Sergei Grigoryants

Sergei Ivanovich Grigoryants
Native name	Сергей Иванович Григорьянц (Сергій Іванович Григорьянц)
Born	(1941-05-12) May 12, 1941 Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Armenian-Ukrainian
Citizenship	Soviet Union (1941–1991) → Russia (1991–present)
Alma mater	Moscow State University, Kiev Polytechnic Institute, Riga Civil Aviation Engineers Institute
Occupation	aerospace engineering, journalism, literary criticism, human rights activism, publishing
Known for	publishing Glasnost magazine, chairing the Glasnost Defense Foundation
Movement	dissident movement in the Soviet Union
Awards	World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom Award
Website	grigoryants.ru

Sergei Ivanovich Grigoryants (Russian: Серге́й Ива́нович Григорья́нц, Ukrainian: Сергі́й Іва́нович Григорья́нц, born 12 May 1941, Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union) is a Soviet dissident and former political prisoner, journalist, literary critic, chairman of the Glasnost Defense Foundation. He was imprisoned for 10 years in Chistopol jail as a political prisoner for anti-Soviet activities, from 1975 to 1980 and then four more years starting in 1983 on similar charges.

Biography

Sergei Grigoryants is of Armenian-Ukrainian descent. He studied at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, the faculty of journalism at the Moscow State University and the Riga Civil Aviation Engineers Institute.

In 1975, Grigoryants was arrested by the KGB and sentenced to five years in prison for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.

After his release in 1982, he circulated in samizdat information on human rights violations in the Soviet Union as editor of the periodical Bulletin V. For this activity, he was again arrested in 1984 and sentenced to ten years of strict regime labor camp.

After the beginning of Gorbachev's perestroika he was released in 1987 under an amnesty. He immediately resumed his human rights activities and proceeded to publish Glasnost magazine, criticizing the communist system.

In May 1989 Grigoryants created and headed the union of independent journalists, which included a number of journalists representing independent (samizdat) printed in the USSR.

In 1989, Grigoryants was awarded Golden Pen of Freedom Award of the World Association of Newspapers.

In the 1990s he regularly voiced his demands for lustration, filed a lawsuit against the KGB, demanded to return his confiscated archive.

Sergey Grigoryants is in opposition to Putin's policies, in particular, he expressed protests against the infringement of democratic freedoms in Russia and criticized the government for the war in Chechnya.