USSR: Yuri Tarnopolsky

Abstract

A letter from imprisoned Jewish academic Yuri Tarnopolsky, dated April 1984, to his wife in Kharkov has been printed in Circular No 31 of the London-based organisation Women's Campaign for Soviet Jewry. Tarnopolsky (47), who has a degree in organic chemistry, was sentenced in June 1983 to three years' labour camp for allegedly ‘slandering the Soviet state’. He had been active in the ‘refusenik’ university and in educating children of ‘refuseniks’ (Jews who have had their applications for emigration refused in the Soviet Union). We print below portions of his letter to his wife.