Translated material
The 80th anniversary of Natalia Gorbanevskaya
Natalia Gorbanevskaya in the square near the Sakharov Center. Photo by Dmitry Borko
On May 26, 1936, Natalya Gorbanevskaya was born - poet, translator, dissident, participant in the 1968 demonstration on Red Square, and the editor of the human rights balloon of the "Chronicle of current events". She died on November 29, 2013 in Paris at the age of 77.
Gorbanevskaya graduated from the Filfak of the University of Leningrad. She worked in Moscow as a librarian, a bibliographer, a technical and scientific translator.
Since 1959, Gorbanevskaya’s poems spread in Samizdat. In the late 60s, Gorbanevskaya joined the human rights movement. In April 1968, she began publishing a human rights ballot "Chronicle of current events", the first ten issues were published under her editorship.
On August 25, 1968, Gorbanevskaya participated in a demonstration on Red Square against the introduction of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia, was detained along with other demonstrators, but on the same day after the search was released. She spoke about the demonstration in a letter addressed to the editors of Western newspapers.
Gorbanevskaya was recognized as insane and given to the care of the mother. She continued human rights, distributed samizdat, took part in the creation of an initiative group to protect human rights in the USSR.
In December 1969, Gorbanevskaya was arrested. According to the results of the examination at the Serbian Institute, she was sent for forced treatment to a special type of psychiatric hospital. The prisoner was transferred from the Kazan Special Physics and Emergencies to Butyrskaya prison. She was released in February 1972. Gorbanevskaya described the history of her violent hospitalization in the essay "Free Medical Assistance", which was distributed in Samizdat.
In 1975, Gorbanevskaya emigrated. She lived in Paris, worked in the journal "Continent" and the newspaper "Russian Thought". The author of one and a half dozen poetry books. Translated from Polish, Czech, Slovak and French.