Andrey Donatovich Sinyavsky

Andrey Donatovich Sinyavsky (born Oct. 8, 1925, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.—died Feb. 25, 1997, Fontenay-aux-Roses, near Paris, France) was a Russian critic and author of novels and short stories who was convicted of subversion by the Soviet government in 1966.

Sinyavsky graduated from Moscow University in 1952 and later joined the faculty of the Gorky Institute of World Literature. He contributed to the literary journal Novy Mir and produced an incisive introduction to a volume of poems by Boris Pasternak. His works of fiction, none of which were published in the Soviet Union, were smuggled to the West and published under the name of Abram Tertz.

The English translations of Sinyavsky’s fiction began with that of the novel Sud idyot (1960; The Trial Begins), which deals with the Doctors’ Plot of 1953, during which nine Soviet doctors were unjustly accused of treason. An anthology of short stories, Fantastic Stories (1963), explores the themes of tyranny, dissipation, and spiritual loneliness. In the novel The Makepeace Experiment (1965), a village boss hoodwinks his constituents with myths and magic. Also smuggled to the West was the essay On Socialist Realism (1960), which called for a new inventiveness in Soviet literature.

Sinyavsky and another writer, Yuly Daniel, were arrested on September 13, 1965, and the following February were convicted of producing anti-Soviet propaganda through their writings. Daniel was sentenced to five years of hard labour and Sinyavsky to seven. The trial, a record of which was published in On Trial (1966), prompted domestic and international protest. Sinyavsky was released from prison in 1971 and two years later moved to Paris, where he taught Russian literature at the Sorbonne. His later works include Mysli vrasplokh (1966; Unguarded Thoughts), Golos iz khora (1973; A Voice from the Chorus), and Spokoynoy nochi (1984; Goodnight!).