Therefore, when restructuring began, he took this time as an opportunity to cleanse himself with society, transform and, of course, get rid of communism. Therefore, he was very glad of 1991. He spent time in the White House. Then he welcomed new Russia, which was born, and hoped that it would be a path, sparing a society, taking into account its cultural diversity and social beatenness. And when he saw that by the end of the 90s such disgrace began to occur when society was robbed, they did not pay attention to culture, he experienced pain and disappointment. He perceived Putin’s reign as a possible new chance of the new restructuring of Russia. His last text, which he published in the magazine "Banner" this summer concerns the things of his childhood, in particular the cabinet, which the workers gave him to his father for his immutality. It was back in the time of Stalin. Since the father was persecuted, these workers expressed solidarity contrary to the Stalin's time. And so he writes such a phrase that in the new Russia it is sometimes impossible to breathe. "And when the breathing is squeezed, I recall this closet, which at the most terrible time of free hard workers presented a free father." This is his pain, an experience of increasing the bureaucratic pressure on a private person, indignation of this non -ness of the communist heritage, from this ideology, which was traced in culture. And he very actively participated in cultural actions. He was an incredibly prolific publicist. It was printed in a huge number of thick magazines. He came across a new bureaucratic system everywhere. This outraged him. But he hoped that it was necessary to appeal to power, it was necessary to convince her, to unfold her to enlightenment. He believed that power could be enlightened. He was in some inner discomfort, an impasse, because he saw that the authorities were not very on the dialogue, although he was counting on him.