Valery Chalidze
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Author and publisher Valery Nikolaevich Chalidze (russian: Вале́рий Никола́евич Чали́дзе; ka, ვალერი ჭალიძე: 25 November 1938 – 3 January 2018) was a
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
dissident A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established Political system, political or Organized religion, religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and ...
and
human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
activist, deprived of his USSR citizenship in 1972 while on a visit to the US. His Georgian father was killed during World War Two. His mother, Francheska Jansen, was an architect and designer, descended from Poles exiled to Siberia for their opposition to the Tsarist regime. Chalidze himself challenged the Soviet regime by mastering Soviet law, then demanding that the dictatorship comply with its own laws. This strategy may have afforded Chalidze some protection from the prosecution faced by other dissidents. According to fellow dissident
Pavel Litvinov Pavel Mikhailovich Litvinov (russian: Па́вел Миха́йлович Литви́нов; born 6 July 1940) is a Russian-born U.S. physicist, writer, teacher, human rights activist and former Soviet-era dissident. Biography The grandson of ...
, ""There were rumors that he could be killed, but it was very difficult to arrest him and put him in prison." Chalidze was born in
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
and educated as a
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
at the universities of
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
and
Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the Capital city, capital and the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia, lying on the ...
in Georgia. In the 1960s he joined the nascent Soviet human rights movement: he began publishing ''Social Issues'' in 1969, and helped to found the Committee for Human Rights the following year. In 1972 Chalidze was deprived of his Soviet citizenship and spent the rest of his life in the United States.


''Social Issues''

In August 1969 the underground periodical ''Social Issues'' (Obshchestvennye problemy) made its first appearance. Set up and edited by Chalidze, it covered a range of themes in the humanities and social sciences, including both original articles and translated work. It had a constant focus on the application of law, in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and the defense of human rights. As part of his publishing activities Chalidze became adept at mending mechanical typewriters, the essential tool of
samizdat Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...
publication and distribution. Under his guiding hand, ''Social Issues'' constantly opened new horizons for discussion. For example, he contributed to discussion of the definition, under Soviet conditions, of the term
political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...
and its practical application. The periodical championed the right of all Soviet citizens to emigrate to another country of their choosing and, in particular, he upheld the right of Jews to leave the USSR. Chalidze wielded Soviet law in defense of many different people, including Crimean Tatars, students, Jews, Orthodox Christians, political prisoners, Baptists, and Muslims. He went further than many dissidents in calling openly for the repeal of the Stalin-era law criminalizing homosexual relations between adult males. It was a stance that concerned some of his colleagues, and led to an attempt by the Soviet regime to discredit him among the wider population by suggesting (wrongly) that he was himself gay—an assertion that could have paved the way for criminal prosecution of him.


The Moscow Human Rights Committee

On 4 November 1970, together with
Andrei Sakharov Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, nobel laureate and activist for nu ...
and
Andrei Tverdokhlebov Andrei Nikolayevich Tverdokhlebov (russian: Андре́й Никола́евич Твердохле́бов, 30 September 1940, Moscow – 3 December 2011, Pennsylvania, United States) was a Soviet physicist, dissident and human rights activist ...
, Chalidze founded the Moscow Human Rights Committee. The following month ''Newsweek'', the US weekly magazine, published Chalidze's replies to questions from its Moscow correspondent about the Committee's aims and the prospects for its future activities. The Committee was among the first non-governmental organizations in the post-Stalin history of the Soviet Union (cf. "
Action Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR The Initiative or Action Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR (russian: Инициати́вная гру́ппа по защи́те прав челове́ка в СССР) was the first civic organization of the Soviet human right ...
", set up in May 1969), and eventually became affiliated with the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
. Its purpose was to offer free legal advice to persons whose human rights had been violated by the Soviet authorities, and also to advise those authorities on their legal obligations in regard to human rights under international and Soviet law. Chalidze was an innovative strategist of the Soviet human-rights movement, who described himself as an "evolutionary" rather than a revolutionary. After educating himself on Soviet and international law as they pertained to human rights, Chalidze invited the Soviet dictatorship into a dialogue on human rights issues, utilizing the Committee both to offer free legal advice to those whose rights had been violated, and to the Soviet government itself. In addition to demanding that the authorities comply with the law, Chalidze also adhered to the position that the dissidents, too, must obey the law. He would later summarize this position by writing: "One must have clean hands to do good deeds."


