Letter of ninety nine

Alexander Yesenin-Volpin was an active dissident. Since 1949, he was repeatedly arrested by state security agencies and forcibly placed in psychiatric medical institutions. December 5, 1965, on Constitution Day, Alexander Sergeyevich organized a rally on Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow, demanding a public and open trial of writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Julius Daniel , arrested for publishing their books abroad. He was constantly monitored by the KGB . The KGB specifically insisted on preventing Esenin-Volpin from participating in the International Mathematical Congress in Moscow on August 16, 1966, for fear of transmitting information that was unpleasant for the authorities to foreign participants in the congress ^[1] .

On February 14, 1968, Alexander Yesenin-Volpin, "by order of the chief psychiatrist of Moscow," was forcibly hospitalized. In the Chronicle of Current Events, it was noted that hospitalization was illegal, since this type of medical care could only be prescribed by the court. In addition, the instruction “On the urgent hospitalization of mentally ill representing a public danger” was violated, because according to it, the relatives of the hospitalized were to be notified, and upon arrival at the hospital, a commission of three people should inspect the hospital within 24 hours. Neither one nor the other was done ^[2] .

Professor Dmitry Fuchs believes that the isolation of Yesenin-Volpin was timed to coincide with the approaching 15th anniversary of Stalin 's death (March 5) ^[3] . Professor Julius Ilyashenko writes that hospitalization was a response to Yesenin-Volpin’s demand that he be allowed to attend the trial of Daniel and Sinyavsky ^[4] .

Friends and colleagues of Yesenin-Volpin collected signatures by March 9 under an open letter of protest to the authorities, which became known as the “Letter of ninety-nine.” In fact, about 130 signatures were collected under the letter, but the version with the 99th was sent ^[5] .

According to the memoirs of Yulia Ilyashenko , among the organizers of the letter were Alexander Kronrod and Eugene Landis , and Israel Gelfand and Igor Shafarevich were the first to sign it ^[4] . The wife of dissident Gregory Podyapolsky, Maria, points out in her memoirs that “the idea of ​​writing such an open letter belongs to Irina Kristi, and Yuri Aichenwald designed the letter in literary form . Irina Kristi and Akiva Yaglom were the most active collectors of signatures ” ^[6] .

The letter was sent to the Minister of Health of the USSR, the Prosecutor General of the USSR, a copy - to the chief psychiatrist of Moscow. It was also published in the West (in particular, The New York Times and broadcast by Voice of America radio station ^[7] ).

The appeal, in particular, was signed by: academician Pyotr Novikov (Yesenin-Volpin was his graduate student ) ^[5] , corresponding members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Israel Gelfand , Lazar Lyusternik , Andrey Markov , Dmitry Menshov , Sergey Novikov , Igor Shafarevich , 31 doctor of physico-mathematical sciences and others.

After the collection of signatures, the letter was written in the letter: “Please send an answer to the address: Moscow-234, Lenin Hills, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, to the name of any of the signatories of this letter.” Sergei Novikov believes that this subscript exposed the mechmath of Moscow State University under the blow of the authorities, removing academic institutions from it ^[5] .

The leading Soviet mathematicians, academicians Andrei Kolmogorov and Pavel Alexandrov ^{[5] [7]} did not sign a collective letter, but sent similar letters on their own behalf.

On March 24, a statement protesting the actions of the authorities was released by Yesenin-Volpin's mother and wife. However, they noted that after the publication of “Letter 99” on March 16, Volpin was transferred to the calmer 32nd department of the Kashchenko Hospital at the Institute of Psychiatry of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR ^[1] .

On May 12, Yesenin-Volpin was discharged from a psychiatric hospital after three months of compulsory treatment ^[1] .

In Russia, the letter was first published (with a number of inaccuracies and 96 signatures) in the book “A. S. Yesenin-Volpin. Philosophy. Logics. Poetry. Protection of Human Rights: Selected ”in 1999 ^[8] .

The letter was a major milestone in the relationship between the Soviet authorities and the mathematical community ^[9] . Many of the signatories to the letter were repressed ^{[10] [11]} . So, academician Pyotr Novikov was fired from the post of head of the department at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute . The laboratory of Alexander Kronrod was dispersed at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics ^[12] . The doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, the laureate of the Stalin Prize Naum Meiman , the doctor of physical and mathematical sciences Isaak Yaglom , the teacher of mathematics at the philological faculty of Moscow University Yuri Shikhanovich and many others lost their jobs ^[6] .

The consequence of the letter was a change of leadership in Soviet mathematical science and education, primarily at Moscow State University . Vladimir Arnold called the signing of the letter an event that "turned the mathematical hierarchy in Russia" ^[9] . Ilyashenko calls subsequent events “the black 20th anniversary of the Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University” ^[4] .

Alexander Daniel and Victor Finn believe that the enforced hospitalization of Yesenin-Volpin and the struggle for his release "became a notable episode in the process of establishing a human rights movement in the USSR" ^[1] .

Subsequently, the action received mixed ratings from both participants in the events and researchers. So, professor Julius Ilyashenko wrote that when the letter was brought for signature to Academician Petr Kapitsa , he asked: “What do you want? Make noise or free Yesenin-Volpin? If released, then I will release it to you. If you make a fuss, then I'm not with you ”- and the letter was not signed ^[4] . Similar words are attributed to Vladimir Uspensky ^[5] .

Sergei Novikov claims in his memoirs that the letter was a KGB provocation, which became clear only years later. According to Novikov, the performer of this provocation was Yesenin-Volpin's girlfriend Irina Christie, although he does not exclude that she could be used “blindly” ^[5] .

• The use of psychiatry for political purposes in the USSR
• Anti-Semitism in Soviet Mathematics

• Letter 99 (unopened) . math.ru. Date of treatment July 23, 2013. Archived on September 5, 2013.
• The 35th anniversary of the first high-profile forced hospitalization for political reasons (neopr.) . Independent Psychiatric Journal (2003). Date of treatment July 23, 2013. Archived on August 29, 2013.
• Neretin Yu. There will be no Golden Age! (Moscow, March 9, 1968) . 03/09/2013
• Tsinman L. Adventures of an ordinary signatory after the “letter of 99 mathematicians” . 09/20/2014
• Letters from scientists on the website of the Institute of Economics and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences