Vadim Nikolaevich Delaunay ( rus, Вади́м Никола́евич Делоне́, p=vɐˈdʲim nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ dʲɪlɐˈnʲɛ, a=Vadim Nikolayevich Dyelonye.ru.vorb.oga; December 22, 1947, Moscow – June 13, 1983, Paris) was a Soviet poet and

dissident A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 2 ...

, who participated in the

1968 Red Square demonstration The 1968 Red Square demonstration () took place in Moscow on 25 August 1968. It was a protest by eight demonstrators against the invasion of Czechoslovakia on the night of 20–21 August 1968 by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies, ...

of protest against military suppression of the

Prague Spring The Prague Spring (; ) was a period of liberalization, political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected Secretary (title), First Secre ...

Biography

Delaunay was born to a Russian- French family of

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...

. He was the son of Nikolai Borisovich Delone, a Soviet

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

. His grandfather,

Boris Delaunay Boris Nikolayevich Delaunay or Delone (; 15 March 1890 – 17 July 1980) was a Soviet and Russian mathematician, mountain climber, and the father of physicist, Nikolai Borisovich Delone. He is best known for the Delaunay triangulation. Biograph ...

, was a prominent Soviet mathematician and creator of the

Delaunay triangulation In computational geometry, a Delaunay triangulation or Delone triangulation of a set of points in the plane subdivides their convex hull into triangles whose circumcircles do not contain any of the points; that is, each circumcircle has its gen ...

. Among his ancestors was

marquis A marquess (; ) is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German-language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman with the rank of a marquess or the wife (or wido ...

Bernard-René de Launay, the last governor of the

Bastille The Bastille (, ) was a fortress in Paris, known as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was stormed by a ...

, murdered by the attackers on that castle. Delaunay studied at

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

matshkola ("Mathematical School") No. 2, one of the best in the country at that time, then at the Department of

Philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute. As a student, he also worked as a

freelance ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

author for the ''

Literaturnaya Gazeta ''Literaturnaya Gazeta'' (, ''Literary Gazette'') is a weekly cultural and political newspaper published in Russia and the Soviet Union. It was published for two periods in the 19th century, and was revived in 1929. Overview The current newspa ...

''. Delaunay started to write poetry at the age of 13. His poetry was distributed by

samizdat Samizdat (, , ) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual rep ...

and some of it was published abroad.

:''Пуcкай грехи мне'' :''не простят -'' :''К тому предлогов слишком много,'' :''Но если я просил'' :''у Бога,'' :''То - за других,'' :''не за себя.'' :''Let my sins'' :''not be forgiven'' :''the reasons for this are many'' :''but if I ever prayed'' :''to God for something'' :''it was for others'' :''never for myself'' Vadim Delaunay

Political activism

On January 22, 1967, Delaunay took part in a demonstration on

Pushkin Square Pushkinskaya Square or Pushkin Square () is a pedestrian open space in the Tverskoy District in central Moscow. Historically, it was known as Strastnaya Square () before being renamed for Alexander Pushkin in 1937. It is located at the juncti ...

protesting the arrest

Yuri Galanskov Yuri Timofeyevich Galanskov (; 19 June 1939 – 4 November 1972) was a Russian poet, historian, human rights activist and dissident. For his political activities, such as founding and editing samizdat almanac '' Phoenix'', he was incarcerated i ...

and others (leading to the

Trial of the Four The Trial of the Four, also Galanskov–Ginzburg trial, was the 1968 trial of Yuri Galanskov, Alexander Ginzburg, Alexey Dobrovolsky and Vera Lahkova for their involvement in samizdat publications. The trial took place in Moscow City Court on ...

) as well as articles 70 and 190 of the Soviet

Penal Code A criminal code or penal code is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain Crime, offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that ...

—"Anti-Soviet agitation" and "Libel against the Soviet Government". He was arrested and given a one-year suspended sentence (incidentally in accordance with article 190 of the Penal Code). His sentence was much lighter than that of another organizer of the same meeting,

Vladimir Bukovsky Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (; 30 December 1942 – 27 October 2019) was a Soviet and Russian Human rights activists, human rights activist and writer. From the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, he was a prominent figure in the Soviet dissid ...

, who got three years in a

labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see British and American spelling differences, spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are unfree labour, forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have ...

