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{{Short description|Soviet-Georgian human rights activist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2022}}
{{Infobox scientist
|native_name = Валерий Николаевич Чалидзе
|native_name_lang = Russian
|image = Чалидзе_Валерий_Николаевич.jpg
|image_size =
|caption =
|birth_name = Valery Nikolaevich Chalidze
|birth_date = 25 November 1938
|birth_place = [[Moscow]], [[USSR]]
|death_date = {{death date and age|3 January 2018|25 November 1938|df=y}}
|death_place = United States
|residence =
|citizenship = USSR; USA from 1979
|nationality = Georgian-Polish
|field = [[physics]], [[human rights]]
|workplaces =
|alma_mater = [[Moscow State University]], [[Tbilisi State University]]
|doctoral_advisor =
|doctoral_students =
|known_for = Founding legalist branch of human rights movement in USSR; developing concept of mass and electric charge in vortex theory of matter.
|author_abbrev_bot =
|author_abbrev_zoo =
|influences =
|influenced =
|prizes =
|religion =
|footnotes =
|
}}

Author and publisher '''Valery Nikolaevich Chalidze''' ({{langx|ru|Вале́рий Никола́евич Чали́дзе}}; {{lang-ka|ვალერი ჭალიძე}}: 25 November 1938 – 3 January 2018) was a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[dissident]] and [[human rights]] activist, deprived of his USSR citizenship in 1972 while on a visit to the US.

His Georgian father was killed during World War Two. His mother, Francheska Jansen, was an architect and designer, descended from Poles exiled to Siberia for their opposition to the Tsarist regime. Chalidze himself challenged the Soviet regime by mastering Soviet law, then demanding that the dictatorship comply with its own laws.<ref name="auto">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/obituaries/valery-chalidze-soviet-dissident-forced-into-exile-dies-at-79.html|title=Valery Chalidze, Soviet Dissident Forced Into Exile, Dies at 79|first=Sophia|last=Kishkovsky|work=The New York Times |date=22 January 2018|accessdate=29 September 2023|via=NYTimes.com}}</ref> This strategy may have afforded Chalidze some protection from the prosecution faced by other dissidents. According to fellow dissident [[Pavel Litvinov]], ""There were rumors that he could be killed, but it was very difficult to arrest him and put him in prison."<ref name="auto3">[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/valery-chalidze-soviet-dissident-who-founded-human-rights-group-with-andrei-sakharov-dies-at-79/2018/01/11/e49777fa-f61d-11e7-beb6-c8d48830c54d_story.html "Valery Chalidze, Soviet dissident who founded human rights group with Andrei Sakharov, dies at 79", ''Washington Post'', 11 January 2018].</ref>

Chalidze was born in [[Moscow]] and educated as a [[physicist]] at the universities of [[Moscow State University|Moscow]] and [[Tbilisi State University|Tbilisi]] in Georgia. In the 1960s he joined the nascent Soviet human rights movement: he began publishing ''Social Issues'' in 1969, and helped to found the Committee for Human Rights the following year. In 1972 Chalidze was deprived of his Soviet citizenship and spent the rest of his life in the United States.

==''Social Issues''==

In August 1969 the underground periodical ''Social Issues'' (Obshchestvennye problemy) made its first appearance. Set up and edited by Chalidze, it covered a range of themes in the humanities and social sciences, including both original articles and translated work. It had a constant focus on the application of law, in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and the defense of human rights.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20161024103635/https://chronicleofcurrentevents.net/2014/08/03/16-11-samizdat-news/ ''A Chronicle of Current Events'' No 16, 31 October 1970 — 16.11 "Samizdat update – item 2 ''Social Issues'' No 6"]}}.</ref> As part of his publishing activities Chalidze became adept at mending mechanical typewriters, the essential tool of [[samizdat]] publication and distribution.<ref name="auto"/>

Under his guiding hand, ''Social Issues'' constantly opened new horizons for discussion. For example, he contributed to discussion of the definition, under Soviet conditions, of the term [[political prisoner]] and its practical application. The periodical championed the right of all Soviet citizens to emigrate to another country of their choosing and, in particular, he upheld the right of Jews to leave the USSR.

