Non-school mathematics - gorynych_zmei. In primary and secondary school - only mathematics
In 1954, Velikanova graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University and worked as a teacher in a rural school in the Urals. Since 1957 in Moscow, employee of a computer center, programmer.
Velikanova's husband, linguist Konstantin Babitsky, was among seven participants in the protest against the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia on August 25, 1968, and was exiled for 3 years in the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
In 1969, Velikanova became one of the founding members of the first human rights organization in the USSR, the Initiative Group for the Protection of Human Rights in the USSR. In 1970, Velikanova took on the main organizational functions in the preparation of the main periodical of Soviet human rights activists, “Chronicle of Current Events,” a typewritten newsletter published since 1968. Over nine years, under her leadership, about thirty issues of the “Chronicle” were published. In May 1974, T. Velikanova, S. Kovalev and T. Khodorovich openly took responsibility for distributing this publication.
On November 1, 1979, Tatyana Velikanova was arrested on charges of “anti-Soviet propaganda.” In August 1980, the Moscow City Court sentenced her to 4 years in prison and 5 years in exile. She served her imprisonment in Mordovia, and exile in Western Kazakhstan (Mangyshlak region). Velikanova’s stay in prison is described in the story “Grey is the Color of Hope” by Irina Ratushinskaya.
Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova,
A teacher, since 1989 she taught mathematics to children for twelve years. From this work, many daily notes have been preserved, and one article: “In primary and secondary schools - one mathematics” - a title that, perhaps, will attract a school methodologist. The only thing is that this teacher’s name was Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova, and through the prism of her life both the boring title and the article itself are seen completely differently.
It is impossible to talk about Tatyana Mikhailovna briefly.
For ten years, until her arrest in the fall of 1979, Velikanova was the editor of the Chronicle of Current Events. More than an editor, more like an “executive director.” What was it for her - a heavy burden, a feat? Tatyana Mikhailovna herself spoke about this simply: “For me and for my friends it was a way of life. In 1969, I was 37 years old, and for the next ten years of human rights work, I felt like a completely free person, unlike my previous life. It was still a time for me to analyze and understand the regime under which my country lives. I received much more information about the life of my country than before. And she reacted accordingly.”
Back in 1968, in August, when her husband Konstantin Babitsky and “seven brave” people at Execution Place protested against the entry of troops into Czechoslovakia, Tatyana Mikhailovna was nearby. To see and witness. During the interrogation, she also told everything that she had seen - about the beating of people by security officers - although they expected something else from her, condemning her husband’s actions. But Tatyana Mikhailovna repeated both during the investigation and at the trial that she approved of her husband’s behavior. Investigator: “But you have three children!” “That’s exactly why,” answered Velikanova.
And the indictment stated: “in particular, based on the testimony of the accused’s wife...”.
For Tatyana Mikhailovna “The most difficult thing was to learn to cope with the system of mutual responsibility imposed on the entire population of the USSR. The fate of his relatives, the careers of his colleagues, the fate of his friends, right up to their arrest, depended on a person’s behavior, regardless of his wishes. It was a total hostage system..."
Velikanova made her choice.
Tatyana Mikhailovna never testified again. She remained silent both during her investigation and at the trial. Only when asked to say the last word did she say: "The farce is over - well, it's over".
Next - four years of Mordovian camps, the “small zone” in Barashevo (about this in the book of her fellow prisoner Irina Ratushinskaya, “The Color of Hope is Gray”). And exile to Central Asia, to Orwellian stopped time, to God-forsaken places: Shetpe, Tauchek, Beineu... One of those who visited her in exile, Viktor Rezunkov, recalled: “For three days I tried to understand how such a fragile woman could resist the Soviet of Deputies, which, like a scorched desert, surrounded everyone, silently, lifelessly and, it seemed, forever. Twenty years later, I still didn’t understand... Even in exile, her power "We were afraid. No pathos, no loud slogans - God forbid! Only actions and faith, deep conviction that one is right.".
She even freed herself in such a way that she remained free. Tatyana Mikhailovna refused to sign the decree of pardon, and remained in exile for several “extra” months. And then she returned on her own, without anyone’s mercy or permission.
And - to school, “for the rest of my life”...
This is what Yuliy Kim said in September 2002 at Memorial, saying goodbye to Tatyana Mikhailovna: “If our society had developed as it should, in its post-Soviet period, and had been able to overcome its eternal sin of ingratitude, and give everyone what they deserve, then our funeral service would not have taken place here. Maybe on Red Square. Maybe it wasn’t enough Then for the people who would come to pay their last respects, they would accompany Tanya on her last journey."
Her grateful students probably understood this. Now they can only be envied. But what should we do? After all, Tatyana Mikhailovna left behind good deeds, and not at all teachings. An example remains - but who can reach such heights of spirit? Although, on the other hand, this was not given from above, but was the result of working on oneself. As Sergey Kovalev noted, “Tatyana Mikhailovna was a very passionate person, a person of high limits, and her remarkable restraint, noble simplicity are the result of passionate, direct, conscious self-education.”.
...What remains from Tatyana Mikhailovna is that one article on teaching mathematics, published in 1996 in a circulation of 600 copies. However, if you look carefully, you can find there a lot of important things for those who left high school a long time ago.
"In elementary school, the first and universally recognized goal is to teach basic techniques and skills. The second is to ensure success for each student. Success or failure largely determines his entire future destiny. The third is to instill a taste and love for intellectual activity, to provide the opportunity for a creative, exploratory approach In middle and high school, one of the main goals is to teach us to understand that the world is complex, but not chaotic, that we study models of the complex but real, that any model operates in a limited area, and it is very desirable to know the limits of application of the model. "
This is not only about children six, seven, eight years old (Tatyana Mikhailovna once remarked that it’s a pity that infants cannot be taught mathematics...) This is written about people in general. At a minimum, you need to be able to do something and respect yourself for it. But more is possible - creativity and understanding. The question is how to move from small to big?
