Yuli Markovich Daniel ( rus, Ю́лий Ма́ркович Даниэ́ль, p=ˈjʉlʲɪj ˈmarkəvʲɪtɕ dənʲɪˈelʲ, a=Yuliy Markovich Daniel'.ru.vorb.oga; 15 November 1925 — 30 December 1988) was a Russian writer and Soviet dissident known as a defendant in the Sinyavsky–Daniel trial in 1966. Daniel wrote and

translated Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

works of stories and

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...

critical of Soviet society under the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individu ...

s Nikolay Arzhak ( rus, Никола́й Аржа́к, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɐrˈʐak, a=Nikolay Arzhak.ru.vorb.oga) and Yu. Petrov ( rus, Ю. Петро́в, p=ˈju pʲɪˈtrof, a=Yu Pyetrov.ru.vorb.oga) published in the

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

to avoid

censorship in the Soviet Union Censorship in the Soviet Union was pervasive and strictly enforced. Censorship was performed in two main directions: *State secrets were handled by the General Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press (also known as Glavl ...

. Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky were convicted of

anti-Soviet agitation Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (ASA) (russian: антисове́тская агита́ция и пропага́нда (АСА)) was a criminal offence in the Soviet Union. To begin with the term was interchangeably used with counter-revol ...

in a show trial, becoming the first Soviet writers convicted solely for their works and for

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a tradi ...

, serving five years at a

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the State Political Directorate, GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= ...

camp and prison.

Early life and writing

Yuli Daniel was born on 15 November 1925 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 ...

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

, the son of the

Russian Jewish The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

playwright M. Daniel (Mark Naumovich Meyerovich, russian: Марк Наумович Меерович). In 1942, the 17-year-old Daniel lied about his age and volunteered to serve on the 2nd Ukrainian Front and the 3rd Belorussian Front during Eastern Front of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. In 1944, Daniel was critically wounded in his legs and was

demobilized Demobilization or demobilisation (see spelling differences) is the process of standing down a nation's armed forces from combat-ready status. This may be as a result of victory in war, or because a crisis has been peacefully resolved and milita ...

from the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

. In 1950, Daniel graduated from Moscow Pedagogical Institute (now Moscow State Regional University), and went to work as a schoolteacher in Kaluga and

. Daniel also published

translation Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

s of verse from a variety of languages, and like his friend Andrei Sinyavsky, wrote topical stories and novellas which were sometimes

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or ...

or critical of Soviet society but naturally rejected for publication by the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union " Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspape ...

(CPSU) during a time of extreme

. Daniel and Sinyavsky smuggled their works out of the Soviet Union as '' samizdat'' to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

to be published under

s. Daniel married Larisa Bogoraz, who later also became a famous Soviet dissident.

Sinyavsky-Daniel trial

Daniel's work ''Moscow Speaking'', published in 1959 under the pseudonym Nikolai Arzhak, caught the attention of the KGB, the main security agency and

secret police Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic ...

of the Soviet Union. The KGB began investigating Daniel and Sinyavsky's dissident works being published in the West, and soon linked their pseudonyms to their real identities. Daniel and Sinyavsky were placed under constant surveillance and investigation by the KGB for several years. In September 1965, Daniel and Sinyavsky were arrested and tried in the infamous Sinyavsky-Daniel trial for their literary works published abroad. The Soviet prosecution could not charge Daniel and Sinyavsky for publishing material abroad or using pseudonyms as both were legal under

Soviet Law The Law of the Soviet Union was the law as it developed in the Soviet Union (USSR) following the October Revolution of 1917. Modified versions of the Soviet legal system operated in many Communist states following the Second World War—includin ...

, instead they were charged with the offense of

anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (ASA) (russian: антисове́тская агита́ция и пропага́нда (АСА)) was a criminal offence in the Soviet Union. To begin with the term was interchangeably used with counter-revolu ...

under Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code. Both writers entered a plea of not guilty, which was unusual for defendants in Soviet show trials. On February 14, 1966, Daniel was sentenced to five years of hard labor for "anti-Soviet activity" while Sinyavsky was sentenced to seven years. In 1967, Andrei Sakharov appealed on behalf of Daniel directly to

Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the ...

