Access
Use
Acquisition Information
Preferred Citation
Biographical Note
Scope and Content of Collection
Title: Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovskiĭ papers
Date (inclusive): 1928-2011
Collection Number: 2017C22
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material: Russian and English
Physical Description:
53 manuscript boxes, 4 card file boxes, 1 oversize box
(24.7 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Correspondence, writings, notes, reports, Soviet government documents, printed matter, and photographs relating to civil liberties
in the Soviet Union, post-Soviet Russia and elsewhere, political conditions in post-Soviet Russia, and promotion of international
democracy.
Creator:
Bukovskiĭ, Vladimir Konstantinovich, 1942-
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Access
The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual
or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.
Use
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Acquisition Information
Materials were acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 2017.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovskiĭ papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library
& Archives.
Biographical Note
1942 |
Born, Belebey, Bashkir ASSR, Soviet Union. |
1960 |
Entered Moscow University to study biology. |
1961 |
Wrote his critical notes on the Communist Youth League (Komsomol) and was expelled from the university. |
1963-1965 |
Arrested, charged with "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda," and sent for treatment at the Special Psychiatric Hospital
in Leningrad.
|
1965 |
Helped to organize a demonstration on Pushkin Square in central Moscow to protest against the trial of the writers Andrei
Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel (Glasnost rally).
|
1965-1966 |
Arrested, charged with organizing the demonstration, and kept in various psychiatric hospitals. |
1967-1970 |
Advocated for the right to organize demonstrations and other public protests, arrested, and sentenced to three years in an
"ordinary regime" corrective-labor camp.
|
1971 |
Managed to smuggle to the West over 150 pages documenting abuse of political prisoners in psychiatric institutions in the
Soviet Union.
|
1972 |
Accused of slandering Soviet psychiatry, contacts with foreign journalists, and the possession and distribution of
Samizdat. Sentenced to two years in prison, five in a labor camp, and five more in internal exile.
|
1976 |
Deported from the USSR and exchanged by the Soviet government for the imprisoned general secretary of the Communist Party
of Chile, Luis Corvalán, at Zürich airport. Settled in Great Britain, Cambridge.
|
1978 |
Gained a master's degree in Biology at Cambridge University. |
1978 |
Author,
To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter.
|
1983 |
Co-founded Resistance International, along with Cuban dissident Armando Valladaresand, and was later elected a president of
the organization.
|
1985 |
Resistance International expanded into the American Foundation for Resistance International. |
1987 |
Author,
To Choose Freedom
|
1991 |
Visited Moscow for the first time since his deportation fifteen years prior. His Soviet-era convictions were annulled by a
decree of the RSFSR Supreme Court and his Russian citizenship was restored.
|
1992 |
Nominated aa a candidate for elections of Mayor of Moscow. |
1996 |
Author,
Judgment in Moscow: Soviet Crimes and Western Hypocrisy
|
1998 |
Director of the Gratitude Fund. |
2006 |
Accused Vladimir Putin of the assassination of Aleksander Litvinenko. |
2004 |
Co-founded the Committee 2008 for free and fair presidential elections in 2008, with Garry Kasparov, Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir
V. Kara-Murza, and others.
|
2001 |
Received the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom. |
|
Elected President of the Comitatus pro Libertatibus – Comitati per le Libertà – Freedom Committees in Florence. |
2007 |
Officially nominated to run for president in the 2008 Russian presidential election. |
2009 |
Joined the council of the new Solidarnost' coalition. |
2014 |
Author,
Putin's Secret Empire: Will There Be a "Palace Coup"?
|
2015 |
Accused Vladimir Putin of the assassination Boris Nemtsov. |
2018 |
Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. |
|
Member of the International Council of the Human Rights Foundation |
|
Director of the Gratitude Fund |
|
Member of the international advisory council for the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation |
Scope and Content of Collection
The papers of Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovskiĭ (Bukovsky) document his activities from 1983 to 2004 and include biographical
material; correspondence; writings by Bukovskiĭ, among them his conference papers; materials concerning publication of his
books with related correspondence; and photographs depicting Bukovskii with other dissidents, political figures, family, and
friends.
The correspondence is mostly legal, relating to Bukovskiĭ's legal cases and in defense of other human rights activists (not
only Russian/Soviet), and includes letters from Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and others, and
Bukovskii's letters to Boris Yeltsin.
The International Human Rights Organizations File document Bukovskiĭ's involvement in various human rights organizations concerned
with the treatment of dissidents. It includes materials from various organizations, such as Resistance International, National
Endowment for Democracy, Center for Democracy, Freedom of Communication, Andrei Sakharov Institute, and Komitet soldatskikh
materei (Committee of Soldiers' Mothers). The materials reflect the advocacy in defense and educational work by these groups,
including statements and letters supporting dissident movements.
In 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, President Yeltsin's government invited Bukovskiĭ to serve as an expert
witness at the trial of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) before the Constitutional Court. Russia's communists
were suing Yeltsin for banning their Party and confiscating its property. To prepare his testimony, Bukovskiĭ was granted
access to the documents from the CPSU Central Committee archives. He managed to scan many documents (some with high security
clearance) secretly, including KGB reports to the Central Committee. The copies were then smuggled to the West and now they
are available online at
http://www.bukovsky-archives.net/ . A number of documents were extensively quoted and cited in Bukovskiĭ's
Judgment in Moscow. The collection also includes copies of these archival materials.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Russia (Federation) -- Politics and government -- 1991-
Democracy
Dissenters -- Soviet Union
Civil rights -- Soviet Union
Civil rights