"Chronicle of Current Events" is 35

On April 30 it will be 35 years since the day when ?The Chronicle of Current Events?, a typewritten informational bulletin of soviet human rights activists, a main dissident periodical of the end of 1960s ? the beginning 1980s, appeared in print in 1968 for the first time. (For more detailed history of ?The Chronicle?, as well as the texts of all its editions see the site of the International Society ?Memorial?):

?The Chronicle? was published in secret for fifteen years and being duplicated by hand by the readers themselves spread over the country in tens and hundreds of copies. It impartially and methodically recorded cruel persecutions of people for their political and religious views, demonstration of independent civil, cultural, national activity. It told about dismissals, interrogations, searches, arrests, trials, described conditions of maintenance of political prisoners in prisons, camps, ?special mental hospitals?.

But today its contents is taken not so much as the narration about repressions against dissidents, but as the annals of struggle for law, observance of law, civil and political rights of the Soviet people. ?The Chronicle? itself was a very important element of that struggle: giving publicity to lawless actions of authority it simultaneously, by its existence itself, executed one of the most important human rights ? the right for information.

In honour of the 35-th anniversary of ?The Chronicle of Current Events? the Society ?Memorial? arranges a jubilee party on April 30 at 18:00.

The programme of the party includes:
- speeches of historians, publicists, public and political figures devoted to the place of ?The Chronicle? in the history of the home human rights movement, its role in the formation of the Russian public spirit, significance of its experience for today?s public life of the country;
- a presentation of research and publishing projects of the Society ?Memorial? connected with ?The Chronicle?;
- remembrances of the people who took part in publication of ?The Chronicle?.

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