Press Release, 19.12.2022

Photo: Anatoly Marchenko / Photo from the family archive

The administration and the Council of Deputies of the city of Barabinsk, the Novosibirsk region, refused to perpetuate the memory of their famous fellow countryman, dissident and writer Anatoly Marchenko, because, in their opinion, he was not an outstanding figure and did not perform any real exploit.

Anatoly Marchenko is the last Soviet political prisoner who died in prison. According to a widespread version, it was his death after 117 days of his hunger strike that prompted Mikhail Gorbachev to begin the process of releasing prisoners convicted under political articles. In 1988, the European Parliament awarded Anatoly Marchenko (posthumously) and Nelson Mandela with the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1988.

Anatoly Marchenko was born in the city of Barabinsk, the Novosibirsk Region, on 23 January, 1938, and died on 8 December, 1986. He died in the city of Chistopol, the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where he was serving his last, the sixth, term, after a hunger strike demanding the release of all political prisoners of the USSR.

In October 2022, the regional branches of the Yabloko party in the Novosibirsk region and Tatarstan proposed to the authorities of Barabinsk and Chistopol to perpetuate the memory of Anatoly Marchenko – to name streets and libraries after him, and install a monument.

Dmitry Ivanov, head of the Chistopol municipal district, replied to Yabloko that he intended to submit this initiative for public discussion, however, the authorities of Barabinsk responded to Yabloko with a categorical refusal.

Natalia Chubykina, Chair of the Novosibirsk branch of Yabloko, received two identical responses. One from V. Shulgin, Deputy Head of the Administration of Barabinsk, and the second from S. Ivanov, Chairman of the Council of Deputies of the city.

“Your proposal cannot be supported due to the fact that A.T. Marchenko was not an outstanding statesman or public figure, defender of the Motherland, hero of labour, an academic or a cultural figure, or the one who performed a real exploit in his life during military operations or in peacetime,” the official and the deputy stated.

The administration of Barabinsk perceives the memory of Anatoly Marchenko as a challenge to the political system that has developed in Russia and as a reminder of the past that has not gone anywhere, Natalya Chubykina comments on the response.

“Now the history of opposing lawlessness and the system of suppression by the former driller Marchenko, who was forced to seek justice in an unjust state at the cost of his freedom, health and, ultimately, life, sounds too relevant. The history of the political Gulag is coming back, any dissent is fraught with long imprisonment terms,” Natalya Chubykina notes.

It is noteworthy that the authors of such bureaucratic refusal have had not and most likely will never have more famous countrymen, Natalya Chubykina says.