DANIEL, YULI MARKOVICH

DANIEL, YULI MARKOVICH (1925–1988), Soviet-Russian author, son of the Soviet Yiddish writer M. Daniel . Although no original works by the younger Daniel had ever been published in the U.S.S.R., where he was known exclusively as a translator, mainly from Yiddish, and from Caucasian and Slavic languages, he acquired an international reputation as the author of a number of books smuggled out of the Soviet Union and published in the West in the early   1960s, under the pseudonym Nikolai Arzhak. These include the short novel Govorit Moskva ("This Is Moscow Speaking") and three short stories, Ruki ("Hands"), Chelovek iz Minapa ("The Man from Minap"), and Iskupleniye ("Atonement"). This Is Moscow Speaking and Other Stories appeared in an English translation in 1962. This is Moscow Speaking, a fanciful work describing a Soviet "public murder day" when citizens are free to kill one another, is the only work of his that treats a "Jewish" theme; a central character immediately ventures the guess that the "day" has been proclaimed to legalize anti-Jewish pogroms. Antisemitic motifs were prominent at the trial in February 1966 of Daniel and his friend and fellow "illegal" writer, Andrei Sinyavsky (who wrote under the pseudonym Abram Tertz). In spite of frail health resulting from wounds received while serving in the Red Army during World War II, Daniel was sentenced to five years' forced labor. The prosecutor and the authors of numerous articles published in the Soviet press before, during, and after the trial accused Daniel and Sinyavsky of slandering Soviet society by insinuating that it was not free of antisemitism. Andrei Sinyavsky, a non-Jew, had in fact devoted much attention to the problem of anti-Jewish prejudice in the U.S.S.R. Protests by leading Soviet intellectuals and strong international pressures failed to bring about the release of the two writers and Daniel's wife, Larissa Daniel-Bogoraz, herself received a prison sentence in the fall of 1968 for having participated in a street demonstration opposing the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Daniel continued to speak out even in prison camp, where he protested at the harsh conditions. He continued to write poems in prison which were published in the West. He was released from jail in 1970, lived in Moscow, and worked as a translator of literature under the pseudonym Yu. Prtrov. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. Labedz and M. Hayward (eds.), On Trial; the Case of Sinyavsky (Tertz) and Daniel (Arzhak) (1967). (Maurice Friedberg)