Word: lidiya
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...they are Russian Pentecostalists, revivalist worshipers who want to emigrate to the U.S. with the rest of their families. Thus far, the Soviet Union has blocked their efforts. Last week, in the most dramatic in their 20-year battle, two of the seven, Augustina Vashchenko, 52, and her daughter Lidiya, 30, were on a hunger strike and failing fast. "Lidiya is down to her last reserves," said visiting Pennsylvania Congressman Bud Shuster. "It could become a life-threatening situation...
Back in June 1978 the seven crashed past Soviet guards and into the U.S. embassy, seeking to go to the U.S. Pyotr Vashchenko, now 55, Augustina, and their three daughters, Lidiya, Lyubov, 29, and Liliya, 24, along with Fellow Believers Mariya Chmykhalov, 59, and her son Timofei, 19, had traveled 2,000 miles by rail from the Siberian town of Cherno-gorsk. Thwarted by Soviet intransigence since then, the dispirited Augustina and Lidiya have now stopped eating in a desperate bid to win world attention and shame the Soviets into relenting...
Their plan was inspired by Soviet Dissident Andrei Sakharov's successful hunger strike late last year. Augustina started taking only juice and water on Dec 25, despite the opposition of Pyotr and the Christian teaching against suicide. Lidiya joined her three days later. When Historian Kent Hill of Seattle Pacific University flew to Moscow, Lidiya told him, "Here I am with no end in sight. I can't bear it. If I can't have a normal life, I'd sooner...
...During a harsh anti-Christian campaign, starting in 1961, worship services were routinely broken up and many Pentecostal leaders were jailed. When their children faced cruel harassment at school-ridicule, ostracism and beatings-the Vashchenkos decided to educate them at home. The state then ruled them unfit parents, seized Lidiya and two sisters in 1962, and sent them to be raised in institutions until they turned...