Chalidze wielded Soviet law in defense of many different people, including Crimean Tatars, students, Jews, Orthodox Christians, political prisoners, Baptists, and Muslims.<ref>To DEFEND TERSE RIGHTS: HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE SOVIET UNION. By Valery Chalidze (translated by Guy Daniels). New York: Random
House, 1974. Pp. viii, 340.</ref> He went further than many dissidents in calling openly for the repeal of the Stalin-era law criminalizing homosexual relations between adult males. It was a stance that concerned some of his colleagues, and led to an attempt by the Soviet regime to discredit him among the wider population by suggesting (wrongly) that he was himself gay—an assertion that could have paved the way for criminal prosecution of him.<ref name="auto2">[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/obituaries/valery-chalidze-soviet-dissident-forced-into-exile-dies-at-79.html "Valery Chalidze, Soviet dissident forced into exile, dies at 79", ''New York Times'', 22 January 2018].</ref>

==The Moscow Human Rights Committee==

On 4 November 1970, together with [[Andrei Sakharov]] and [[Andrei Tverdokhlebov]], Chalidze founded the [[Moscow Human Rights Committee]]. The following month ''Newsweek'', the US weekly magazine, published Chalidze's replies to questions from its Moscow correspondent about the Committee's aims and the prospects for its future activities.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20180221222444/https://chronicleofcurrentevents.net/2014/08/07/17-4-the-committee-for-human-rights-in-the-ussr/ ''A Chronicle of Current Events'' No 17, 31 December 1970 — 17.4 "The Committee for Human Rights in the USSR"]}}.</ref>

The Committee was among the first non-governmental organizations in the post-Stalin history of the Soviet Union (cf. "[[Action Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR]]", set up in May 1969),<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20190323141956/https://chronicleofcurrentevents.net/2013/09/28/8-10-appeal-to-the-un-commission-on-human-rights/ ''A Chronicle of Current Events'' No 8, 30 June 1969 — 8.10 "An Appeal to the UN Commission on Human Rights"]}}.</ref> and eventually became affiliated with the [[United Nations]]. Its purpose was to offer free legal advice to persons whose human rights had been violated by the Soviet authorities, and also to advise those authorities on their legal obligations in regard to human rights under international and Soviet law.

Chalidze was an innovative strategist of the Soviet human-rights movement, who described himself as an "evolutionary" rather than a revolutionary.<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/valery-chalidze-soviet-dissident-who-founded-human-rights-group-with-andrei-sakharov-dies-at-79/2018/01/11/e49777fa-f61d-11e7-beb6-c8d48830c54d_story.html Chalidze remembered for human rights work] washingtonpost.com </ref> After educating himself on Soviet and international law as they pertained to human rights, Chalidze invited the Soviet dictatorship into a dialogue on human rights issues, utilizing the Committee both to offer free legal advice to those whose rights had been violated, and to the Soviet government itself. In addition to demanding that the authorities comply with the law, Chalidze also adhered to the position that the dissidents, too, must obey the law.<ref name="auto1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.rutlandherald.com/articles/good-deeds/,|title=30 January 2018|accessdate=29 September 2023}}</ref> He would later summarize this position by writing: "One must have clean hands to do good deeds."<ref>Valery Chalidze, "The Soviet Human Rights Movement: A Memoir", The Jacob Blaustein Institute For the Advancement Of Human Rights, New York NY (1984).</ref>

==Life and activities in USA==

In 1972, Chalidze was invited by the well-known American lawyer [[Samuel Dash]] to deliver a lecture on human rights at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Once there, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree depriving him of his Soviet citizenship, and prevented him from returning to the Soviet Union. His wife Vera Slonim, a cousin of Pavel Litvinov, remained with him in the United States for a short time, retaining her Soviet citizenship. She then moved to England, and the two were divorced.

===Publication renewed===

In partnership with US businessman Ed Kline<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/world/europe/edward-kline-dead-american-sakharov-supporter.html "Edward Kline, ‘Silent Partner’ in Aiding Soviet Dissidents, Dies at 85", Obituary, ''New York Times'', 29 June 2017].</ref> Chalidze soon established Khronika Press. Based in New York, its purpose was to publish Russian-language books and important Soviet periodicals as the ''[[Chronicle of Current Events]]'' (April 1968-July 1982).

Together with Pavel Litvinov and Peter Reddaway, he also began to edit and publish the bimonthly, ''A Chronicle of Human Rights in the USSR'' (1973-1982), that drew on the contents of the Moscow-based ''Chronicle'', but included original materials by Chalidze and others.

