Yuli Daniel
Encyclopedia
Dissident
A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
writer, poet, translator and political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
.
He frequently wrote under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
s Nikolay Arzhak (Николай Аржак) and Yu. Petrov (Ю.Петров).
Early life and World War II
Yuli Daniel was born in MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
into the family of Yiddish playwright M. Daniel (Mark Meyerovich), who took the pseudonym Daniel. The famous march song
March (music)
A march, as a musical genre, is a piece of music with a strong regular rhythm which in origin was expressly written for marching to and most frequently performed by a military band. In mood, marches range from the moving death march in Wagner's Götterdämmerung to the brisk military marches of John...
of the Soviet young pioneer
Pioneer movement
A pioneer movement is an organization for children operated by a communist party. Typically children enter into the organization in elementary school and continue until adolescence. The adolescents then typically joined the Young Communist League...
s, "Орленок" (Young Eagle), was originally written for one of his plays. Daniel's uncle, an ardent revolutionary (alias
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
Liberten), was a member of Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
who perished in the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
.
In 1942, during Wold War II
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, Daniel lied about his age and volunteered to serve at the front. He fought in the 2nd Ukrainian and the 3rd Belorussian fronts, in 1944 was critically wounded in his legs and demobilized due to his pursuant disability.
Writing and arrest
In 1950, he graduated from Moscow Pedagogical Institute and worked as a school teacher in KalugaKaluga
Kaluga is a city and the administrative center of Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River southwest of Moscow. Population: It is served by Grabtsevo Airport.-History:...
and Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
regions. He published his poetry translations from a variety of languages. Daniel and his friend Andrei Sinyavsky
Andrei Sinyavsky
Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky was a Russian writer, dissident, political prisoner, emigrant, Professor of Sorbonne University, magazine founder and publisher...
also wrote satirical
Political satire
Political satire is a significant part of satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics; it has also been used with subversive intent where political speech and dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing political arguments where such arguments are expressly...
novels and smuggled them to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
to be published under pseudonyms. (See samizdat
Samizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
)
He married Larisa Bogoraz
Larisa Bogoraz
Larisa Iosifovna Bogoraz was a dissident in the Soviet Union....
who later also became a famous dissident. In 1965, Daniel and Sinyavsky were arrested and tried in the infamous Sinyavsky-Daniel trial
Sinyavsky-Daniel trial
The Sinyavsky-Daniel trial was a trial against Russian writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, which took place in the Supreme Court of the RSFSR in Moscow between September 1965 and February 1966...
. On February 14, 1966, Daniel was sentenced to five years of hard labor
Hard Labor
Hard Labor is the eleventh album by American rock band Three Dog Night, released in 1974 .- Cover Artwork :The original album cover, depicting of the birth of a record album , was deemed too controversial and was soon reworked with a huge bandage covering the "birth". The cover also includes an...
for "anti-Soviet activity". Both writers entered a plea of not guilty, unprecedented in the USSR.
Late years and influence
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 SinyavskyAndrei Sinyavsky
Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky was a Russian writer, dissident, political prisoner, emigrant, Professor of Sorbonne University, magazine founder and publisher...
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."
Sinyavsky and Daniel did not intend to ridicule the Soviet Union. Daniel was genuinely worried about a resurgence of the Cult of Personality under Khrushchev, which inspired his story 'This is Moscow Speaking', while Sinyavsky affirmed that he believed Socialism was the way forward but that the methods employed were at times erroneous.
After four years of captivity in Mordovia
Mordovia
The Republic of Mordovia , also known as Mordvinia, is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the city of Saransk. Population: -Geography:The republic is located in the eastern part of the East European Plain of Russia...
labor camp
Labor camp
A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...
s and one year in Vladimir
Vladimir
Vladimir is a city and the administrative center of Vladimir Oblast, Russia, located on the Klyazma River, to the east of Moscow along the M7 motorway. Population:...
prison, Daniel refused to emigrate (as was customary among Soviet dissidents) and lived in Kaluga.
Before his death, Bulat Okudzhava
Bulat Okudzhava
Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, musician, novelist, and singer-songwriter. He was one of the founders of the Russian genre called "author song"...
acknowledged that some translations published under Okudzhava's name were ghostwritten
Ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other texts that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, magazine articles, or other written...
by Daniel who was on the list of authors banned to be published in the USSR.
External links
- A Bit of Fear (Time magazine, 1966)
- A Day in the Life of Yuli Daniel (Time magazine, 1969)
- Larisa Bogoraz has died Kharkiv Group for Human Rights Protection Materials of Daniel's case, photos, poetry HRO-Russia Memoirs by Larisa Bogoraz Poetry Memoirs about Yuli Daniel by Natalia Rapoport Bio Radio Freedom program dedicated to Yuli Daniel Anthology of Samizdat