Death of Zoya Krakhmalnikova, Russian Christian writer jailed by Bolsheviks

Christian writer jailed for her beliefs by the Soviet 
authorities

Michael Bourdeaux
The Guardian,
Tuesday May 13 2008


In the Brezhnev years of the old Soviet Union, an innocent 
person actively engaged in work as a "democrat" might expect 
to receive a sentence of five to 10 years' imprisonment. A 
sentence of one year demonstrated to the Soviet public - and 
the world - that not even the semblance of a crime could be 
pinned on the victim. The second variant was the fate of 
Zoya Krakhmalnikova, who has died aged 79.

When she was sentenced in 1983 for reviving a 
pre-revolutionary Christian journal, Nadezhda (Hope), she 
told the courtroom: "I wasn't 'guilty' of producing 
Nadezhda - I was simply trying to re-establish what was 
suppressed 60 years ago. Nadezhda was produced for all who 
seek the word of God, so there's no crime in producing these 
volumes. Thank God for everything!"

Krakhmalnikova was born in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov 
(now Kharkiv), where, in 1936, she witnessed the arrest of 
her father in one of Stalin's purges. After the the second 
world war, despite her background, she was educated in the 
Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow, where she graduated in 
1954, and then did postgraduate work at the Institute of 
World Literature. By the 1960s she was writing articles and 
publi****ng them in prestigious literary journals. She 
married another author, Feliks Svetov, and in 1967 became a 
member of the Institute of Sociology in the Soviet Academy 
of Sciences.

However, in 1971 she was baptised into the Russian Orthodox 
church, leading to dismissal from her job and from the Union 
of Writers, which meant being banned from publi****ng. But 
Soviet anti-religious tactics misfired as she devoted her 
talents to Christian writing, tackling the problem of the 
religious renaissance in the Soviet Union and sending 
articles abroad for publication.

But she wanted to produce something more systematic. In 1976 
she began to compile a typewritten anthology, Nadezhda, to 
which she gave the sub-title Christian Reading - and it was 
just that. She was not a dissident writer who confronted the 
authorities on their human-rights record or their 
suppression of religious liberty. Krakhmalnikova openly 
attached her name to this work, which she aimed at various 
levels of reader****p, not just the intelligentsia. She was 
particularly concerned to find sources and authors who could 
write on the historical roots of the Orthodox church. She 
went back to the church fathers and published sermons by 
contem****ary priests. However, when the journal tackled the 
20th century, this inevitably included articles on the "new 
martyrs", the victims of communist repression. Typescripts 
reached the anti-Soviet publi****ng house, Posev, in West 
Germany, which printed them for smuggling back to the USSR.

The knock on Krakhmalnikova's door came at 4am on August 4 
1982, when she was at her dacha. A year in the notorious 
Lefortovo prison followed, and her health declined. Ten 
issues of the journal had been published and a few more 
subsequently appeared anonymously. Accused of sending these 
abroad and of publi****ng articles by the "dissident" priest, 
Fr Dmitri Dudko, Krakhmalnikova pleaded not guilty at her 
trial on April 1 1983. The Soviet news agency, Tass, 
obviously trying to emphasise the "leniency" of the court, 
publicised her sentence, but omitted that it was to be 
followed by five years' exile. She was sent to a remote 
settlement, Ust-Kan, adjacent to Mongolia.

She adapted to her cir***stances quickly. She found a small 
but light room, enjoyed the company of local people, could 
receive food parcels and have monthly visits from her 
husband and daughter. She had a Bible and a few icons to put 
up in the traditional corner. However, there was no priest 
and she was barred from visiting church.

Later her husband was arrested and sent into exile. As an 
Orthodox activist, he was one of the last victims of the 
communist repression of religion, being sentenced in January 
1986, 10 months after Gorbachev's accession. The pair 
refused to "repent" and petition for early release, but a 
pardon followed in July 1987. Krakhmalnikova became an 
active democrat, calling on leaders of the Orthodox church 
to repent of its collaboration with the authorities (which 
they never did).

Krakhmalnikova later published an autobiography, but she 
never became a high-profile figure in Russia and was 
virtually unknown in the west. However, she was influential 
in her circle, being fearless, radiant in her faith and yet 
personally modest. She opened the way for the new era of 
Christian publi****ng in Russia which began 20 years ago.

· Zoya Alexandrovna Krakhmalnikova, Christian writer and 
editor, born January 14 1929; died April 17 2008


-- 
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web:  http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
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