Eduard Kuznetsov

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eduard Kuznetsov (Russian language: Эдуард Кузнецов; born in Moscow, 1939) is a Soviet dissident, human rights activist, and writer.

In 1961 Kuznetsov was arrested and served seven years in Soviet prisons for making political speeches in poetry readings at Mayakovsky Square in the center of Moscow and for publishing samizdat.

Campaign in support of Eduard Kuznetsov and other political prisoners

After his release he was one of the organizers of the Dymshits-Kuznetsov hijacking affair in May 1970 and was arrested for "high treason", punishable by death sentence. His capital punishment sentence was appealed and after international protests was replaced with fifteen years of incarceration. This affair has opened the doors of emigration to thousands of Soviet Jews.

In 1979 he and four other dissidents were exchanged for two Soviet spies arrested in the US. Kuznetsov immigrated to Israel. From 1983 to 1990 he was chief of the news department of the "Radio Liberty", from 1990 to 1999 he was a chief editor of Israeli newspaper "Вести" ("The News"), the most popular Russian language newspaper outside of Russia.

Eduard Kuznetsov is a member of the Pen Club and was widely published in European, US and Israeli media. He is an author of three novels: "Prison Diary", "Mordovian Marathon" (both written secretly in prison and smuggled abroad) and "Russian Romance", translated into many languages. In 1974, Kuznetsov's "Prison Diary" won the "Gulliver award" in France and was declared the best book written by foreign author.

In 2005 Kuznetsov participated in "They Chose Freedom", a four-part documentary on the Soviet dissident movement.