The first thing in her article is “the idea of “advanced”... concepts and even sections of mathematics that are taught in middle and high schools should be introduced already in elementary school. This does not mean that they need to be “got through” earlier, you just need to start earlier. Propaedeutics[abbreviated summary - A.Ch.] ".
"Society has not matured"? "The masses have not matured"? Yah! If we don’t raise serious questions and return to them again and again, then we will remain in the “sandbox.”
Second - "the need to organize such types of child activities and such tasks in which the student’s independent, search activity can be manifested. Traditionally, most of the time is devoted to studying rules and procedures, the role of tasks is illustrative. The tasks themselves are very artificially constructed models, where all the necessary data is present, there is nothing superfluous, and the answer is always “good”". In life, everything is different - something is missing, and something unnecessary deliberately distracts us from the main thing. And, although it is easier to solve “examples”, it is much more interesting to “also “put”, find or find out the missing data, discard the unnecessary ones, select the necessary procedures and their sequence, be able to write all this down in a convenient way...”
The “masses” are by no means an attentive audience, and not an instrument in the hands of the “leaders”. And you shouldn’t tempt them with simplified models of existence, where every question has an answer, and for every answer the correct question has already been prepared.
How to prevent yourself from being isolated with these problems? Here: "work in small groups: discuss within the group both the formulation and methods of solving the problem, and methods of verification, and even divide the work among themselves when the task requires many calculations, for example, trials. Discussion gives rise to ideas, ideas give rise to other ideas, the search is on! In successful cases, when observing the work of such a group, a feeling of the creative atmosphere of a small scientific team arose.".
This applies not only to the school class, but also to those “classes” that the “leaders” usually address. For a real, and not a “leader” social movement, these “small groups” - “cells of civil society” are important. Consisting of units, a fragmented, atomized society can only become a “mass” - passive or obedient. The work of understanding is, after all, the work of communication.
And finally "to unite everything that can be combined; to use all connections, analogies, oppositions... the problem of two trains moving in opposite directions and the problem of filling a swimming pool through two pipes from the point of view of mathematics are the same problem" - people must learn to see beyond events their meaning: “if the teacher helps the student see this commonality, his understanding and ability to solve such problems will rise to the next level”.
Then the student “not only gains knowledge, but also learns to learn, learns an approach to a problem, a task - not only intellectual, but also emotional”.
But one of the reasons for our “time in which we stand” is the inability to live in a changing world, full of problems and free from ready-made solutions.
“Primary school should introduce “big” mathematics, or, more precisely, “big” mathematics should start in primary school.”.
We must begin to live seriously, that is, freely, even when there seems to be no room for this freedom at all. Then you can feel “a completely free person, unlike my previous life”.
Probably, this can also be taken away from Tatyana Velikanova’s lesson.
Although, to be honest, I don’t know what she would answer to this. Maybe she would have just looked through her glasses, right through them, as she knew how, remained silent expressively, and turned to the students...
Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova(February 3, 1932 - September 19, 2002, Moscow) - Soviet dissident, participant in the human rights movement in the USSR, one of the founding members of the first human rights organization in the Soviet Union, the Initiative Group for the Protection of Human Rights in the USSR.
Biography
Daughter of hydrologist and hydrodynamicist Mikhail Andreevich Velikanov. In 1954, Velikanova graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University and worked as a teacher in a rural school in the Urals. Since 1957 in Moscow, employee of a computer center, programmer.
Velikanova's husband, linguist Konstantin Babitsky, was among seven participants in the protest against the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia on August 25, 1968, and was exiled for 3 years in the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
In 1969, Velikanova became one of the founding members of the first human rights organization in the USSR, the Initiative Group for the Protection of Human Rights in the USSR. In 1970, Velikanova took on the main organizational functions in the preparation of the main periodical of Soviet human rights activists, “Chronicle of Current Events,” a typewritten newsletter published since 1968. Over nine years, under her leadership, about thirty issues of the “Chronicle” were published. In May 1974, T. Velikanova, S. Kovalev and T. Khodorovich openly took responsibility for distributing this publication.
On November 1, 1979, Tatyana Velikanova was arrested on charges of “anti-Soviet propaganda.” In August 1980, the Moscow City Court sentenced her to 4 years in prison and 5 years in exile. She served her imprisonment in Mordovia, and exile in Western Kazakhstan (Mangyshlak region). Velikanova’s stay in prison is described in the story “Grey is the Color of Hope” by Irina Ratushinskaya.
Ivan Tolstoy:
Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova. First, a few very general words. Tatyana Velikanova stood at the origins of the human rights movement and was “among the brightest, most courageous and most uncompromising human rights defenders.”
In 1968, she was present on Red Square when her husband, Konstantin Babitsky, and six others protested against the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Babitsky was arrested right on the square and exiled to the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic for three years. However, this did not force Velikanova to abandon her chosen type of activity, and soon she joined the Initiative Group for the Protection of Human Rights in the USSR, created in Moscow in May 1969. It was the first openly operating independent civil association in the Soviet Union.
Since 1974, Velikanova has been one of the editors of the samizdat magazine Chronicle of Current Events. She actually took on the main organizational functions in the preparation of this publication.
In 1979, Velikanova was arrested on charges of “anti-Soviet propaganda.” The court sentenced her to four years of forced labor and five years of exile. She served her camp term in Mordovia, and exile in Western Kazakhstan. The human rights activist was released in 1987 - she was pardoned by Mikhail Gorbachev. And in 1989, she left the dissident movement and returned to work at school, where she taught mathematics.
Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova is called the face, the conscience of the human rights movement, the personification of all the best that was in it. She certainly became a legendary figure.
Andrey, today we will talk about Tatyana Mikhailovna and a little about her husband, Konstantin Iosifovich Babitsky, who, of course, deserves a separate conversation and about whom we will talk in connection with the brave souls’ appearance on Red Square, right? Today Konstantin Iosifovich will be in the shadow of his wife Tatyana Mikhailovna. I think this will be fair.
If possible, I just want to add, since the country should know its heroes, that when the trial of Velikanova was going on, then (the chairman, the judge was Comrade Romanov, the prosecutor was Comrade Chistyakov and the lawyer was Batova) none of the family members were informed about the date and place of the trial was not. Moreover, when the trial was already underway, Tatyana Mikhailovna’s children were informed at the court office that there was no trial, and the lawyer was notified of the location of the trial an hour before it began. During the entire investigation, Tatyana Mikhailovna did not give any testimony and did not sign a single document. And just like that, she refused to participate in the trial. Regarding the lawyer, she told the court the following: “You need a lawyer, not me. And I don’t need a second accuser." She was charged not only with anti-Soviet propaganda, but also with anti-Soviet agitation, which, by Soviet standards, was an aggravating circumstance. One of the prosecution witnesses told the court that it was from Tatyana Velikanova that he received the books of Avtorkhanov and Amalrik, thereby confirming the fact of the dissemination of anti-Soviet literature and specifically anti-Soviet agitation. I think it is useless to say that the witnesses who testified in favor of Tatyana Velikanova were either not allowed to participate in the trial, or were completely ignored by the court.
Ivan Tolstoy: I will cite the statements of some famous human rights activists so that we can imagine the significance of Tatyana Velikanova in the public life of those years.
Speaker: ""Tatyana Velikanova is one of those people who, in my eyes, embody the human rights movement in the Soviet Union, its moral pathos, its purity and strength, its historical significance. She is a strong, strong-willed and sober person. Tatiana Velikanova's participation in the human rights movement reflects her deep inner conviction in the moral, vital necessity of this""(from "Memories" Andrey Sakharov).
Speaker:“Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova is one of the purest people of the movement, which in the public consciousness and in terminology was called dissident. She is a mathematician by profession. I have never been in the circle of the human rights bureaucracy, that is, people who, since perestroika, began to occupy some positions, work in human rights organizations. When she returned after imprisonment from the camp and from exile, she returned to school and taught mathematics in one of the Moscow schools. Tanya is a very bright person, very pure and kind. From our dissident environment, there are few people I can remember such things about warm memories, such feelings as for Tanya Velikanova""(Elena Bonner)
Speaker:“Tatyana Velikanova was an extraordinary person. It is stupid to rank dissident leaders, but many people in our circle considered Velikanova to be the greatest authority. Her opinion was significant for everyone, despite the lack of titles, titles, foreign awards and formal leadership in dissident groups. Her authority was Once during an interrogation, a KGB investigator, having received a refusal to testify, said to me with annoyance: “Well, of course, what will Tatyana Mikhailovna say!” And he was partly right - weighing the action, we often compared it with Tatyana Mikhailovna’s position " (Alexander Podrabinek)
Speaker:“Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova is a member of the initiative group for the protection of human rights, in the human rights movement since 1968, a world-famous person and, therefore, socially harmful. And therefore, neither the KGB nor Podust can even imagine allowing someone he himself came up with something (after all, being, in their understanding, determines consciousness) - then they are looking for bad influences. Well, in freedom it is clear - Western radio broadcasts, there is nowhere else for a Soviet person to get ideas about his own dignity and rights. And in the zone there is a receiver "Only Moscow radio transmits! So, where from? And it is she, the malicious Velikanova, who is spoiling us! Moreover, she is older than everyone else and, of course, for us - the second dissident generation - an authority on controversial issues."(Poet, from the book "The Gray Color of Hope")
Ivan Tolstoy:
This is what famous human rights activists said and say about Tatyana Velikanova. I took these quotes from Christina Gorelick's program five years ago.
Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova was born on February 3, 1932, graduated from Moscow University in Mechanics and Mathematics in 1954, and worked as a teacher in a rural school in the Urals. Since 1957 she lived in Moscow, working as a programmer in a computer center. In 1969, she became one of the founding members of the first human rights organization in the Soviet Union, the Initiative Group for the Protection of Human Rights in the USSR. In 1970, Velikanova took on organizational functions in the preparation of “Chronicles of Current Events.” In May 1974, Velikanova, Sergei Kovalev and Tatyana Khodorovich began distributing the Chronicle. Arrested in 1979, sentenced to 4 years in Mordovian camps and 5 years in exile. Returned to Moscow in 1987. This is the outer outline of Tatyana Velikanova’s biography, and it will never replace human words, human assessment. Here is a fragment from the memoirs of a doctor and public figure Leonard Ternovsky:
Little by little I learned that Tatyana was a programmer by profession, graduated from Moscow State University, and once taught at school. She is a year and a half older than me, she has two daughters and a son. What was it like for her, without Kostya, who was exiled “to the Komi Republic,” to “pull out” three teenagers alone?! But she did not dissuade Kostya when he said that he would go to a demonstration against our occupation of Czechoslovakia. She respected his decision, understood that he considered it his duty to speak out and not remain silent. Tatyana also came to the square. And there, “on the fatal square,” she managed to endure the unbearable: to resist, not to scream, not to rush to the rescue when the KGB pogromists kicked the sitting demonstrators. Because she understood that she had to see everything, remember it and then tell it so that the world would know the truth, how everything really happened.
