Honors & Awards

Alexander Yessenin-Volpin – the winner of Russian-speaking Diaspora Justice Award of 2014

New York – Boston (Sunday, Dec. 28, 2014)

ALEXANDER YESSENIN-VOLPIN, A LEADER OF THE SOVIET-ERA HUMAN RIGHTS STRUGGLE, MATHEMATICIAN, AND POET, IS HONORED WITH THE FIRST RUSSIAN-SPEAKING DIASPORA JUSTICE AWARD

   The first-ever Russian-speaking Diaspora Justice Award, established earlier this year by several U.S. organizations and individuals as a recognition for immigrants from Soviet Union countries who have advanced human rights and dignity, has been bestowed upon Alexander Yessenin-Volpin, mathematician, poet, and a hero of the struggle for human rights and democratic change in the former Soviet Union.

Alexander Yessenin-Volpin, who turned 90 on May 12, 2014, was repeatedly imprisoned, exiled and persecuted under Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev for his advocacy of intellectual freedom. In the early 1960s, he developed a unique philosophical concept and legal strategy for the defense of civil liberties under a totalitarian regime inspiring hundreds of people to stand up for human rights, which ultimately evolved into a movement known in the West as “dissident”. Together with his friends, he organized, in 1965, the first peaceful demonstration in Moscow to support prisoners of conscience and to uphold the constitution. Even today, 50 years after that event, the place and the date of this first demonstration remain a traditional annual rallying point for Russian democrats and human rights activists. Since then, his ideas of peacefully and legally challenging an anti-democratic government have been widely used by the human rights movements all over the world. He is the author of A Leaf of Spring (New York : Frederick A. Praeger, 1961) and of Abuse of Psychiatry for Political Repression in Soviet Union (Ayer Company Publishers, 1973). In the US since 1972, he was a professor at the University of Buffalo and Boston University. He is a native of St.Petersburg and a son of one of Russia’s foremost poets Sergey Yessenin. He currently resides in Brighton, Massachusetts.

Dr. Yessenin-Volpin is being recognized “for his thought and action advancing human rights and the rule of law and for his international advocacy against psychiatric abuse and torture.” He was selected from among seven candidates by a committee that includes national and local organizations of the Russian/Russian-speaking and Ukrainian communities and two foundations promoting the legacy of the Soviet-era human rights movement, and has a broad geographic representation – from New York, Washington DC area, Florida and Boston.

To learn more about the award, please contact Ms. Tatiana Yankelevich at (yankelev@fas.harvard.edu), Ms. Victoriya Kurchenko, President of the Pushkin Society in America / Lodyjensky Immigration Archive Center of Russian & Ukrainian Culture (LIAC) (vikurchenko@yahoo.com), or Ms. Natalya Petroff, Press Officer of American Russian-Speaking Association for Civil & Human Rights, (communications@rccmb.org).

OUR SELECTION OF LINKS

TO ALEXANDER YESENIN-VOLPIN’S WORKS & WORKS ABOUT HIM :

~ Alexander Yessenin-Volpin on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Esenin-Volpin

~ Alexander Yessenin-Volpin’s website: http://yesseninvolpin.net/

~ Alexander Yessenin-Volpin in International Who’s Who in Poetry 2005: https://books.google.com/books?id=mAY2Ja6t6eAC&pg=PA1698&lpg=PA1698&dq=%22Yessenin-Volpin%22&source=bl&ots=IYolR4aD95&sig=3EwacFGFSZXozYDakHQJonMrUPk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GXSgVOb0JsKCgwTAvIPIAg&ved=0CB8Q6AEwADge#v=onepage&q=%22Yessenin-Volpin%22&f=false

~ Био- и библиография Александра Есенина-Вольпина на странице “Русская национальная философия”: http://www.hrono.ru/biograf/bio_we/volpin.html и на странице “Русская виртуальная библиотека”: http://www.rvb.ru/np/publication/02comm/02/01volpin.htm

~ Страница Александра Есенина-Вольпина в “Антологии самиздата”: http://antology.igrunov.ru/authors/volpin/

~ Стихи в рукописи и машинописи на сайте Международного Мемориала: http://www.memo.ru/d/197603.html

