314 Chronicle

Volokolamsk, editor of JMP, while on a denial of comprehensive revision does not visit to West Germany .. He is quoted as rule out minor alteration. Secondly, what saying that the article, which had been Pitirim regards as an alteration of little written by "legal experts" , reflected not a practical importance, Bukaty ·might well comprehensive revision, but a "binding consider to be an important change, interpretation" of the law. He stated that especially in view of the fact. that the the situation described in the article Baptists have a far more substantial corresponded to the actual practice of the building programme than the Orthodox Russian Orthodox Church over the past and would, therefore, stand to benefit far few years. This applied both to the more from the security of outright concept of a religious association being a ownership of new buildings. Thirdly, juridical person (including the right to Bukaty could be referring to a change that own property), and to the participation of so far is applicable only to Belorussia. children under the age of 18. Pitirim's None of these changes, alterations, or words make it clear that the long­ interpretations riecessarily make a great rumoured revision - if it is really going deal of difference, except psychologically, to come - has not yet taken place. Yet though the importance of that should not the "interpretation" is more of a reinter­ be underestimated. In a legal system still pretation, perhaps a precursor of better affected in many aspects of its operation things in store. Pitirim is quoted as by political control,to enjoy the rights of saying· that it gives grounds for certain a juridical person may not make it any hopes. easier to redress unconstitutional mea­ On the other hand, Baptist leader Ivan surestaken against the church. The right Bukaty, superintendent for Belorussia to own property can be taken away just as and a member of the Baptist Union's easily as it is granted. Only .lifting of the presidium, told British journalist Brian restrictions on religious activity which Cooper that an important change in limit the life of the congregation to public Soviet law now allowed all new churches worship, and a genuine separation of to be owned outright. church and state resulting in renunciation There are three possible explanations of state interference in the internal affairs for this apparent contradiction. Firstly, of the churches, would make a real Pitirim does not exclude the possibility of difference. Such sweeping change - recent changes: he speaks of the status of unlikely though it is - would lead to a religious associations as described in the genuine normalisation of church-state article being in accordance with instruc­ relations and an end to the divide between tions on the application of the legislation registered and unregistered churches. on religion (no such instructions issued . MICHAEL ROWE since 1975 are known in the West), and his

Irina Ratushinskaya

The Russian Christian poetess, Irina unspecified period of "re-education"* at Ratushinskaya, is now in her fifth year of the Investigation Prison in Kiev. imprisonment, much of which she has li"ina was originally arrested in Sep­ spent in the Barashevo camp for women tember 1982 while working with her in Soviet Mordovia. Now 32, she is said to husband on a collective farm near Kiev. have been the youngest prisoner in the They were apple picking. She was camp, and latest reports indicate that she questioned by police,and held in a KGB is critically ill because of the treatment she prison for several.months before standing has suffered there - including long trial in a closed court for "anti-Soviet periods of solitary confinement, force­ agitation and propaganda". She received feeding, and violent beatings. The medical attention she has received appears *A standard procedure for political to have been negligible. In July 1986 she prisoners, usually lasting about two was transferred from Barashevo, for an months. Chronicle 315 the maximum penalty - seven years' Or Andrei Sakharov. They were held for camp and five years' internal exile - an ten days in separate prisons, and then exceptional sentence for a woman, and released. They both lost their jobs and one which, accordinl!: to her husband Il!:or were obliged to resort to casual labour. Gerashchenko, was "based on five poems Within nine, months 'Irina was again as remote from politics as the Lord's under arrest, this time for, considerably Prayer" . longer. Irina was born in Odes sa in the Ukraine The Barashevo labour camp is known in 1954. She was brought up in the usual for its harsh administration, described in Soviet fashion, without religious teach­ samizdat reports smuggled out of the ing, but came to develop an interest in her camp zone. Its head, Major Shorin, has high-born Polish ancestry, and part­ been quoted to have remarked: "We icularly in the Catholic faith of don't shoot you any more now, but we her grandmother, who was frequently have other methods of ensuring that you "hauled in by the KGB" (Irina writes), as won't leave the camp alive." Between late a result of her beliefs. Her parents 1983 and summer 1984, 193 strikes and discouraged these subversive inclinations; 218 personal strikes were reported in the they forbade her to learn Polish and to camp in protest against the way prisoners talk to her grandparents about "any were being treated. Irina was actively religious or 'un-Soviet' subjects". involved in all of these, and her resistance In 1971, she went to study physics at made her a prime target for repression by university in Odessa, although her per­ the camp authorities. Between March sonal interests lay rather in poetry and 1983 and August 1985 she spent 138 days literature. She began to write her own in punitive isolation cells with winter poetry shortly before graduating, under temperatures as low as - 10° Celsius. She the influence of the works of Mandel'­ was not permitted to see her husband. shtam, Pasternak, Tsvetayeva and Akh­ In summer 1985 she underwent a spell matova - all of whom had suffered at the of "re-education" at the KGB prison in hands of the Soviet authorities because of Saransk, and in August spent a week in an their writing. Her own poems have a isolation cell in Yavas - the "capital" of quality of urgency which has been noted the Mordovian camp network. She was by Western readers, and have been transport~d there in a pick-up van without particularly praised by the Russian emigre shock absorbers, and was knocked uncon­ poet JosifBrodsky, who has described her scious when her head hit the iron railings as "a poet with faultless pitch ... with a of the "cage" as th<; van went over a rut. voice of her own, piercing but devoid of On arrival at the camp, the medical hysteria". ** officer diagnosed concussion' and pre­ Irina graduated in 1976, and took up a scribed treatment, but on the same day post as a physics teacher in a school in Irina was beaten unconscious by four Odessa. She went on to be appointed to warders (three female, one male), and left the §taff of the Odessa Teacher Training in the corridor to be dragged into her cell College, and shortly afterwards to its by other women prisoners. She spent the Examination Board. When she refused to rest of the week lying on the stone floor of obey instructions to discriminate against an unheated cell during the day; a bunk Jewish candidates, she was dismissed. In was available for the night. Despite all 1979, she married the human rights this she continued to receive her pre­ activist Igor Gerashchenko, and moved to scribed drug for concussion. Kiev. The couple were refused emigration visas in 1980, and in 1981 were warned to ' On her r~turn to Barashevo Irina stop appealing against human' rights sought' to initiate legal proceedings violations in the Soviet Union. In against the warders who had beaten her in December 1981 they were arrested at a Yavas. As a result, she was given a demonstration in Moscow in support of six-month term in an isolation cell, with a maximum of one hour's exercise per day, a bread and water diet of about 1,750 **Introduction to English translation of calories (gruel once every two or three Irina Ratushinskaya's poems by David days in winter) and manual labour McDuff: No I'm Not Afraid, (Bloodaxe separate from other prisoners. When her Books, 1986). husband and mother arrived to visit her in 316 Chronicle