...I first came to their apartment on Krasikova Street in December 1970, on the memorable day of Konstantin Babitsky’s return from exile. On the eve of his release, Kostya slipped and broke his ankle. And someone suggested that, as a radiologist, I should consult the image. I walked straight into a feast. I still looked at the picture, although I didn’t have time to take a picture then...
Arrests, camp sentences, and indefinite imprisonment in “psychiatric hospitals” over and over again drove people out of the group. Until the end of 69, after Henrikh Altunyan and Vladimir Borisov, four more lost their freedom: Mustafa Dzhemilev, Anatoly Levitin-Krasnov, Viktor Krasin and Natalia Gorbanevskaya. Six - more than a third of the Initiative Group! - in about six months. If the arrests continued as thickly as they did, by the end of 1970 there would not have been a single member of the Initiative Group left in the wild. What to do? Should we replenish the Initiative Group with new people? But soon they will all be intercepted. And one day, thinking about this not so distant prospect, the members of the Initiative Group agreed: - We will not accept anyone else into the group. Let there be fewer and fewer of us - ten, nine, eight... three, two, one... The Initiative Group will cease to exist when the last one is arrested. The group followed this decision (with one exception - I will talk about this later) until the very end.
By 1976, after many ups and downs and losses, only three “actual members” remained in the Initiative Group: Tatyana Velikanova, Grigory Podyapolsky and Tatyana Khodorovich. On March 9, Grisha (Podyapolsky) died of a stroke.
In an empty subway car, returning from a wake at one o'clock in the morning, I sat next to Tatyana Velikanova. Our once small acquaintance had by that time turned into a strong friendship.
“Two people are essentially no longer a group,” Tanya suddenly said.
Well, if so... after all, I have been thinking about this step for a long time and more than once. And he wanted to do it himself.
“I could join the group,” I said.
Tanya was silent. “We decided not to expand its composition any further,” she replied.
A few days later I tried again to “woo” the group. When I met Tatyana Khodorovich, I repeated my proposal to her. Alas, the last executors of the Initiative Group chose to remain the last. Having told me about this, Tatyana Sergeevna suddenly added, and I still remember with gratitude her words: “And I would go with you to the same group!”
...And now, under the banner of the Initiative Group, there are only two Tatyanas. They continue their dangerous human rights work: collecting information about persecution for convictions, for faith, for the intention to leave the country; about the struggle of prisoners of conscience for their rights in camps and “psychiatric hospitals.” All information must be somehow verified and then placed in the Chronicle. And be able to preserve the “Chronicle” itself, and prevent the KGB bloodhounds from tracking down those who edit and type this crime. And then we need to give the finished numbers to foreign correspondents at a press conference.
And we need to help, give shelter to the wives and mothers of political prisoners who are going to visit them. And the cramped apartments of both Tatianas then turn into transit hostels.
And there are events and reasons to which you need to respond and speak out yourself, express your own attitude towards them: political hunger strikes in the Vladimir prison, new cases of psychiatric repression, an explosion in the Moscow metro. True, now the Initiative Group is not alone: in May 1976, the younger sister of the Initiative Group, the Moscow Helsinki Group, was born and is already actively operating.
And on joint documents next to the signatures of the IGC members there is:
""From the Initiative Group: T. Velikanova, T. Khodorovich."
They understand well that the only reward for them can only be many years of captivity, that if not today, then in a month, in a year, both of them, like their friends, will certainly be imprisoned.
In November 1977, Tatyana Khodorovich was forced to emigrate to France. From then on, Tatyana Velikanova remained the only person who stubbornly continued to sign human rights letters as “a member of the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights.”
Tatyana was captured on November 1, 1979, and her arrest made obvious the authorities’ intention to completely crush any opposition in the country.
True, they took Tatyana not the last one from the initial list of the Initiative Group. A. Lavut remained at large for another six months. But while continuing to be an active human rights activist, Sasha has not signed letters as a member of the Initiative Group for a long time, already six years; His signature on the group’s documents has appeared more than once since then, but only in the list of “supporters.”
On August 27-29, 1980, the Moscow City Court heard the “case” of Tatyana Velikanova. It is known that a political court in the Soviet Union is just a performance with a pre-written script and a predetermined ending. This court does not need - and even hates! - truth; his task is to cover up blatant lawlessness with a veil of decency. Tatyana was convinced of this with dozens of examples. And she did not want to participate in an unworthy action. She sat in the courtroom calmly and freely, but did not answer any questions. She refused even the last word. And only after the verdict was announced (4 years in a maximum security camp and 5 years in exile) she said: “The farce is over.”
Tatyana Velikanova stood at the beginning, at the cradle of the Initiative Group. And that’s how her story ended.
Ivan Tolstoy: This is how the doctor and public figure Leonard Ternovsky recalled in his memoir book “The Released Word”. Another piece of evidence about Tatyana Mikhailovna is audio. Yuliy Kim, excerpt from Kristina Gorelik’s program “Freedom Road” 2007.
Of course, my wife Ira would say the best thing about Tatyana Mikhailovna, may she rest in heaven, they loved each other very much. Ira worked with her for a long time, even in those dark times when, it would seem, the dissident movement had faded away. I mean the beginning of the 80s, when Andropov carried out a broad, almost secret imprisonment of dissidents against the backdrop of the Afghan war, when Sakharov was exiled, and so on, and so on.
