ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT / MEDIA-RUSSIA: Index On Censorship – Post- Soviet Style

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

LONDON, Jul 29 1997 (IPS) - It all started in the winter of 1968 when a British poet read a copy of a letter in his daily paper, appealing to the international community to support three Soviet dissidents then appearing before a court in Moscow.

Larisa Bogoraz-Daniel and Pavel Litvinov had distributed the copies of the letter to foreign correspondents in Moscow in a desperately risky attempt to ensure that the ‘sham’ trial of the three won wider attention.

Acclaimed British poet Stephen Spender, sensing that politicians would delay action and thus place all involved in even deeper danger, won the support of sixteen well-known Western intellectuals and writers in a few hours. He then sent an urgent telegram of solidarity, signed by the 16, to Pavel and Larisa that same day.

“We, a group of friends representing no organisation,” the telegram read, “support your statement, admire your courage, think of you and will help in any way possible.” The signatories included Spender’s fellow poets Cecil Day-Lewis and W.H. Auden and classical music giants Igor Stravinsky and Yehudi Menuhin.

The telegram never reached them, though they did hear the text broadcast over by the BBC’s Russian Service, and Pavel subsequently lost his job on its account.

But the incident began a process that led to the founding in London in 1972 of the award winning magazine Index On Censorship, created to monitor and highlight abuses committed against writers, intellectuals and journalists, worldwide.

Over the years since Russia has changed almost beyond recognition but the need for vigilance in the defence of free expression and media freedom remains as strong. The tasks have changed subtly as well. Simply logging the abuse is not enough — effective intellectual defences against nationalist, religious, cultural and economic challenges to the primacy of free expression are needed now more than ever in the new Federation.

And in the freer atmosphere of today’s Russia supporters of the cause can also lend their voice to challenge abuses abroad, in much the same way Spender turned out for Russia’s dissidents in 1968.

To help them achieve all this, the original Index on Censorship in London, in partnership with Russia’s Glasnost Defence Foundation, launched ‘Dos’e na tsenzuru’, a Russian-language version of the journal on Jul. 17 in Moscow.

Dos’e will report on issues of free expression and media freedom and take the essential debates on democracy and human rights to readers in the Russian-speaking world, aiming to attract ordinary readers as well as an expert audience.

Ursula Owen, editor and chief executive of Index, Irena Maryniak, Index’s Budapest-based editor and Aleksei Simonov, director of the Glasnost Defence Foundation, form the editorial committee of Dos’e.

“Dos’e na tsenzuru represents an important and fitting milestone in Index’s history,” said Owen. “Twenty-five years ago the first issue of Index appeared, in response to an appeal from dissidents in Russia.

“At a time a publication of this kind was unthinkable in the Soviet Union. Index provided a form for dissident voices and supported them from afar. Now, Index, through its partnership with the Glasnost Defence Foundation, will support those leading the democratic debate on the ground,” said Owen. “It is wonderfully appropriate and moving that the history of Index has come full circle”

According to Index staff, 40 percent of the material for the magazine will come from the English edition which has a global circulation of 12,000 copies. The remaining 60 percent of material will be commissioned locally in Russia and across the former Soviet Union.

“The idea is to make an Index edition available to people who don’t read English,” said an Index spokesperson. “It is also to help those who don’t have money to afford the kind of price that we charge.”

Index is also planning to launch another edition in South Africa to meet the demand for its work in southern Africa. The possibility of publishing a Spanish edition is also under consideration by the magazine’s London team.