, at the time Chairman of the KGB. Sakharov was told that both Daniel and Sinyavsky would be released under a general amnesty on the fiftieth anniversary of the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mom ...

, but this turned out to be false as the amnesty did not apply to

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 nu ...

s. Daniel spent four years of captivity at the

Dubravlag The Dubravny Camp, Special Camp No.3 (), commonly known as the Dubravlag (russian: Дубравлаг), was a Gulag labor camp of the Soviet Union located in Yavas, Mordovia from 1948 to 2005. The Dubravlag was founded as one of several Gulag s ...

, a

camp in Mordovia, and one year in Vladimir Prison.

Late years and influence

Daniel was released and refused to emigrate, as was customary among Soviet dissidents, and lived in Kaluga before moving to Moscow. According to Fred Coleman, "Historians now have no difficulty pinpointing the birth of the modern Soviet dissident movement. It began in February 1966 with the trial of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, two Russian writers who ridiculed the Communist regime in satires smuggled abroad and published under pen names. They didn't realize at the time that they were starting a movement that would help end Communist rule." Daniel and Sinyavsky did not intend to oppose the Soviet Union. Daniel was genuinely worried about a resurgence of the

Cult of Personality A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader, Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) ''Populism: A Very Short Introduction''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63. is the result of an effort which is made to create an id ...

under

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 ...

, which inspired his story ''This is Moscow Speaking'', while Sinyavsky affirmed that he believed

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes th ...

was the way forward but that the methods employed were at times erroneous. Shortly before Daniel's death, Bulat Okudzhava acknowledged that some translations published under his name had in fact been

ghostwritten ''Ghostwritten'' is the first novel published by English author David Mitchell. Published in 1999, it won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was widely acclaimed. The story takes place mainly around East Asia, but also moves through Russia, B ...

by Daniel, because he was featured on a blacklist of authors banned from being published in the Soviet Union. Daniel died on 30 December 1988, and Sinyavsky and his wife

Maria Rozanova Maria Vasilievna Rozanova (russian: Мари́я Васи́льевна Розано́ва, born 27 December 1929, Vitebsk, Russian SFSR)Oxford Journals, "Notes and queries", Volume 239, page 430, Oxford University Press, September 1994. is a publi ...

immediately flew to his funeral from France, where they had emigrated in 1973 after Sinyavsky's release. Daniel was buried in Vagankovo Cemetery, a popular burial place in Moscow for members of the arts community.

Family

His son Alexander Daniel is a mathematician and his grandson Michael Daniel is a linguist.

Notes

Bibliography

;Books * "Бегство" (The Escape), 1956 * "Человек из МИНАПа" (A Man from MINAP), 196

* "Говорит Москва" (Report from Moscow), 196

* "Искупление" (The Redemption), 1964 * "Руки" (The Hands) * "Письмо другу" (A Letter to a Friend), 1969 * "Ответ И.Р.Шафаревичу" (The Response to Igor Shafarevich), 1975 * "Книга сновидений" (A Book of Dreams) * "Я все сбиваюсь на литературу..." Письма из заключения. Стихи (The Letters from Prison), 1972 () * ''"This is Moscow Speaking", and Other Stories'', Collins, Harvill: London, 1968, translated by Michael Scammell. ;Articles *

External links

*
Materials of Daniel's case, photos, poetry
HRO-Russia *
Memoirs by Larisa Bogoraz
*

*

by Natalia Rapoport * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Daniel, Yuli 1925 births 1988 deaths Soviet dissidents Jewish poets Russian Jews Russian male novelists Russian male poets Soviet novelists Soviet male writers 20th-century Russian male writers Soviet short story writers 20th-century Russian short story writers 20th-century Russian poets Russian male short story writers Burials at Vagankovo Cemetery Soviet people of World War II Writers from Moscow Soviet prisoners and detainees Russian prisoners and detainees Dubravlag detainees