Word: ussr
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Like tens of thousands of other refuseniks, the Luries had applied for, and been denied, emigration from the USSR. Their case was unique, though. They had initially been granted exit visas in January 1980, a year after their first application. Three days before their expected departure date, however, Emmanuel Lurie was summoned to OVIR, the Office of Visas and Registration, and informed that his family's exit visas had been cancelled for reasons of "state security." His wife's mother, who had applied with the Luries, was allowed to emigrate, and she now lives alone in Israel...
...Luries were glad to see us and said they hadn't had visitors for about three months. Over dinner, we talked about nuclear arms, Central America, housing in the USSR. Like other refuseniks they were not hopeful about their future. Since 1979, the Soviet Union has clamped down on Jewish emigration. The 1979 emigration high of 51,320 fell...
...Medvedkovs, Yureii and his wife Olga, are members of an unofficial Soviet peace group, The Moscow Group to Establish Trust Between the U.S. and the USSR. Their goal is disarmament, and they see "trust-building" as the best hope for peace. The group has a core of 11 people, with about 1000 supporters who have at different times attended their seminars and discussions...
Over dinner the conversation wandered from discussion of John Irving, Faust, and palm-reading, to recent arrests of Hebrew teachers in I eningrad, strategies to increase emigration, other minorities' problems in the USSR, and the Borlovs' personal frustration over their situation. He said, "we are like birds in a cage--we can go anywhere within the 17 Soviet Republics, but nowhere else." The Borlovs have not received mail in two months; they know that friends abroad as well as from inside the Soviet Union have been writing. Despite this isolation, and continued restrictions on their ability to work and study...
Yevtushenko recently captured international headlines when he denounced Sylvester Stallone's films, "Rocky IV" and "Rambo: First Blood, Part II" as "warnography." Yevtushenko told a press gathering in the Soviet Union that the films' images of violence toward Soviets undermined friendly relations between the U.S. and the USSR...