Anatoly Yakobson | |
|---|---|
| Анатолий Якобсон | |
| Born | Anatoly Aleksandrovich Yakobson (1935-04-30)April 30, 1935 |
| Died | September 28, 1978(1978-09-28) (aged 43) |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Citizenship | Soviet Union Israel |
| Alma mater | Moscow State Pedagogical University |
| Occupation(s) | literary critic,translator,teacher |
| Known for | Editor of theChronicle of Current Events and co-founder of theInitiative Group on Human Rights in the USSR |
| Movement | Human rights movement in the Soviet Union |
| Spouse | Maya Ulanovskaya[1] |
Anatoly Aleksandrovich Yakobson (Russian:Анато́лий Алекса́ндрович Якобсо́н; 30 April 1935,Moscow — 28 September 1978,Jerusalem) was aliterary critic, teacher, poet and a central figure in thehuman rights movement in the Soviet Union.
Yakobson was born in an ethnical Jewish family in 1935 in Moscow. From 1953 to 1958 he studied history at theMoscow State Pedagogical Institute.[2]
Yakobson taught literature and history at Moscow's mathematical school #2. He included writers in his teaching which did not appear on the official syllabus, such asMikhail Bulgakov,Alexander Solzhenitsyn,Anna Akhmatova orOsip Mandelshtam.[3] He translated works byPaul Verlaine,Théophile Gautier andHovhannes Tumanyan,Miguel Hernández andFederico García Lorca.[4]
Yakobson was among those who spoke up against theSinyavsky–Daniel trial in 1966, writing an open letter to the court.[5][6]
In 1968, when the interest of theKGB in Yakobson's activities became too serious, he quit his position at the school, explaining to the director that it would not be in the school's interest to have one of its teachers arrested as an anti-Sovietdissident.[3]
Yakobson went on to become a founding member of the dissidentInitiative Group on Human Rights in the USSR in 1969.[7][5] He put his signature under its firstAppeal to The UN Committee for Human Rights.[7] He resigned from the group after a courier from the emigreanti-Soviet organisationNTS contacted him, mistaking him for a co-conspirator.[8]
Yakobson became chief editor of thesamizdat human rights bulletinChronicle of Current Events after the arrest of its first editorNatalya Gorbanevskaya in December 1969. He collated the material for issues 11–27 of theChronicle until the end of 1972.[9]
Threatened with arrest, Yakobson emigrated to Israel with spouseMaya Ulanovskaya and sonAlexander Yakobson in 1973.[10]
In 1978Andrei Sakharov nominated Yakobson along with seven otherSoviet dissidents for theNobel Peace Prize.[11]
Yakobson committed suicide on September 28, 1978.[2]
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