[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 132 (Monday, October 4, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2019-E2020]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             ON THE PASSING OF ACADEMICIAN DMITRI LIKHACHEV

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, October 4, 1999

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, today the Russian people are 
mourning the passing of one of their most respected citizens and 
renowned scholars. Academician Dmitri Likhachev has passed away at the 
age of ninety-two. He was, in the words of the distinguished historian 
of Russia and Librarian of Congress Dr. James Billington, ``an 
extraordinary human being, a person of great moral integrity.''
  Academician Likhachev epitomized what Russia has endured in this 
century. Born in 1906 in St. Petersburg, as a university student he was 
sent to the brutal Solovki labor camps established by Lenin to deal 
with ``counter-revolutionaries.'' Later he was condemned with hundreds 
of thousands of other prisoners to dig Stalin's infamous White Sea 
Canal, the first major forced labor project of the Soviet period. 
During World War II, he survived the 900-day siege of his native city, 
renamed Leningrad.
  Through all the deprivations and hardships of Soviet Russia, Dmitri 
Likhachev pursued his studies in medieval literature, ultimately 
becoming Russia's foremost literary and cultural historian. In 1970, he 
became a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. When the Academy 
voted to expel dissident scientist Academician Andrei Sakharov from its 
ranks, Academician Likhachev was one of the few to defend Sakharov 
openly and vote against expulsion. Soon afterward, he barely escaped an 
attempt on his life.
  After the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia regained its 
independence, Academician

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Likhachev became prominent for his defense of Russian culture. He 
helped preserve many architectural monuments in St. Petersburg, and 
lobbied the Russian Government to finance a television channel devoted 
to culture.
  However, it was not only the physical destruction of his homeland 
that concerned Academician Likhachev. He condemned the moral wasteland 
left by seventy years of communism. ``Like other members of the Russian 
intelligencia,'' wrote the New York Times, ``Likhachev was deeply 
disappointed by the violence, greed and vulgarity that surfaced in 
Russian society after the fall of communism.'' Without overcoming the 
perverted morality created by communist rule, he warned, Russia could 
fall prey to an irrational demagoguery that could threaten the entire 
world.
  With his love of country, combined with tolerance and reason, I 
believe Academician Likhachev embodied ``Russian nationalism'' in the 
best sense of the word. May his example and his ideas thrive in Russia 
of the 21st century.

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