Life and activities in USA

In 1972, Chalidze was invited by the well-known American lawyer
Samuel Dash Samuel Dash (February 27, 1925 – May 29, 2004) was an American lawyer. He was chief counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee during the Watergate scandal. Dash became famous for his televised interrogations during the hearings held by the ...
to deliver a lecture on human rights at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Once there, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree depriving him of his Soviet citizenship, and prevented him from returning to the Soviet Union. His wife Vera Slonim, a cousin of Pavel Litvinov, remained with him in the United States for a short time, retaining her Soviet citizenship. She then moved to England, and the two were divorced.


Publication renewed

In partnership with US businessman Ed Kline Chalidze soon established Khronika Press. Based in New York, its purpose was to publish Russian-language books and important Soviet periodicals as the ''
Chronicle of Current Events ''A Chronicle of Current Events'' (russian: Хро́ника теку́щих собы́тий, ''Khronika tekushchikh sobytiy'') was one of the longest-running ''samizdat'' periodicals of the post-Stalin USSR. This unofficial newsletter reported v ...
'' (April 1968-July 1982). Together with Pavel Litvinov and Peter Reddaway, he also began to edit and publish the bimonthly, ''A Chronicle of Human Rights in the USSR'' (1973-1982), that drew on the contents of the Moscow-based ''Chronicle'', but included original materials by Chalidze and others. In 1979, he founded Chalidze Publications, a second New York-based publishing house. It focused primarily on culturally important, non-fiction works in Russian that for reasons of censorship were unavailable to Soviet readers. Among the books issued by Chalidze Publications were original memoirs of historically important figures (such as
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
), memoirs of Soviet dissidents whose work was banned in their home country, Russian translations of classic Western works of political philosophy, and original analyses of social problems. He continued to work as a physicist, meanwhile, and for several years was a visiting scholar in the Physics Department at Columbia University (New York). In 1979 he became a citizen of the United States, after having been stateless since December 13, 1972. He was retained by the U.S. Department of State to assess Soviet violations of international human-rights covenants. His report issued in 1980, and identified with specificity and legal precision many such violations.


Move to Vermont

In 1980 he met Lisa Leah Barnhardt on a visit to Oregon. They were married shortly thereafter. Upon her completion of law school in New York, they moved to
Benson, Vermont Benson is a town in Rutland County, Vermont, United States. The population was 974 at the 2020 census. The town is rural, with a concentration of several homes and businesses in Benson village, at the intersection of Stage Road and Lake Road. Ben ...
in 1983, which became the new home of Chalidze Publications and Khronika Press. Chalidze resided in Benson until his death on January 3, 2018, when he died unexpectedly at his home. In Vermont, Chalidze continued to publish several journals and edited others such as ''Internal Contradictions'' (Vnutrennie protivorechiya). For a number of years he was a visiting scholar in the History Department at Middlebury College (Middlebury, Vermont). In total, Chalidze Publications published almost one hundred books in Russian and in English, including the
Kama Sutra The ''Kama Sutra'' (; sa, कामसूत्र, , ; ) is an ancient Indian Sanskrit text on sexuality, eroticism and emotional fulfillment in life. Attributed to Vātsyāyana, the ''Kama Sutra'' is neither exclusively nor predominantly ...
, translated at Chalidze's request by Vladimir Kozlosvsky. Chalidze never stopped working in physics, and in 2001 published his "Mass and Electric Charge in the Vortex Theory of Matter."


Trotsky, Stalin, Hamilton and Madison

Among the works issued by Chalidze Publications were hitherto unpublished material retrieved from the Trotsky archive at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, as well as the memoirs of Trotsky, and Chalidze's own works about the Trotskyite opposition of the 1920s and 1930s and the post-Stalin dissident movement in the USSR. In his ''Conqueror of Communism'' (New York, 1981), Chalidze depicted
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
as a counter-revolutionary leader who destroyed socialism in Russia. Stalin "restored the Russian empire although in a more despotic form", he contended, using Marxist ideology to mask his real aims. With the rise of
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
as Soviet leader, Chalidze continued to participate in the effort to promote democracy in his native country. Among other works, he wrote "Russian Nationalism and Perestroika," which was published by The American Jewish Committee in 1990. From 1985 to 1990 Chalidze received a
MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 ind ...
ship in recognition of his work in international human rights. At the request of the U.S. Administration, Chalidze Publications also organized and published the first-ever Russian translation of ''
The Federalist Papers ''The Federalist Papers'' is a collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the collective pseudonym "Publius" to promote the ratification of the Constitution of the United States. The co ...
'' (1788). It would be an official presidential gift from
George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...
to
Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Comm ...
at one of their three summit meetings in 1990. Chalidze established a translation team for the purpose. He himself served as Editor-in-Chief, and his wife Lisa Barnhardt Chalidze, an American attorney, was Legal Editor. The primary translator was Gregory Freidin of
Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...
, who was advised by Leon Lipson of
Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...
. Gorbachev and
Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
both quoted from ''The American Federalists'' in their historic debates in the Russian parliament after August 1991 during the final months of the Soviet Union.


Citizenship and Death

During
perestroika ''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...
the Soviet regime of Mikhail Gorbachev offered to restore Chalidze's USSR citizenship. He rebuffed the offer. "You had no right to take it away," he said, "and you certainly have no right to give it back." Chalidze never returned to the Soviet Union (or the Russian Federation after 1992); he did not see his mother again. His sister Francheska, sacked from her job as a scientist in retribution for her brother's dissident activities, emigrated to the US and settled in San Diego.


Works


Human Rights and History

Periodicals (editor and author) * 1969-1972 - ''Social Issues'', Moscow: Samizdat, Nos 1-12 (in Russian). * 1973-1982 - ''A Chronicle of Human Rights in the USSR'', New York: Khronika Press, Nos 1-54 (in Russian and English). Books and Articles (author) '
in English
* 1971 - * 1973 - * 1975 - , 16 pp. * 1975 - * 1977 - * 1977 - * 1980 - * 1980 - * 1981 - ''The Conqueror of Communism'', Stalin and Socialism, New York: Chalidze Publications. * 1984 - * 1989 - in Russian * 1976 - ''The literary cases of the KGB: the cases of Superfin, Etkind, Heifetz and Maramzin'', Khronika press: New York. The appendix contains documents about Soviet censorship. * 1988 - ''Nationality problems and perestroika'' (Natsional'nye problemy i perestrojka), Benson, VT: Chalidze Publications. Co-author * 1977 - * 1984 - "In defense of Anatoly Marchenko", ''Kontinent'' No 152, Paris. With Ludmila Alexeyeva, Pyotr Grigorenko, Andrei Amalrik, Dina Kaminskaya, Konstantin Simes, Nikolai Williams, Pavel Litvinov, Maya Litvinova, Natalya Sadomskaya and Boris Stain (in Russian). * 1985 - * 1990
with Lisa Chalidze, ''The Dawn of Legal Reform, 1985-1989'', Benson, VT: Chalidze Publications


Natural Sciences

* 1974 - * 1985 - ''On the linguistic brain code'', Benson, VT: Chalidze Publications. * 1986 - ''Brain code and paleolinguistics'', Benson, VT: Chalidze Publications. * 1992 - with Lisa Chalidze, Wertsman, Vladimir F.

''Every Culture''. Retrieved on May 5, 2007.


References


External links


''A Chronicle of Current Events'', Moscow, 1968-1982
(in English).
"Valery Chalidze Under Pressure from KGB"
''
Radio Free Europe Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East where it says tha ...
'' Research, 31 July 1971. (''
Blinken Open Society Archives Blinken Open Society Archives (abbreviated as Blinken OSA) is an archival repository and laboratory that aims to explore new ways of assessing, contextualizing, presenting, and making use of archival documents both in a professional and a conscio ...
''.)
The Works of Valery Chalidze


Further reading

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chalidze, Valery 1938 births 2018 deaths Scientists from Moscow Moscow State University alumni Tbilisi State University alumni Soviet physicists 20th-century American physicists Soviet dissidents Soviet human rights activists People denaturalized by the Soviet Union Soviet emigrants to the United States American publishers (people) MacArthur Fellows