~ Aleksandr Sergeyevich Yesenin-Vol’pin, A Leaf of Spring / Александр Сергеевич Есенин-Вольпин, “Весенний лист” (Frederick A. Praeger: New York, 1961): http://www.vtoraya-literatura.com/pdf/esenin-volpin_vesennij_list_1961_text.pdf, а также авторские поправки к книге: http://aptechka.holm.ru/bluelagoon/bl1-7.html

~ Radio Free Europe/Munich, “The Case of Yesenin-Volpin” (1962), http://storage.osaarchivum.org/low/34/e1/34e1bd98-a617-4667-a5a2-3ce966342bb0_l.pdf

~ Александр Есенин-Вольпин, “Памятка для тех, кому предстоят допросы”: http://www.warning.dp.ua/bezop78.htm

~ “Памятка для не ожидающих допроса: Беседа с Александром Есениным-Вольпиным”, “Неприкосновенный запас” 2002, №1 (21): http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2002/21/dopr.html

~ Александр Есенин-Вольпин на странице “Поэзия Московского университета”: http://www.poesis.ru/poeti-poezia/esenin-volpin/biograph.htm

~ Benjamin Nathans, ‘Alexander Volpin and the Origins of the Soviet Human Rights Movement,’ (2007) http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/2007_819-2g_Nathans.pdf; and ‘The Dictatorship of Reason: Aleksandr Vol’pin and the Idea of Rights under Developed Socialism,’ Slavic Review, Vol. 66, No. 4, Winter, 2007: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20060376?sid=21104949266261&uid=3739832&uid=4&uid=3739256&uid=2

~ Cергей Ковалёв об Александре Есенине-Вольпине на “Радио Свобода”, 12.05.2004: http://www.svoboda.org/content/article/24189878.html

~ Алексей Карягин и Алексей Симонов об Александре Есенине-Вольпине на “Радио Свобода”, 18.02.2005: http://www.svoboda.org/content/article/106711.html

 ~ “115 лет со дня рождения Есенина: ‘Интер’ отыскал в США сына поэта”, http://russiaregionpress.ru/archives/83988

 ~ Юрий Попов, “Есенин, сын Есенина. Карагандинский приют”, 1 апр. 2013, http://weather.realty.ekaraganda.kz/?mod=news_read&id=15595.

 ~ Владимир Могильницкий, “За что в Казахстане сидел сын Есенина,” Республиканская газета Караван, 21 июня 2013 г. http://www.caravan.kz/article/64141

 ~ Дмитрий Коржов, “Диссидент и сын Есенина,” “Мурманский вестник,” 23.05.2009, http://www.mvestnik.ru/shwpgn.asp?pid=200905231080

 ~ Vladimir Kara-Murza, “Alexander Yesenin-Volpin, Father of Russia’s Human Rights Movement Turns 90,” World Affairs, May 14, 2014, http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/vladimir-kara-murza/alexander-yesenin-volpin-father-russia%E2%80%99s-human-rights-movement-turns-90 /Владимир Кара-Мурза мл. “Отец российской правозащиты. Александру Есенину-Вольпину – 90.” http://echo.msk.ru/blog/karamurza/1318174-echo/

 ~ “Human Rights Activist Honored at Welch’s Healthcare and Retirement Group’s Nursing Center in Brighton, Massachusetts,” PRWeb, July 21, 2014: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/07/prweb12027714.htm

 ~ Василий Арканов, “Другой человек,” “Большой город”, 28-12-2009, http://bg.ru/society/drugoy_chelovek-8342/

 ~ Песня Булата Окуджавы “А все-таки жаль” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1xrTnXQmRQ

QUOTATIONS FROM ALEXANDER YESENIN-VOLPIN / ЦИТАТЫ ИЗ АЛЕКСАНДРА ЕСЕНИНА-ВОЛЬПИНА

“One myth has been shattered <…> It is the idea that the idea of the rule of law is alien to Russians. I hope this myth will never reappear. It is true that the rule of law in Russia has traditionally been weak. But one cannot say that the rule of law is only a Western idea and that it does not exist in Russia. That was the myth. And that myth is gone.” / «Разрушен один миф – миф о том, будто идея права вообще несвойственна русским. Вот этот миф, надеюсь, не возродится. Слаба законность, верно, но нельзя сказать, что законность – это только западная идея, а в России ее нет.«

RUSSIAN-SPEAKING IMMIGRANT JUSTICE AWARD / ПРЕМИЯ “СПРАВЕДЛИВОСТЬ” ДЛЯ РУССКОЯЗЫЧНЫХ ИММИГРАНТОВ