In 1979, he founded Chalidze Publications, a second New York-based publishing house. It focused primarily on culturally important, non-fiction works in Russian that for reasons of censorship were unavailable to Soviet readers. Among the books issued by Chalidze Publications were original memoirs of historically important figures (such as [[Nikita Khrushchev]]), memoirs of Soviet dissidents whose work was banned in their home country, Russian translations of classic Western works of political philosophy, and original analyses of social problems.

Chalidze continued to work as a physicist, meanwhile, and for several years was a visiting scholar in the physics department at Columbia University (New York).

In 1979 Chalidze became a citizen of the United States, after having been stateless since 13 December 1972.<ref name="auto3"/> He was retained by the U.S. Department of State to assess Soviet violations of international human-rights covenants. His report issued in 1980, and identified with specificity and legal precision many such violations.<ref>[https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a093577.pdf Valery Chalidze] dtic.mil</ref>

===Move to Vermont===
In 1980 Chalidze met Lisa Leah Barnhardt on a visit to Oregon. They were married shortly thereafter. Upon her completion of law school in New York, they moved to [[Benson, Vermont]] in 1983, which became the new home of Chalidze Publications and Khronika Press. Chalidze resided in Benson until his death on 3 January 2018, when he died unexpectedly at his home.<ref name="auto1"/>

In Vermont, Chalidze continued to publish several journals and edited others such as ''Internal Contradictions'' (Vnutrennie protivorechiya). For a number of years he was a visiting scholar in the history department at Middlebury College (Middlebury, Vermont).

In total, Chalidze Publications published almost one hundred books in Russian and in English, including the [[Kama Sutra]], translated at Chalidze's request by Vladimir Kozlosvsky.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/obituaries/valery-chalidze-soviet-dissident-forced-into-exile-dies-at-79.html See correction to ''New York Times'' obituary].</ref>

Chalidze never stopped working in physics, and in 2001 published his "Mass and Electric Charge in the Vortex Theory of Matter."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.worksofvalerychalidze.com/uploads/1/0/2/8/102863812/1126751print1a.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2018-03-09 |archive-date=2018-03-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180310074049/http://www.worksofvalerychalidze.com/uploads/1/0/2/8/102863812/1126751print1a.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Trotsky, Stalin, Hamilton and Madison==

Among the works issued by Chalidze Publications were hitherto unpublished material retrieved from the Trotsky archive at [[Harvard University]], as well as the memoirs of Trotsky, and Chalidze's own works about the Trotskyite opposition of the 1920s and 1930s and the post-Stalin dissident movement in the USSR.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Chalidze, Valeriĭ|title=The Soviet human rights movement: a memoir|date=1984|publisher=Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, American Jewish Committee|isbn=0874950643|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ox4wAQAAIAAJ}}</ref>

In his ''Conqueror of Communism'' (New York, 1981), Chalidze depicted [[Joseph Stalin]] as a counter-revolutionary leader who destroyed socialism in Russia. Stalin "restored the Russian empire although in a more despotic form",<ref>See Medvedev, Roy Aleksandrovich (2003), ''The Unknown Stalin'', p. 262. I. B. Tauris, {{ISBN|1860647685}}.</ref> he contended, using Marxist ideology to mask his real aims.{{fact|date=March 2024}}

With the rise of [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] as Soviet leader, Chalidze continued to participate in the effort to promote democracy in his native country. Among other works, he wrote "Russian Nationalism and Perestroika," which was published by The American Jewish Committee in 1990.<ref>["Russian Nationalism and Perestroika," Valery Chalidze, Jacob Blaustein Institute For the Advancement Of Human Rights, The American Jewish Committee, New York, NY]</ref> From 1985 to 1990 Chalidze received a [[MacArthur Fellow]]ship in recognition of his work in international human rights.{{fact|date=March 2024}}

At the request of the U.S. Administration, Chalidze Publications also organized and published the first-ever Russian translation of ''[[The Federalist Papers]]'' (1788). It would be an official presidential gift from [[George H. W. Bush]] to [[Gorbachev]] at one of their three summit meetings in 1990. Chalidze established a translation team for the purpose. He himself served as Editor-in-Chief, and his wife Lisa Barnhardt Chalidze, an American attorney, was Legal Editor. The primary translator was Gregory Freidin of [[Stanford University|Stanford]], who was advised by Leon Lipson of [[Yale Law School]]. Gorbachev and [[Yeltsin]] both quoted from ''The American Federalists'' in their historic debates in the Russian parliament after August 1991 during the final months of the Soviet Union.<ref>E.g., Old Oregon (Spring 1992, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, p. 22</ref>

