“The feeling of impenetrable darkness”: Sergei Grigoriant died

The modern reader will be familiar with this story of the reborn Sauron – that is, Voldemort. But Sergei Grigoriant did not look at all like a tall wizard with a long beard.

And it all started differently. Sergei Ivanovich was originally rather a man of culture and art, a Soviet intellectual.

Simple political case for 1975 – arrest, Article 190 “prim” for Sam – and Tamizdat (Current Events Chronicle wrote about it). The case was aggravated by “speculation”, in fact – the usual activity of an art collector, the sentence – five years. Some of the “siloviki” who worked on the case then decorated their homes with paintings from Sergei Ivanovich’s collection.

The general regime is not “sugar”, and Sergei Ivanovich was not a “man of steel”. Prison was not easy for him:…in the penal cell, and now, lying quietly on the bunk, I felt an almost constant pain in my heart. I suffered for five or six days, but then it was replaced by a feeling of boundless horror, a feeling of dark, impenetrable darkness that emerges from you and fills everything around you. This inner indescribable horror where the head seemed to be some absolutely black object somehow attached to the body…»

***

Sergei Grigoriant was released not as a man broken by prison, but as a true warrior. And in freedom, he was not limited to “culture and art” – for example, participation in the fate of Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov, who was rotting in a boarding school. His main business was now Bulletin B.

Towards the end of the 1970s, the aforementioned Chronicle was published less and less often and later and later. To somehow compensate for this, a more operational news publication was launched from 1980. “Production has begun” is too impersonal: the “V” in the title meant not only “Vesti”, but also “Vanya”, named after Ivan Kovalev, who started its publication. Kovalev was arrested in 1981. His place was taken by Alexei Smirnov, who was arrested in 1982. Both were recently mentioned in connection with the death of the Grigorian from the Antipodes, Gleb Pavlovsky, who testified against both. The prospects for their “replacement” were obvious.

Sergey Ivanovich took the “enforcement” post of the editor of Bulletin “V”. Arrested in 1983, the Grigoryants did not cooperate with the investigation. None of those who obtained information, reprinted and stored documents were taken: they were not found. It can be said that he is an example of a responsible attitude towards colleagues and a common cause. The maximum sentence is Article 70: 7 years with maximum security.

In this second “walker” for him, the attitude towards Sergei Ivanovich in Skalnin’s camps immediately showed a “special attitude.” Comrade Grigoriant, political prisoner Vyacheslav Dolinin writes: “I remember how he was brought to the Perm-37 camp. He never made it to our barracks. During the quarantine, he was placed in a penal cell, then transferred to the PKT, and then transported to Czystopol. There they sat until the “Gorbachev amnesty”“. Chistopol is a “cover”, a prison to which the most recalcitrant were sent.

In 1987, the Grigoriants were released under the “Gorbachev amnesty” and continued the work interrupted by the arrest: he created the news agency “Glasnost”, one of the first independent media. Many well-known journalists later started their work there “when it was still impossible”.

Then something like “this is possible” happened. In August 1991, Iron Felix was removed from Lubyanka Square, but for Sergei Grigoriant, this Carthage has not yet been destroyed. He was convinced of the need for lustration and in many respects he saw traces of Lubyanka around him. In the 90s, Sergei Ivanovich held conferences “KGB yesterday, today, tomorrow”, they laughed at him. And also over attempts to organize an “international tribunal for Chechnya.”

And then his prophecies began to come true.

***

In Russia of the “vile years”, Grigoriant saw no place for independent social activity, and behind the “managed democracy” he saw the same puppeteer. Sergei Ivanovich, like a submarine, went deep and “removed the periscope.” He wrote three books of memoirs published in 2018–2022. The view of the Soviet and Russian history of recent decades presented there was simple and logical: for half a century, the secret services conceived and carried out the “transition of power”, transferring Russia from hand to hand. This logical and simple answer to the “cursed questions” of Russian life will certainly find its addressees. Finally, thirty years later, Sergei Ivanovich’s fears became prophecies that came true. However, an attentive reader will notice significant simplifications in this picture of the world divided into “blacks” and “whites”. But that’s a separate conversation.

Sergey Grigoryants is the undoubted hero of the “bright side”. Unlike Frodo or Harry Potter, he did not see the fall of the power of Darkness.

But Sergei Ivanovich showed an example of perseverance in dark times. And now it is especially needed. They say the darkest time is before dawn.