[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 148 (Friday, August 20, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E908]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE PASSING OF SERGEI KOVALEV
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HON. STEVE COHEN
of tennessee
in the house of representatives
Friday, August 20, 2021
Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, I rise today as the Co-Chairman of the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki
Commission) to remember the great Russian human rights activist Sergei
Kovalev and to include in the Record an opinion column by Vladimir
Kara-Murza from Wednesday's Washington Post.
MOSCOW--``Our opposition was not political; it was moral
incompatibility with the regime,'' Sergei Kovalev, a leading
figure in the Soviet dissident movement, explained in an
interview for a documentary I made in the early 2000s. ``At
some point you realize that it is shameful to remain
silent.''
Last week, Kovalev died in his sleep at the age of 91. His
funeral on Friday was attended by thousands of Muscovites who
filed past his casket at the Sakharov Center, an institution
named for his friend and mentor, Andrei Sakharov, and
designated by Vladimir Putin's government as a ``foreign
agent.'' Several Western countries sent their diplomats to
pay respects. No Russian government official attended.
Perhaps it was better this way. I doubt Kovalev would have
appreciated hypocritical gestures of condolence from a regime
led by a KGB officer who has brought back many of the
authoritarian practices Kovalev spent his life fighting.
Like many in the Soviet dissident movement, Kovalev joined
the human rights struggle from the academic world. A
successful biophysicist and head of a laboratory section at
Moscow State University, he had a PhD and more than 60
research papers to his name. But he could not remain silent
in the face of a resurgent totalitarianism of the Brezhnev
era that saw both domestic repression and aggressive
posturing abroad. For Kovalev, the defining moments were the
show trial of writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel and
the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, both in the second
half of the 1960s.
His activism brought his scientific career to an end, of
course. From then on, Kovalev dedicated his life to
documenting, publicizing and confronting abuses committed by
his government against his fellow citizens. A founding member
of the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in
the USSR--the first human rights group in the country--and
the Moscow chapter of Amnesty International, Kovalev served
as the editor of the Chronicle of Current Events, the
samizdat news bulletin that reported on human rights
violations throughout the Soviet Union. During Kovalev's
subsequent trial on charges of ``anti-Soviet agitation,'' the
KGB tried to prove the slanderous nature of the Chronicle's
reporting--but ended up confirming its accuracy. Not that it
changed the outcome: Kovalev was sentenced to seven years of
imprisonment followed by three years in internal exile. His
trial was held behind closed doors with a preselected
``audience.'' Sakharov tried, unsuccessfully, to enter the
courtroom and ended up standing outside the door throughout
the trial. At the very same time, in Oslo, Sakharov's wife,
Elena Bonner, was accepting his Nobel Peace Prize, which he
dedicated to ``all prisoners of conscience in the Soviet
Union and in other Eastern European countries''--including
Kovalev, whom he mentioned by name.
The collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe saw
many former dissidents go into politics to help steer their
countries toward democracy. Poland's Lech Walesa and
Czechoslovakia's Vaclav Havel were only the best-known
examples. In Russia, to its chagrin, this was more the
exception than the norm--but Sergei Kovalev was among those
exceptions. Four times he was elected to the Russian
parliament. He was also Russia's first human rights
ombudsman, co-wrote the human rights clauses in the
constitution and served as Russia's representative on the
U.N. Human Rights Commission and the Parliamentary Assembly
of the Council of Europe.
Throughout it all, he stayed true to the principles that
had defined his dissident period. He sought to make politics
moral and never compromised his conscience. With the start of
Russia's military campaign in Chechnya, he tried to use his
position to prevent bloodshed--including by personally
leading negotiations that saved the lives of more than 1,500
hostages during a terrorist siege in the summer of 1995. But
while President Boris Yeltsin had genuine respect for
Kovalev, he chose advice from elsewhere. When it became clear
that the war would not stop, Kovalev resigned his official
positions and sent Yeltsin a sharply worded open letter. The
president responded personally, thanking Kovalev for his
service and expressing sympathy for his motivation. This was
a different Russia.
Kovalev spent the last part of his life as he did the
first: in opposition to a regime increasingly intolerant of
domestic dissent and increasingly aggressive toward others.
While Russia still had a real parliament, Kovalev remained a
member--voting against Putin's confirmation as prime minister
in 1999 and warning of a coming ``authoritarian police state
led by . . . the well-preserved Soviet security services'' in
early 2000. That was a time when many in Russia and in the
West were still harboring illusions about Putin. When legal
opposition politics became all but impossible, Kovalev
returned to being what he knew best, a dissident. His last
public appearance, earlier this year, was at a virtual event
commemorating Sakharov's centennial.
Kovalev described himself as an idealist--an indispensable
quality in a seemingly hopeless struggle against a ruthless
authoritarian system. The main lesson from Kovalev and his
fellow dissidents was that one can choose not to remain
silent even in the most difficult circumstances. And that, in
the end, the struggle might not be as hopeless as it seems.'
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