Natalya Gorbanevskaya

In 1970 a Soviet court sentenced Gorbanevskaya to incarceration in a psychiatric hospital. She was released from the Kazan Special Psychiatric Hospital in 1972, and emigrated from the USSR in 1975, settling in France. In 2005, she became a citizen of Poland.

Natalya Gorbanevskaya studied at Faculty of Philology of Saint Petersburg State University. The recorded working language is Russian and Polish. The field of work recorded is poetry. Distinctions recorded are Czech Medal of Merit, 1st class, Russia Award, honorary doctor of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University and Grand Officer of the Order of the White Double Cross.

• Name — Natalya Yevgenyevna Gorbanevskaya • Native Name — Наталья Евгеньевна Горбаневская • Born — 26 May 1936 • Birthplace — Moscow, Soviet Union • Died — 29 November 2013 • Place of death — Paris, France • Citizenship — Soviet Union (formerly) and Poland • Education — Leningrad University • Occupation — Russian poet, translator of Polish literature, civil rights activist • Known for — her participation in Soviet dissident movement, the 1968 Red Square demonstration, the editing of A Chronicle of Current Events and struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union • Movement — the dissident movement in the Soviet Union

Gorbanevskaya was born in Moscow. She graduated from Leningrad University in 1964 and became a technical editor and translator. Only nine of her poems had been published in official journals by the time she quit the USSR in 1975; the rest circulated privately (samizdat) or were published abroad (tamizdat).

From 1968 onwards Gorbanevskaya was active in what was later called the Soviet "dissident movement." She was founder and first editor of A Chronicle of Current Events, a samizdat publication that focused on the violation of basic human rights in the Soviet Union. Her contribution was to compile and edit the reports, and then type the first six carbon copies of the issue, the "zero-generation" copy, for further replication and distribution. Gorbanevskaya was also one of eight protesters in the 25 August 1968 Red Square demonstration against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Having recently given birth, she was not immediately tried with the other demonstrators. She used this time to follow the trial in the Chronicle of Current Events, and published the accumulated documentation abroad in French and Russian (Polden). The book appeared in English in 1972 as Red Square at Noon. In 1969, she signed An Appeal to The UN Committee for Human Rights. In December 1969 Gorbanevskaya was arrested. In July of the following year she was put on trial and found guilty of offences under Article 190-1 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, committed while of unsound mind. Gorbanevskaya was sentenced to indefinite confinement in a psychiatric hospital where she would be treated for "sluggish schizophrenia", a diagnosis commonly applied to dissidents. Gorbanevskaya was released from the Kazan Special Psychiatric Hospital in February 1972.

In December 1975, Gorbanevskaya emigrated to Paris. They concluded that in 1969–72 she had been committed to a psychiatric hospital for political, not medical reasons. There, French psychiatrists at their request examined Gorbanevskaya and found her to be mentally normal. For a time Gorbanevskaya was a celebrity figure in the West. In 1976 Joan Baez released a song dedicated to Gorbanevskaya called "Natalia", written by Roy Apps, Shusha Guppy and G.T. Moore, on the live album From Every Stage. Introducing the song, Baez criticized Gorbanevskaya's internment in the psychiatric hospital and said: "It is because of people like Natalya Gorbanevskaya, I am convinced, that you and I are still alive and walking around on the face of the earth." Adrienne Rich also wrote "For a Sister," from the book Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971–1972, in acknowledgement of Gorbanevskaya and other women and their wrongful imprisonment. For thirty years, however, Gorbanevskaya was stateless until Poland granted her citizenship in 2005. In 2005 Gorbanevskaya took part in They Chose Freedom, a four-part television documentary on the history of the Soviet dissident movement directed by Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. In 2008, she was a signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.

In August 2013, on the 45th anniversary of her arrest in Red Square, Ms. Gorbanevskaya returned there with nine other demonstrators to commemorate the protest. They were arrested on charges of holding an unsanctioned rally.

On 29 November 2013, Gorbanevskaya died in her house in Paris.

• (English translation from a review, published in Novy Mir, No.7, 1997, p. 67–68). * * * * * * • 10 poems by Natalya Gorbanevskaya: Audio of her own reading with text translations into different languages • Poems and texts by Gorbanevskaya at Prague Writers' Festival

• List of publications • Photographs and biography • Биография • Наталья Горбаневская. Что помню я о демонстрации • Информация о демонстрации в бюллетене «Хроника текущих событий» • Информация о суде над демонстрантами в бюллетене «Хроника текущих событий» • https: web.archive.org/web/20071012132901/http: yale.edu/annals/sakharov/documents_frames/Sakharov_008.htm; Письмо Андропова в ЦК про демонстрацию (windows encoding) *

Natalya Gorbanevskaya is recorded with the occupation human rights defender. Recorded with the occupation literary translator. Recorded as poet, librarian, journalist, writer and human rights defender. Identity and origins. The authorities additionally record the heading Natalya Yevgenyevna Gorbanevskaya. Her recorded languages were Russian and Polish. She married Pavel Litvinov.