Press Release, 1.11.2022

Photo: Anatoly Marchenko / Photo from the family archive

Regional branches of the Yabloko party in Novosibirsk and Tatarstan propose to perpetuate the memory of Soviet human rights defender Anatoly Marchenko, the last deceased Soviet political prisoner.  Academician Andrei Sakharov was returned from exile due to the efforts of Marchenko and then a state decision was made to release all political prisoners of the Soviet Union. The joint statement was signed by the Chairmen of the two Yabloko branches Natalya Chubykina and Ruslan Zinatullin.

Anatoly Marchenko is a well-known human rights defender, Soviet dissident, political prisoner, writer, and the first laureate of the Andrei Sakharov Prize.

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

The authors of the statement note that thanks to his book “My Testimony”, written in 1967, the Soviet and European societies learned about the existence and life of Soviet political prisoners in the post-Stalin period.

Despite the significant role of Anatoly Marchenko in the history of USSR and Russia, his memory has not yet been immortalised in any way in the Russian toponymy. There are no streets in Russia named after Anatoly Marchenko both in his native city of Barabinsk and in the place of his death – the city of Chistopol.

The Novosibirsk and Tatarstan branches of Yabloko consider this unfair and suggest that the municipal authorities of Barabinsk and Chistopol install commemorative plaques on the buildings associated with the life and death of Anatoly Marchenko, name one of the streets in both the cities after him, erect a bust or monument to Anatoly Marchenko in Barabinsk and in Chistopol, assign his name to the district library of the city of Barabinsk (Ulyanovskaya street 83) and the Central Library of the city of Chistopol (Lenin street 55), as well as annually hold cultural events in memory of the human rights defender.