What can I say? When they say that Tatyana Mikhailovna is the absolute expression of that Russian intellectual of the 70s, who was engaged in human rights activities in conditions of the severe risk of being fired or expelled abroad, or imprisoned, or even simply killed or buried alive, as it happened with Tolya Marchenko. And she took this risk and she passed all these tests with utmost dignity. I repeat all this after everyone who remembers Tatyana Mikhailovna, because this is a fact, because this is the first thing I immediately want to say about her.
What else could I possibly add? Probably that's it. When they talk about human rights activists, about our dissidents, quite often questions are heard from the outside: what have you achieved, what did you run into as a result of your struggle, how do you like it all? That is, the current situation is seen as the goal that our dissidents were striving for. I always categorically disagree with this. Because as soon as perestroika came and after that the so-called democratic period began, the historical mission of our dissidents ended, I emphasize this. There were no more dissidents. They became human rights activists, someone continued their activities in the political or social field, that’s how Lyuda Alekseeva or like Valeria Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya, or like Seryozha Kovalev, who for some time was the municipality, and our other former dissidents really found their place in the new life, in some kind of political, social, civic activity. And Tatyana Mikhailovna went to school. It was a wonderful and completely organic extension of her civic service to the community.
The fact is that the mission of our dissidents was, as it seems to me, this: they exercised freedom of speech in conditions of a complete ban on this freedom. They carried it out in person, risking their freedom or their lives. This was the peculiarity of their actions and their special heroism. The impulse for this was civic conscience or simply human conscience, absolute disagreement with the totalitarian ban on expressing one's thoughts.
And our society responded to this in different ways. Artists tried to create as freely as possible; there was a so-called underground in our culture and literature, and in painting, and so on. But in political statements, direct criticism of the government, here only dissidents participated, who thereby clearly went for the article.
It was an impulse of conscience, and Tatyana Mikhailovna was the absolute expression.
And when already under Gorbachev a very high level of glasnost was achieved, and already under Yeltsin it reached its peak, the historical mission of dissidents ended and then each of us applied his own where he found it, where most of all some place in the new life corresponded to his inner personal needs. Here Tatyana Mikhailovna found herself at school, someone went abroad, someone, like, say, Leonard Ternovsky, continued his medical activity, and so on.
But, of course, as a person, Tanya Velikanova occupies her special place. I have always said that I especially bow my head and take off my hat when I think about the participation of women in this worthy and heroic human rights cause, and first of all I mentioned the names of Tatyana Velikanova, Larisa Bogoraz, Nina Lisovskaya, Sofia Vasilyevna Kalistratova, first of all queue. And I have a song, which, however, is dedicated specifically to our lawyers, who were engaged in their, how can I put it, heroic and completely hopeless defense of our dissidents. Hopeless in terms of real results. And the resonance was enormous. And practically of course it was impossible to achieve any benefits for dissidents. And few of our lawyers especially did this, and I dedicated the song “Lawyer’s Waltz” to two of them, Sofya Vasilyevna Kalistratova and Dina Isaakovna Kaminskaya, and Tanya Velikanova loved this waltz very much. Let it be heard in today's program.
Of course, efforts are in vain
And nothing can be drilled into them:
Objects are meaningless to them,
And white is just black.
The judge and the prosecutor
I don’t care about the detailed analysis -
They just want to cover it up with conversation
The verdict is already ready.
Most likely, you just need
Ask for a representative court
Give less per hundred and ninetieth,
Than what, of course, they will give.
Where does hunting come from?
Excitement, genuine passion
To prove something to machines
Should the authorities adjust their power?
Serious adult judges
Gray hair, wrinkles, family...
What kind of weapons are these?
People just like me!
Because my truth is obvious,
After all, you can see white threads!
After all, people should be ashamed
Send them to Siberia for the truth!
Oh, right Russian word -
A ray of light in a pitch-black night!
And everything will always be bad,
And yet you sound forever!
And yet you sound forever!
Ivan Tolstoy: To the 60th anniversary of Tatyana Mikhailovna - from Vladimir Baburin’s program “Man Has the Right”, February 6, 2002. Speech by Alexander Lavut.
Well, in general, everyone who is more or less interested in this knows about Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova as a dissident - one of the first. But less people know her, so to speak, professional activities. She is a wonderful mathematician and programmer. And for the last ten, no, maybe even twelve years, she has been a teacher at school.
And very few people know that when she had to leave the computer center where she worked, but not work at all, in the usual sense, she could not, she worked for several months, almost before her arrest, as a nanny in a hospital.
Yes, here she is - a very integral person, and not only that she is a programmer, a dissident, almost an underground worker and something else, in everything she does the same thing - she does what is needed, without any , so to speak, violence against oneself. This is what she needs. She needed to make the Chronicle because she needed people to know about all the outrages that were happening. We need to teach children mathematics.
In a way, it's easy for her. Although she didn’t do anything so easily, everything was done very, I won’t say difficult, but really with such difficulty. And everything always worked out well.
I think mainly it's the attitude towards people. To say she’s a kind person would be correct, but that’s, well, not quite right, she’s kind, but not at all kind. Her students, who simply love her, it’s not enough to say, for them there is simply no higher authority, I mean schoolchildren, know well that she is not kind.
When we made the Chronicle, it means that Tanya became the main person releasing the Chronicle.
She had done a lot of work before that, but after Kovalev’s arrest, that is, since 1975, she took upon herself what she thought she could do better. She was like that - of course, there were no positions, of course - she was such a director. She made sure it all worked.
“Chronicle” each issue was finally done by not so many people, three or four people, but many more took part in this, helped with a variety of things. And, mostly, these were Tanya’s friends.
