Russian Writers On Trial

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31463, 1 September 1967, Page 13

Russian Writers On Trial

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright;

MOSCOW, Aug. 31.

Three members of Moscow’s subterranean literary world went on trial in a closed courtroom and amid unusual official secrecy in Moscow yesterday on charges involving an underground literary magazine.

Official sources refused to give any information about the trial and would not release the names of the accused.

However, one Soviet source identified the three men as Vladimir Bukovsky, Yevgeny Kushchev, and Vadim Delone.

They were charged with organising a demonstration in January to protest against the arrest of the editors of an underground magazine called, “Phoenix-1966,” the source said.

The “Phoenix-1966” writers were arrested last January, about the same time as their 376-page, typewritten journal reached the West It contained a defence of the imprisoned Soviet authors, Andrei Slnyavsky and Yuri Daniel.

As two armed soldiers led the three accused men from the courtroom to a waiting police van at the end of yesterday's hearing, a girl yelled out, “until tomorrow, Yevgeny,” and burst into tears. She was quickly surrounded by plainclothes men and young court volunteers, who stood guard all day keeping outsiders away from the court.

About a score of Russians who appeared to be friends of the three men maintained a

vigil outside the courtroom yavsky and Daniel were sentenced to seven yean and five all day, but also refused to give any information. Though the trial was nominally an open hearing, guards said that all the seats In the small courtroom were filled by relatives of the three men and refused to allow reporters in. According to a Russian source, the formal charge against the three men was violation of Article 190 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code. In part, the article says that persons who organise demonstrations against public order can be punished by up to three years imprisonment. The demonstration the three men are accused of organising took place on January 22 In Moscow’s Pushkin square, beneath the statue of Russia’s revered poet, Alexander Pushkin, the source said. The trial is believed to be the first of its type since Sin-

years, respectively, in February 1966, after being convicted of distributing antiSoviet literature abroad. The sentences given to the two men were widely protested against in Soviet literary circles, according to some reports. Both Sinyavsky and Daniel are serving their terms in a labour camp. Mr Gunnar Moe, chairman of a Norwegian Committee for Solidarity with Imprisoned Soviet Intellectuals, said in Oslo yesterday that four other persons were arrested in connexion with the “Phoenix--1966” case. Mr Moe said he had visited the Soviet Union last week in an attempt to intercede on behalf of the group or to secure a speedy, public trial for them. But he said on his return to Norway that he had been prevented from meeting the Minister of Culture, Mrs Yekaterina Furtseva, and that his papers had been confiscated.