==Citizenship and Death==

During [[perestroika]] the Soviet regime of Mikhail Gorbachev offered to restore Chalidze's USSR citizenship. He rebuffed the offer. "You had no right to take it away," he said, "and you certainly have no right to give it back."<ref name="auto2"/>

Chalidze never returned to the Soviet Union (or the Russian Federation after 1992); he did not see his mother again. His sister Francheska, sacked from her job as a scientist in retribution for her brother's dissident activities, emigrated to the US and settled in San Diego.<ref name="auto2"/>

==Works==
===Human Rights and History===
'''Periodicals''' (editor and author)
* 1969-1972 - ''Social Issues'', Moscow: Samizdat, Nos 1-12 (in Russian).
* 1973-1982 - ''A Chronicle of Human Rights in the USSR'', New York: Khronika Press, Nos 1-54 (in Russian and English).

'''Books and Articles''' (author)

'''[https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3AChalidze%2C+Valerii%CC%86%2C&qt=hot_author in English]'''
* 1971 - {{cite book|title=Important aspects of human rights in the Soviet Union; a report to the Human Rights Committee|publisher=American Jewish Committee|location=New York|oclc=317422393}}
* 1973 - {{cite journal|title=The right of a convicted citizen to leave his country|journal=[[Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review]]|date=January 1973|volume=8|issue=1|pages=1–13|url=http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/hcrcl8&div=4}}
* 1975 - {{cite book|title=In defense of Andrei Tverdokhlebov|publisher=Khronika Press|location=New York|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=objIHAAACAAJ|year=1975}}, 16 pp.
* 1975 - {{cite book|title=To defend these rights: human rights and the Soviet Union|publisher=Random House|location=New York|isbn=0394487257|year=1975|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/todefendtheserig0000chal}}
* 1977 - {{cite book|title=Criminal Russia: essays on crime in the Soviet Union|publisher=Random House|location=New York|isbn=0394405986|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/criminalrussiaes00chal|year=1977}}
* 1977 - {{cite journal|title=How important is Soviet dissent?|journal=[[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]]|date=1 June 1977|volume=63|issue=6|pages=57|url=https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/how-important-is-soviet-dissent/}}
* 1980 - {{cite book|title=The observance of the UN covenant on civil and political rights by the Soviet Union|publisher=Institute on Socialist Law|asin=B0006XTRQ4}}
* 1980 - {{cite journal|title=The humanitarian provisions of the Helsinki Accord: a critique of their significance|journal=[[Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law]]|volume=13|issue=13|pages=429–450|url=http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/vantl13&div=33|year=1980|last1=Chalidze|first1=Valery}}
* 1981 - ''The Conqueror of Communism'', Stalin and Socialism, New York: Chalidze Publications.
* 1984 - {{cite book|title=The Soviet human rights movement: a memoir|publisher=Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, American Jewish Committee|location=New York|isbn=0874950643|year=1984}}
* 1989 - {{cite journal|title=Perestroika, socialism, and the Constitution|journal=[[The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science]]|date=November 1989|volume=506|issue=1|pages=98–108|doi=10.1177/0002716289506001009|last1=Chalidze|first1=Valery|s2cid=144923308}}
* 2000 - Entropy Demystified: Potential Order, Life and Money
* 2001 - Mass And Electric Charge In The Vortex Theory Of Matter

'''in Russian'''
* 1976 - ''The literary cases of the KGB: the cases of Superfin, Etkind, Heifetz and Maramzin'', Khronika press: New York. The appendix contains documents about Soviet censorship.
* 1988 - ''Nationality problems and perestroika'' (Natsional'nye problemy i perestrojka), Benson, VT: Chalidze Publications.