She could find a “clean” apartment, so to speak. If she asked someone, they didn’t refuse her, because they knew: If Tanya asks, it means she really needs it. And at the same time, she did everything to ensure that these people did not suffer in any way.
Well, “clean” - because, of course, it was impossible to talk in any of our apartments; it was all bugged through and through. And now to collect everything that each of these three or four did, and make, so to speak, a number - here we already had to talk.
I knew her precisely as the director and, like her current schoolchildren, I got into trouble a lot, mainly because of deadlines.
What else can you say in such a short sentence?... Well, when we celebrated her anniversary this Sunday, her brother Kirill said something that, even though I’ve known Tanya for a long time, somehow I’ve never heard before. He remembered that they had a great-grandmother in the stagnant 70s, as Kirill joked, in the 19th century, she, therefore, became a rural teacher, she was a populist, but not at all a bomb thrower. And from her great-grandmother, she says, Tanya inherited a lot. Genes matter too. And considering that Tanya now has 14 grandchildren, we can hope that there will be more good people.
Ivan Tolstoy: Speech by Alexander Lavut for the 60th anniversary of Tatyana Velikanova, February 6, 2002. Irina Ratushinskaya wrote about Velikanova’s courageous and principled behavior in the zone in her memoirs “The Gray Color of Hope.”
At the same time, Velikanova gave birth to a tradition that was followed until the end of the zone’s existence by those who came after her. Its essence was to prevent the authorities from demonstrably mocking one of the prisoners for the edification and fear of others. The countermeasures were simple: if someone was sent to a punishment cell, that is, to torture with cold and hunger, which really cripples a person, the entire zone went on strike, and if a sick person was sent there, then a hunger strike until she was returned back to the zone . This method gave the impression that a strike in the camp was already an emergency, which was being investigated by the prosecutor's office. A collective hunger strike is an even greater emergency. And besides, you can’t starve one to death, this could be easily done by adding prison terms, you will have to report on the death of all prisoners at once, and this is too much. Such a system of mutual protection greatly justified itself in the later Andropov-Gorbachev times. Everyone in the small zone survived, although it was very difficult for everyone. In other political zones, the mortality rate at that time was quite impressive."
Ivan Tolstoy: In 1981, the American Mark Rothko Foundation presented the prize to a group of human rights activists from around the world. Among them was Tatyana Velikanova, who was then in the Mordovian camp. This is how human rights activist Pavel Litvinov, who was in the United States, spoke about this award. Radio Liberty broadcast on June 25, 1981.
Pavel Litvinov: The Truth and Freedom Prizes, or as they were called, the Rothko Foundation Prizes, are named after the American artist Mark Rothko, who designed the temple in which they are awarded. They were awarded for the first time last Saturday, on the 10th anniversary of the opening of this temple in Houston, Texas. I would rather say this in the words of the founder of the temple and the Rothko Foundation, who led these Prizes. This is a well-known American philanthropist, a former participant in the French Resistance against the German occupation of France, Mrs. Dominique Domenil:
""The Temple and the Prizes do not belong to any one religion separately, but to all together. They are dedicated to honesty, justice and compassion, and are given to people who suffer the suffering of others, despite torture, prison, starvation and death threats. And these Awards are dedicated to people from all over the world who refuse to bow in the face of hypocrisy, false truths and inflated authorities."
This is 10 thousand dollars, and these 10 thousand dollars were given to those awarded who were present there in the form of a check. And the three awarded - Tatyana Velikanova, Balis Gayauskas, and a South African journalist - they, for obvious reasons, could not attend, because they are in prison in their countries. Their rewards are deposited in the bank by the Foundation itself and they will be given to those people or whatever those people decide will be done with them. We are trying to contact Tanya Velikanova and find out what she considers necessary to do with this money.
Ivan Tolstoy: When Tatyana Mikhailovna died in September 2002, our St. Petersburg colleague Viktor Rezunkov spoke at the memorial program.
Victor Rezunkov
: There are unforgettable meetings in life, the memory of which remains forever. I met Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova in the spring, it seems, of 1985. I say “it seems” because the time when perestroika began was rushing like a hurricane, and now, if you look back, everything is mixed up - years, people, events. But the memory of some meetings, I repeat, remains forever.
Under the scorching Kazakh sun, a short, thin woman with glasses stood on the platform of the small steppe village of Beineu. She smiled, she rejoiced at the guests. I was only an escort. I was responsible for delivering heavy things, including a huge air conditioner, but even this role then, almost 20 years ago, caused me great delight. Why - to exile, to a real political prisoner, to a dissident, publisher of the Chronicle of Current Events, and associate of Andrei Sakharov! I looked at Tatyana Mikhailovna with all my eyes. For three days, while we were in Beineu, I tried to understand how such a fragile woman could resist the Soviet of Deputies, which, like a scorched desert, surrounded everyone, silently, lifelessly and, it seemed, forever. Now I’ll answer, almost 20 years later, I still don’t understand what the strength and courage of this woman is.
Even in exile, the authorities were afraid of her. First, they were sent to the Caspian town of Shetpe, then transferred to Tauchek, and in the fall of 1984 to Beineu. And in all these God-forgotten places where Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova worked as an accountant with all her characteristic responsibility, friends came to her. Of course, the authorities did not like this very much, to put it mildly. Openness in outlook, conviction that one is right, demanding of oneself and of others - this is what I remember then, during our first meeting. No pathos, no loud slogans - God forbid! Only actions and faith, deep conviction that one is right.
Neither the camp nor the exile broke Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova. They couldn't break it. When the exile came to an end, she refused to sign the decree pardoning her. The authorities were forced to almost forcefully return her to Moscow. But that was later, and for me, who had already recognized this man, such an act was yet another evidence of an unbending will.
