Anatoly Marchenko

Anatoly Tikhonovich Marchenko (Russian: Анато́лий Ти́хонович Ма́рченко, 23 January 1938 – 8 December 1986) was a Soviet dissident, author, and human rights campaigner, who became one of the first two recipients (along with Nelson Mandela) of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought of the European Parliament when it was awarded to him posthumously in 1988.

Marchenko, originally an

Marchenko died at age 48 in Chistopol prison hospital, as a result of a three-month-long hunger strike, the goal of which was the release of all Soviet prisoners of conscience.^[8] The widespread international outcry over his death was a major factor in finally pushing then-Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to authorize the large-scale amnesty of political prisoners in 1987.

Anatoly Tikhonovich Marchenko was born on 23 January 1938, in

Marchenko left school two years short of the normal full

In 1958, while on a job at the

Marchenko was released on 2 November 1966, and spent months travelling through the Russian SFSR, trying to find a locality which would allow him register to live there. He finally succeeded in being allowed to register in his birthplace Barabinsk, and later in Alexandrov, Vladimir Oblast. From May 1968, while still formally living in Alexandrov, Marchenko was working in Moscow as a loader, the only job available to him, even though doctors had warned him not to do hard manual labour. During this time he had met several fellow dissidents, including Larisa Bogoraz, the wife of his associate Yuli Daniel, who were in the process of legal separation. Marchenko was determined to write a record of the camps, and his fellow prisoners, and he enlisted their aid in his project. They also helped him receive medical care, both for his ears, and for problems with internal bleeding in his stomach.

The

In response to his refusal to cooperate in any way, on 26 February 1975, he was again arrested, and charged with violating the "administrative supervision" measures which had been imposed on him the previous summer. An account in the samizdat periodical, A Chronicle of Current Events, details his life hitherto and the subsequent trial at the Kaluga City Court.^[15] Marchenko's response was to begin a hunger strike, on which he was still engaged when he was tried a month later on 31 March. He was quickly convicted, and sentenced that day to four years of internal exile to Siberia, again to Chuna. During a two-week wait for transport to begin, and for a week thereafter, Marchenko continued his hunger strike. During this entire period, he received no special treatment, and was handled just like all the other prisoners, only giving up on 21 April (53 days after it had begun) when it became clear to him that he was at risk of death. His transportation to Siberia through a series of prisons in Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, and Irkutsk lasted through the rest of April and May.

On arrival in Chuna, Marchenko started work as a log handler at a sawmill, a place where he had worked during his previous period of exile. Later in 1975, he suffered an attack of neuritis, and was hospitalized in Irkutsk, although he was forced to leave before he was fully recovered. During his exile, he managed to complete his second book, From Tarusa to Siberia, in October 1975, which covered his then-recent trial and hunger strike. In 1976, Marchenko became one of the co-founders of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a prominent human right organization in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

In September 1978, Marchenko's term of exile ended and he was allowed to leave Chuna. He and his family moved back to the vicinity of Moscow, where he was given an ultimatum to leave the Soviet Union or go back to prison, but ignored it. During this period, Marchenko completed his third and final book, To Live Like Everyone, the title was a favourite phrase of his. It covered the period from 1966 to 1969, when he was writing My Testimony, up through his trial in retribution for its publication. The publication of this new book lead to his final arrest in 1980, and on 3 September 1981, Marchenko went on trial again for "anti-Soviet agitation", and the next day was given a 15-year sentence: 10-years of imprisonment and 5-years of internal exile.

Details about Marchenko's last period of imprisonment are largely unknown, although in December 1983 he was badly beaten by guards, and fell

Marchenko died not long before Gorbachev's announcement - ironically from the effects of a hunger strike demanding the release of all Soviet political prisoners. This last hunger strike started on 4 August 1986 when he wrote a letter to the Helsinki review conference in Vienna. Despite little reaction to his hunger strike from the world press, Marchenko continued the hunger strike through November, although Bogoraz believed that he ended it around the end of November, when he was placed on the sick list. There were indications shortly before his death that the Soviet authorities were on the verge of releasing him. Marchenko died after being hospitalized the day before, and every effort to conceal the reason for Marchenko's death was made, as KGB deputy chairman Bobkov's report to the Politburo indicates.^[17]

His wife and their son travelled to Chistopol to bury him there, as they were not allowed to bring his body back to Moscow for burial. Marchenko was buried on 12 December, near the prison in Chistopol, after

On the award of the

¹ There is some confusion about the date; From Tarusa to Siberia gives 1971, and To Live Like Everyone gives 1973.