April 1986 they were refused admission. despite having temperatures of up to 40° The official reason given was that lrina Celsius. " ... had not stood up when the doctor In the Kiev Investigation Prison, her came to see her" . Private reports suggest condition is said to have improved that she had been too ill to do so. She was slightly. Food is better, and she has been suffering dangerously high blood pressure allowed two visits from her mother and a with considerable risk of a stroke, or further two from her husband, both of heart or kidney failure. It appears likely whom she had not seen since September that the visitors were refused admittance 1983. She has been under pressure from because of the authorities' reluctance to the authorities (possibly as a result of allow confirmation of reports of her publicity in the West) to plead for deteriorating physical condition. clemency to secure her release, but she has Unofficial information released shortly refused to do so or to permit relatives to before lrina's, transfer to Kiev in July act on her behalf. She continues to hold indicated that she had developed angina that she was tried illegally in the first and was suffering frequent loss of place and that any appeal, would be consciousness. The camp infirmary inappropriate, irrespective of the serious­ lacked the necessary equipment and ness of her heart condition. medication to help her, and relatives were lrina Ratushinskaya has 3 Yz ' years, 'of not permitted to supply medicine, She had camp and five years' internal exile still to not been released from compUlsory serve. labour, and had to rep.ort daily for work IRENA KORBA

The Har'e Krishna Movement' In the USSR"

One of the more recent manifestations of Culture, but the meeting was broken up the revival of interest in religion amongst by the KGB and those, present were Soviet youth has been the spread of interrogated. , Eastern religions and associated practices The first arrest came in 1981 when such as yoga. Of these teachings, perhaps Yevgeni Tretyakov from the town of the most influential has been that of the Krasnoyarsk was sentenced to one year in Hare Krishnas. The origins of this camp on charges of "parasitism"., Ina movement in the USSR can be traced report on his trial appearing in Sots­ back to 1971 when their spiritual ialisticheskaya industriya (Socialist Ind­ leader,' Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabh­ ustry), it was claimed that he,had been ubada, visited Moscow. Though refused introduced to the teachings of Krishna permission to lecture, he was able to Consciousness by Anatoli Pinyayev. , initiate one young Russian into the Such an attack in the press usually ensures teachings of Krishna Consciousness. For that sooner or later the person mentioned the rest of the 1970s this man, Anatoli will be arrested, and in· April' 1982 Pinyayev, was to travel the Soviet Union Pinyayev also was charged with "parasit­ spreading the, teachings of the move­ ism". The investigating authorities, ment. however, sent him to Moscow's Serbsky Added impetus was given by the 1979 Institute for psychiatric examination, and International Book Fair held in Moscow, the doctors ruled him not responsible. where a considerable quantity of Krishna Interned in an Ordinary' Psychiatric literature was on display and was eagerly Hospital in Moscow, Pinyayev escaped in examined by many Muscovites. The May and spent nearly a year in hiding following year Swami Visnupada, the before being recaptured. This time he was Krishna leader responsible for the Soviet placed in the Smolensk Special Psych­ Union, paid a visit to the USSR. iatric Hospital (SPH), and was forcibly Adherents 'of the movement were able to treated with drugs. Krishna supporters organise a meeting in the Riga House of claim that such treatment affects them to