And the merciless sun, the endless steppe, camels and the smile of a short woman with glasses remained in my memory forever. Forever.
Ivan Tolstoy: Why did everyone love Tatyana Mikhailovna unconditionally? The historian of the human rights movement, Alexander Daniel, reflects.
Alexander Daniel: Yes, you know, I really don’t know, perhaps I don’t know people who would treat Tanya in any way bad. And he’s a very good person, I’ll put it simply. Can I not come up with any of these philosophical formulas? A very good person. I can tell you a short story, or maybe even not a very short one. In 1992, the St. Petersburg “Memorial” organized such a meeting of political prisoners of the Soviet period near St. Petersburg, in Repino. It was quite difficult to drag Tanya to this meeting, it was almost like a scandal. “Why,” he says, “my notebooks are not checked, my students have tests on their noses.” But somehow they persuaded her.
And so we go from St. Petersburg to Repino by train, and I start telling her something about our memorial affairs, about this, about that, about some problems, something related to politics, I don’t remember anymore What. She listens to me so attentively, says: “Yes, you know, I have problems too, but I don’t know how I can properly explain to my schoolchildren how a prefix differs from a suffix. So I explain to them this way, but I don’t like it explanation. But another explanation seems to be better, but not as scientific." I want to say that there was no acting, no posturing in this for a penny. Having returned from exile, already in Gorbachev’s time, she said quite firmly that she had worked her way through social, civic activity, as they say, and that now there was no longer that critical situation. It was needed then.
Ivan Tolstoy: Alexander Daniel. Performance in the program of Christina Gorelik in 2007.
Andrey Gavrilov: In 1987, as you and I, Ivan, said, Tatyana Velikanova returned from exile and began working at the school. By the way, before her arrest, she did not work at school, she was an engineer, she worked at a research institute, then, before her arrest, because of the wolf ticket, she lost this job, she worked as a nanny. And, in general, she came to school somewhat unexpectedly, as far as I can judge from the memories of contemporaries and friends. She taught mathematics at Moscow school No. 57. She stated that her political activity had ended because the political situation had changed and she could now devote herself entirely to the children whom she raised at this school. However, as often happens with human rights activists, dissidents or simply honest, decent people, a new change in the situation led to the fact that she had to turn to politics again. On January 25, 2000, Tatyana Velikanova, together with Leonid Batkin, Valeria Novodvorskaya, Elena Bonner, Yuri Samodurov and many others, signed the so-called “Declaration of the Twelve Words.” I don't know if there has been a more concise political document in our history. I'll read it in its entirety now.
""Declaration of the Twelve Words"
Only democracy.
- Stop the war.
- Saving culture means saving Russia.
- Without Putin."
Ivan Tolstoy:
You know, Andrey, when you just talked about this declaration, consisting of twelve words, and about Tatyana Mikhailovna, who after her exile returned not to political or social activities, but returned to school, I thought that maybe here , in this very program about this very person, Tatyana Mikhailovna, perhaps my personal understanding of what we are doing this series about was born. What do I want to say?
Tatyana Mikhailovna was a real intellectual. In the word “intellectual,” I put, first of all, the meaning that was put into it at the end of the 19th century, not after the revolution in the Soviet Union, and even if after the revolution, then in emigration they continued that understanding of the intelligentsia and the activities of the intellectual, which originated thanks to the writer Boborykin - it is believed that he first introduced this term, although it came across before him, but, nevertheless, it somehow started and established itself from him. So, at the end of the 19th century, the word “intellectual” meant not at all cultured people, not at all an educated public, as they began to understand and impose on society after 1917 in our country. An “intellectual” was understood as a public figure, an activist, a person who is engaged in a third activity in addition to his personal life and career. When a person is engaged in social activities, and necessarily unselfishly, that is, without payment for his social work. As soon as a person enters a public committee, where he receives at least a secretarial salary, this, in the Russian understanding, in the Russian understanding of the late 19th century, is no longer an intellectual, he is already an official, albeit the most decent one, with wonderful ideas, with a pure heart. An intellectual is a person who serves selflessly. This, of course, includes opposition, but not necessarily. An intellectual in a sense is identical to a revolutionary, but only at certain stages, sometimes he is not revolutionary at all, but he always acts for the sake of society, not for his own benefit. That is why there is no self-interest in the actions of an intellectual in the classical, old sense of the word - sometimes an intellectual acts against his own interests.
All this was carried away into emigration. In emigration, from my point of view, the word “intellectual” was understood correctly; in Russia, for some reason, writers, cultural figures, and also simply people who received higher education - doctors, engineers, lawyers, art critics, and so on. They could be intellectuals, any of them could be an intellectual. But it might not have been. But among the intellectuals there could also be people of various professions, but these were always people who acted selflessly, in the name of the public good.
So, let's move on to what I wanted to say. Dissidents, absolutely all human rights activists, are real intellectuals, and when in Russia they say today, or at least yesterday they said that the intelligentsia in our country is dead, this is certainly not the case. Intellectuals are those who advocate the public good. By the way, from my point of view, on December 24 there were 120 thousand intellectuals on Sakharov Avenue. It was the birthday of the Russian intelligentsia, or the day of its rebirth, because all these people (at least those who were not standing on the podium) did not expect anything selfish from what was happening in the country. Of course, Bolotnaya can also be considered the birthday of the intelligentsia, then the 24th is a christening.
Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova was an intellectual in her purest form, and she returned or came to school (it seems that before her arrest in the early 60s she managed to work a little at some school), after being freed from exile she went to work to school, that is, she returned to the intellectual environment from which she came, from which she actually never left, of course, but this is her non-participation in new forms of public service, in those forms where success was expected, where remuneration was expected, where busking, a platform, a presidium, glory, reward according to deserts were expected - from all this she, like a true intellectual, turned her gaze away.
