On December 5, 2005 some 100 people gathered on Pushkin Square in Moscow to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Russian human rights movement. On this very spot on December 5, 1965 a group of dissidents led by Alexander Yessenin-Volpin held a demonstration demanding openness and respect for the Constitution. This was the first opposition demonstration in Moscow in four decades and it signaled the emergence of what was to become the Soviet dissident movement. 40 years later, Alexander Yessenin-Volpin was once again on Pushkin Square recalling his and his friends’ long struggle against the communist dictatorship. Among those who came to honor this symbolic date for the human rights movement were former dissidents Sergei Kovalev, Alexander Lavut, Valery Borshchev, Ludmila Alexeeva, writer Viktor Shenderovich and the Russian human rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin. After the ceremony on Pushkin Square, its participants went to the nearby office of the “Memorial” Foundation to hold a special meeting and banquet in memory of the 1965 demonstration. Alexander Yessenin-Volpin joined his colleagues to address the meeting and read his famous poem, “The Craven.” (Text and photographs courtesy Vladimir Kara-Murza)
|
