20 years ago, on 2 October 1980 a great Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus was condemned to 10 years of concentration camps and 5 years of exile. 15 years ago, 5 September 1985 Stus tragically died in Perm special political colony No. 36. We publish today some materials from our archives: a fragment from Mikhail Heyfetz’ book ‘Mesto i vremia’ (‘Place and time’)about Stus’ first term, the information about the trial of 1980, fragments from Andrey Sakharov’s appeal in protection of Stus. All these materials are published in Ukraine for the first time.

On 26 July 1931 Ivan Dziuba, one of the greatest modern figures of Ukrainian culture, critic, specialist in literary studies, the most well-known author of the Ukrainian samizdat was born. We offer the reader his short biography.

In May 1998 a conference was held in Moscow dedicated to the 30-year anniversary of writing by Sakharov his fundamental work ‘Reflections on progress, peaceful coexistence and intellectual freedom’. We publish one of the reports at this conference.

On 11 December Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had his 80 thbirthday. Nobody influenced the public opinion of the 60s-80s like Solzhenitsyn. The gift of a prophet, hate of the state violence, attention to the life of the Russian people, immense literary talent - all these features put Solzhenitsyn in the rank of the classics of Russian literature. The time will come when our epoch will be called that of Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn. In order to celebrate the writer’s jubilee we publish Larisa Bogoraz’s personal remembrances on Solzhenitsyn. This is the first publication of the notes.