I don’t want to say that those people who continued the public human rights struggle in the USSR, and then in Russia, were people of selfish interests. No. But Tatyana Mikhailovna behaved like a true intellectual.
Finally, I have come to the point that I would like to talk about. It seems to me, Andrey, that in our “Alphabet of Dissent” we select not just anyone but intellectuals as the heroes of our program. Our series is about the intelligentsia.
Andrey Gavrilov:
You know, Ivan, a very interesting idea regarding the fact that people did not gather on Sakharov Avenue for the sake of self-interest was very well demonstrated by those elderly women who walked inside the crowd, handing out free pies and cheesecakes they had baked to everyone. Moreover, it was clear that these were homemade baked goods, and not store-bought. Although if it were purchased, there wouldn’t be much difference. It really was like that.
As for your conversation about the meaning of the word “intelligentsia,” I was once struck by the fact that during the short time of the dismemberment of Germany after the Second World War, different words appeared in East and West Germany to denote the same subject. It would seem that both there and there were German, but somehow development got sidetracked and the language followed it. So, maybe the whole point is that we have somehow confused two phenomena - “intelligence” as a character property or, rather, a property of the soul, and “intelligentsia” as belonging to a social stratum. And it was not for nothing that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the great tactician and strategist, immediately called the intelligentsia a stratum, thereby leading it out of some kind of moral cloud, the moral world, into the world of socio-socio-economic relations. The blow was delivered masterfully, and here we have what we have.
I would also add, and it seems to me that this fully applies to the heroine of our story today, that for me one of the most important qualities of an intelligent person is the ability to compassion, empathy for others (oh, this is a well-worn phrase, but - mercy to fallen). And Tatyana Velikanova, from my point of view, absolutely corresponded to this concept of compassion, sympathy was developed in her as much as an iron will (by the way, it was not for nothing that she was nicknamed “the iron lady” and “the director of the Chronicle”) , intransigence towards power... It is difficult to list all her qualities.
When Tatyana Velikanova was arrested, the Committee for the Defense of Tatyana Velikanova was formed in Moscow, which included Larisa Bogoraz, Elena Bonner, Sofya Kalistratova, Lev Kopelev and others. The Committee collected and disseminated all available information about the Velikanova case, publishing it in special bulletins. In two issues, 27 letters were published in defense of Velikanova, signed by almost 500 people. By the way, Sakharov, Bonner, Pomerants, writers Voinovich, Vladimov spoke separately in defense of Velikanova. In such collections of documents, such as the one published by the Velikanova Defense Committee, of course, the main place is occupied by documentary evidence, and it is absolutely incredible that poetry could appear there. However, in the second issue, poems by Vladimir Kornilov appeared. Poem "Velikanova was arrested."
She was so feminine
So beautiful and gray,
So not natural here,
It's like a living saint!
Not retrograde, not left,
Without condemning anyone's sin,
Doing my simple task,
She was for no one - for everyone!
Glory to Russia - Velikanov! -
Told again that there is
Besides the fear of the damned
Dedication and honor.
Introduction
Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova(February 3, 1932 - September 19, 2002, Moscow, Russia) - Soviet dissident, participant in the human rights movement in the USSR, one of the founding members of the first human rights organization in the Soviet Union, the Initiative Group for the Protection of Human Rights in the USSR.
1. Biography
In 1954, Velikanova graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University and worked as a teacher in a rural school in the Urals. Since 1957 in Moscow, employee of a computer center, programmer.
Velikanova's husband, linguist Konstantin Babitsky, was among seven participants in the protest against the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia on August 25, 1968, and was exiled for 3 years in the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
In 1969, Velikanova became one of the founding members of the first human rights organization in the USSR, the Initiative Group for the Protection of Human Rights in the USSR. In 1970, Velikanova took on the main organizational functions in the preparation of the main periodical of Soviet human rights activists, “Chronicle of Current Events,” a typewritten newsletter published since 1968. Over nine years, under her leadership, about thirty issues of the “Chronicle” were published. In May 1974, T. Velikanova, S. Kovalev and T. Khodorovich openly took responsibility for distributing this publication.
On November 1, 1979, Tatyana Velikanova was arrested on charges of “anti-Soviet propaganda.” In August 1980, the Moscow City Court sentenced her to 4 years in prison and 5 years in exile. She served her imprisonment in Mordovia, and exile in Western Kazakhstan (Mangyshlak region). Velikanova’s stay in prison is described in the story “Gray is the Color of Hope” by Irina Ratushinskaya.
Notes
- Irina Ratushinskaya. Gray is the color of hope - lib.ru/MEMUARY/RATUSHINSKAYA/ratush_gch.txt. Overseas Publications Interchange Ltd. 1989; ISBN 1 870128 41 9
- Velikanova T. M. In primary and secondary schools there is only mathematics - sch57.msk.ru/collect/velik.htm. - Methodological collection of school 57
This abstract is based on an article from Russian Wikipedia. Synchronization completed 07/14/11 19:27:56
Similar abstracts: Tatyana Mikhailovna, Krasovskaya Tatyana Mikhailovna, Mushinskaya Tatyana Mikhailovna, Vecheslova Tatyana Mikhailovna, Lioznova Tatyana Mikhailovna, Chausova Tatyana Mikhailovna, Ivinskaya Tatyana Mikhailovna, Karpova Tatyana Mikhailovna.
Categories: Personalities in alphabetical order, Repressed in the USSR,