. On September 1, 1967, together with Bukovsky and Kushev, he was sentenced to 1 year (conditionally) as a participant in a demonstration on Pushkin Square in defense of Galanskov, Dobrovolsky, and Lashkova. Delaunay's sentence required him to move away from Moscow, so he went to Novosibirsk State University to a friend and pupil of his grandfather, Aleksandr Aleksandrov. In

Novosibirsk Novosibirsk is the largest city and administrative centre of Novosibirsk Oblast and the Siberian Federal District in Russia. As of the 2021 Russian census, 2021 census, it had a population of 1,633,595, making it the most populous city in Siber ...

, he continued his philology studies and wrote poetry. At that time, his first official foreign publications appeared in the

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

magazine ''Grani'' N66. Delaunay was an organizer of a concert by the

Bard In Celtic cultures, a bard is an oral repository and professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's a ...

Alexander Galich, who was semi-legal at that time. At the beginning of 1968, after the court hearing for Galanskov and Ginzburg, Delaunay wrote an open letter to ''Literaturnaya Gazeta'' in which he praised their bravery. The letter was published in the

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

newspaper The New Russian Word.

1968 Red Square demonstration

In June 1968, Delaunay returned to Moscow. On August 25, 1968, he and seven other dissidents organized the now-famous demonstration in support of the

Red Square Red Square ( rus, Красная площадь, Krasnaya ploshchad', p=ˈkrasnəjə ˈploɕːɪtʲ) is one of the oldest and largest town square, squares in Moscow, Russia. It is located in Moscow's historic centre, along the eastern walls of ...

near the

Moscow Kremlin The Moscow Kremlin (also the Kremlin) is a fortified complex in Moscow, Russia. Located in the centre of the country's capital city, the Moscow Kremlin comprises five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Kremlin Wall along with the K ...

. Delaunay and

Pavel Litvinov Pavel Mikhailovich Litvinov (; born 6 July 1940) is a Russian-born U.S. physicist, writer, teacher, Human rights movement in the Soviet Union, human rights activist and former Soviet dissidents, Soviet-era dissident. Biography The grandson of Iv ...

held the famous banner with the words "ЗА ВАШУ И НАШУ СВОБОДУ" ("

For your freedom and ours For our freedom and yours ( or ) is one of the unofficial mottos of Poland. It is commonly associated with the times when Polish soldiers, exiled from the partitioned Poland (1795-1914), partitioned Poland, fought in various independence movemen ...

"). Seven people were arrested, and in court, Delaunay stated that the five minutes of freedom on the square were worth the awaiting years in prison. The sentence by the court was prepared in advance, just as for other defendants. Delaunay was sentenced to two years and 10 months in a labor camp that he served in

Tyumen Oblast Tyumen Oblast () is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (an oblast) of Russia. It is located in Western Siberia, and is administratively part of the Ural Federal District. The oblast has administrative jurisdiction over two autonomous ...

in western

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

.Andropov to the Central Committee. The Demonstration in Red Square Against the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia. September 20, 1968

Emigration

In June 1971, Delaunay finished serving his sentence and returned to Moscow. In 1973, his wife Irina Belogorodskaya was arrested for her involvement with an underground journal, ''

Chronicle of Current Events ''A Chronicle of Current Events'' () was one of the longest running ''samizdat'' periodicals of the post-Stalinist Soviet Union. This unofficial newsletter reported violations of civil rights and judicial procedure by the Soviet government and res ...

''. In 1975, she was freed, and they both emigrated to

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Death

On 13 June 1983, Delaunay died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

in Paris at the age of 35. In 1984, his book of poetry ''Verses: 1963–1983'' was published. In that same year, he was posthumously awarded the

Vladimir Dal Vladimir Ivanovich Dal (, ; 22 November 1801 – 4 October 1872) was a Russians, Russian Lexicography, lexicographer, Multilingualism, speaker of many languages, Turkology, Turkologist, and founding member of the Russian Geographical Society. Du ...

prize. His poetry has been published in Russia since 1989.

References

External links

Biography

Biography and works
{{DEFAULTSORT:Delaunay, Vadim 1947 births 1983 deaths Writers from Moscow Russian people of French descent Soviet songwriters Soviet emigrants to France Soviet poets Russian male poets Soviet male writers 20th-century Russian male writers Soviet dissidents Prague Spring Soviet male singers Novosibirsk State University alumni