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Contact this address to reply: [log in to unmask] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Josephine von Zitzewitz" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 5:51 PM Subject: Chronicle of Current Events / Memorial Moscow I've been doing this for about a year and found it taught me a lot about history and research methods. Any queries, please get in touch with me. Josephine ........................................................................... Volunteers Wanted The Research Centre "Memorial" and the East European Institute (Germany) are preparing a scholarly edition of the "Chronicle of Current Events" The "Chronicle of Current Events" is a newsletter that was published by Moscow human rights activists between 1968 and 1982. Being the only unofficial chronicle of the later decades of the USSR, it is a unique source for the study of a totalitarian state in which even strictly confidential documents were tainted with ideology. Besides the Chronicle documents how the West became acquainted with the Soviet dissident movement and how human rights turned into a key issue in international relations. The Chronicle records the dissidents' hope that the interest Western politics took in them would help their cause, but also how they fell victim to political calculations. In this context, the most valuable testimony of the Chronicle are probably the examples of solidarity with colleagues who were persecuted in the USSR - writers, artists, physicists, mathematicians, historians and human rights activists ensured that the Soviet authorities' actions against dissidents did not go unnoticed. It is well possible that it were ordinary values, such as creative freedom, respect for the rights of the individual and, ultimately, sympathy and compassion that helped overcome many prejudices and stereotypes that were common not only in the USSR. The "Chronicle" contains an impressive amount of information, which is all the more astonishing given that it was compiled in the pre-computer age. More than 12,000 names feature in the over 60 issues of the "Chronicle", among them numerous Western scholars, artists, NGO-activists, journalists, religious figures and politicians. The newsletter published short summaries of translated foreign journalism and literature that were being circulated in samizdat. It refers many publications in the Western mass media, as well as hundreds of international and foreign institutions, governmental as well as independent. The publishers offer students of the humanities to explore this very rich historical material and to contribute to a current research project. We invite you to participate in the compilation of the bibliographical and biographical commentary on citizens of Western countries, emigrants from the USSR (to the present day it remains unknown how some of them managed to cross the Soviet border), Western institutions and individual texts. This does not mean that the opportunities for contribution are necessarily limited to what could be called "The Chronicle and the West". We are happy to consider cooperation with people who are interested in different aspects of 20th century history that are relevant to the "Chronicle", such as the history of Soviet underground culture, human rights, religious and national movements in the USSR etc. Knowledge of Russian would be an advantage, and the project can be good practice for students of Russian, but it is also possible to correspond in English. [log in to unmask] Tel +7 095 2097883 (Moscow) Contact: Yulia Vsevolodovna (13:00- 15:00, except weekend, please consider that Russia is three hours ahead!)