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Yuli Markovich Daniel | |
|---|---|
 The bookcover ofThe Letters from Prison | |
| Native name | Юлий Маркович Даниэль |
| Born | (1925-11-15)November 15, 1925 |
| Died | December 30, 1988(1988-12-30) (aged 63) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Pen name | Nikolay Arzhak, Yu. Petrov |
| Nationality | Soviet |
| Spouse | Larisa Bogoraz, Irina Uvarova[1] |
| Children | 1[2] |
Yuli Markovich Daniel (Russian:Ю́лий Ма́ркович Даниэ́ль,IPA:[ˈjʉlʲɪjˈmarkəvʲɪtɕdənʲɪˈelʲ]ⓘ; 15 November 1925 – 30 December 1988) was a Russian writer andSoviet dissident known as a defendant in theSinyavsky–Daniel trial in 1966.
Daniel wrote andtranslated works of stories andpoetry critical ofSoviet society under thepseudonymsNikolay Arzhak (Russian:Никола́й Аржа́к,IPA:[nʲɪkɐˈlajɐrˈʐak]ⓘ) andYu. Petrov (Russian:Ю. Петро́в,IPA:[ˈjupʲɪˈtrof]ⓘ) published in theWest to avoidcensorship in the Soviet Union. Daniel andAndrei Sinyavsky were convicted ofanti-Soviet agitation in ashow trial, becoming the first Soviet writers convicted solely for their works and forfiction, serving five years at a labour camp.[3][4]
Yuli Daniel was born on 15 November 1925 inMoscow,Soviet Union, the son of theRussian Jewish playwrightMark Daniel and Minna Pavlovna Daniel.[5]In 1942, the 17-year-old Daniel lied about his age and volunteered to serve on the2nd Ukrainian Front and the3rd Belorussian Front duringEastern Front ofWorld War II. In 1944, Daniel was critically wounded in his legs and wasdemobilized from theRed Army. In 1950, Daniel graduated from the Moscow Pedagogical Institute (now Moscow State Regional University), and went to work as a schoolteacher inKaluga andMoscow.
Daniel also publishedtranslations of verse from a variety of languages, and like his friendAndrei Sinyavsky, wrote topical stories andnovellas which sometimes satirised or were critical ofSoviet society but were, naturally, rejected for publication by theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during a time of extremecensorship in the Soviet Union. Daniel and Sinyavsky smuggled their works out of the Soviet Union assamizdat toFrance to be published underpseudonyms. Daniel marriedLarisa Bogoraz, who later also became a celebratedSoviet dissident.
Daniel's workMoscow Speaking, published in 1959 under the pseudonym Nikolai Arzhak, caught the attention of theKGB, the mainsecurity agency andsecret police of the Soviet Union. The KGB began investigating Daniel and Sinyavsky's dissident works being published in the West, and soon linked their pseudonyms to their real identities. Daniel and Sinyavsky were placed under constant surveillance and investigation by the KGB for several years.
In September 1965, Daniel and Sinyavsky were arrested and tried in the infamousSinyavsky-Daniel trial for their literary works published abroad.[6][7] The Sovietprosecution could not charge Daniel and Sinyavsky for publishing material abroad or using pseudonyms as both were legal underSoviet Law. Instead they were charged with the offense ofanti-Soviet agitation and propaganda under Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code.Both writers entered a plea of not guilty, which was unusual for defendants in Soviet show trials. On February 14, 1966, Daniel was sentenced to five years ofhard labor for "anti-Soviet activity" while Sinyavsky was sentenced to seven years.[8]
In 1967,Andrei Sakharov appealed on behalf of Daniel directly toYuri Andropov, at the time Chairman of the KGB. Sakharov was told that both Daniel and Sinyavsky would be released under a generalamnesty on the fiftieth anniversary of theOctober Revolution, but this turned out to be false as the amnesty did not apply topolitical prisoners.[9] Daniel spent four years of captivity at theDubravlag, aGulag camp inMordovia, and one year inVladimir Prison.
Daniel was released and refused to emigrate, as was customary among Soviet dissidents, and lived in Kaluga before moving to Moscow.
According to Fred Coleman, "Historians now have no difficulty pinpointing the birth of the modern Soviet dissident movement. It began in February 1966 with the trial of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, two Russian writers who ridiculed the Communist regime in satires smuggled abroad and published under pen names. They didn't realize at the time that they were starting a movement that would help end Communist rule."[10]
Daniel and Sinyavsky did not intend to oppose the Soviet Union. Daniel was genuinely worried about a resurgence of theCult of Personality underNikita Khrushchev, which inspired his storyThis is Moscow Speaking, while Sinyavsky affirmed that he believedsocialism was the way forward but that the methods employed were at times erroneous. Shortly before Daniel's death,Bulat Okudzhava acknowledged that some translations published under his name had in fact beenghostwritten by Daniel, because he was featured on ablacklist of authors banned from being published in the Soviet Union.
Daniel died on 30 December 1988, and Sinyavsky and his wifeMaria Rozanova immediately flew to his funeral from France, where they had emigrated in 1973 after Sinyavsky's release. Daniel was buried inVagankovo Cemetery, a popular burial place in Moscow for members of the arts community.
His son Alexander Daniel is a mathematician and his grandsonMichael Daniel is a linguist.