'''Co-author'''
* 1977 - {{cite book|author1=with Lipson, Leon |title=Papers on Soviet law|publisher=Institute on Socialist Law|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ksAcAQAAMAAJ|year=1977}}
* 1984 - "In defense of Anatoly Marchenko", ''Kontinent'' No 152, Paris. With Ludmila Alexeyeva, Pyotr Grigorenko, Andrei Amalrik, Dina Kaminskaya, Konstantin Simes, Nikolai Williams, Pavel Litvinov, Maya Litvinova, Natalya Sadomskaya and Boris Stain (in Russian).
* 1985 - {{cite book|author1=with Alexeyeva, Ludmilla |title=Mass rioting in the USSR|publisher=Silver Spring: Foundation for Soviet Studies}}
* 1990 - [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/27004263 with Lisa Chalidze, ''The Dawn of Legal Reform, 1985-1989'', Benson, VT: Chalidze Publications].

===Natural Sciences===
* 1974 - {{cite journal|title=Appeal for Mars data|journal=[[Science (magazine)|Science]]|date=5 April 1974|volume=184|issue=4132|pages=9|doi=10.1126/science.184.4132.9|pmid=17734618|bibcode=1974Sci...184Q...9C|last1=Chalidze|first1=V.}}
* 1985 - ''On the linguistic brain code'', Benson, VT: Chalidze Publications.
* 1986 - ''Brain code and paleolinguistics'', Benson, VT: Chalidze Publications.
* 1992 - with Lisa Chalidze<ref>{{cite book|title=Hierarchical instinct and human evolution: a socio-biological approach|year=1992|publisher=Chalidze Publications|isbn=1565411684}}</ref><ref>
[http://www.peoples.ru/state/correspondent/valery_chalidze Валерий Николаевич Чалидзе]. ''Peoples.ru''. {{in lang|ru}} Retrieved 5 May 2007.</ref>
<ref>[http://www.hronos.km.ru/biograf/bio_ch/chalidze.html Валерий Николаевич Чалидзе] {{in lang|ru}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070428072337/http://hronos.km.ru/biograf/bio_ch/chalidze.html |date=28 April 2007}} Retrieved 17 July 2007</ref><ref>Wertsman, Vladimir F., [http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Du-Ha/Georgian-Americans.html Multicultural America.Georgian Americans.] ''Every Culture''. Retrieved 5 May 2007.</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
*{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20161023222258/https://chronicleofcurrentevents.net/ ''A Chronicle of Current Events'', Moscow, 1968-1982]}} (in English).
*[https://catalog.osaarchivum.org/catalog/osa:224bba20-b13f-4e8e-a38f-d47d376b708d "Valery Chalidze Under Pressure from KGB"], ''[[Radio Free Europe]]'' Research, 31 July 1971. (''[[Blinken Open Society Archives]]''.)
*[http://www.worksofvalerychalidze.com/ The Works of Valery Chalidze].

== Further reading ==
* {{cite book|author1=De Boer, S. P. |author2=Driessen, Evert |author3=Verhaar, Hendrik |chapter=Čalidze, Valerij Nikolaevič|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1IQzecjGQX0C&pg=PA80|title=Biographical dictionary of dissidents in the Soviet Union: 1956–1975|date=1982|pages=80–82|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|location=The Hague|isbn=9024725380}}
*[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/obituaries/valery-chalidze-soviet-dissident-forced-into-exile-dies-at-79.html "Valery Chalidze, Soviet dissident forced into exile, dies at 79", ''New York Times'', 22 January 2018].
*Personal website of Valery Cahlidze[https://web.archive.org/web/19970412100024/http://www.chalidze.com/]
*Tribute website[https://web.archive.org/web/20181101233226/http://www.worksofvalerychalidze.com/]
*Entropy Demystified: Order, Life & Money (2000 - PDF) [https://archive.org/details/entropy-demystified-potential-order-life-and-mone/mode/2up]

{{Soviet dissidents}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chalidze, Valery}}
[[Category:1938 births]]
[[Category:2018 deaths]]
[[Category:Scientists from Moscow]]
[[Category:Moscow State University alumni]]
[[Category:Tbilisi State University alumni]]
[[Category:Soviet physicists]]
[[Category:20th-century American physicists]]
[[Category:Soviet dissidents]]
[[Category:Soviet human rights activists]]
[[Category:Denaturalized citizens of the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Soviet emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:20th-century American publishers (people)]]
[[Category:MacArthur Fellows]]

Valery Chalidze - Revision history

imported>GreenC bot: Rescued 3 archive links; reformat 4 links. Wayback Medic 2.5 per WP:USURPURL and JUDI batch #21aa