Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development

Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development
Named after	Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov
Formation	18 December 2017
Founder	prof. Robert van Voren
Type	NGO
Headquarters	Kaunas, Lithuania
Fields	Media attention, Eastern Europe politics, human rights, research, developing democratic values
Board of directors	Egidijus Aleksandravičius, Ineta Dabašanskienė, Šarūnas Liekis, Edward Lucas, Liliya Shevtsova
Website	sakharovcenter.vdu.eu

The Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development was founded in 2017 at the Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) in Kaunas (Lithuania) to contribute to the development of a pluralist and democratic society in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, a society based on the rule of law, respecting human rights and offering equal opportunities to each citizen to achieve his or her goals.

The Center unites state-of-the-art academic research on developments in Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR with existing multi-disciplinary expert knowledge at VMU, and stimulates multi-disciplinary and multi-national cooperation between VMU and its partners in other countries. It allows researchers to make use of its extensive archival holdings of materials on political freedom, repression and the opposition in the region in order to gain a better understanding of the processes that are likely to have an impact on the current situation.

Background[edit]

History[edit]

On December 18th, Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) facilitated the grand opening of its new subdivision, Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development. Concentrating on issues of human and social liberties, the center will conduct investigation and research into the governmental issues in Central and Eastern European nations breaking down whether they satisfy their worldwide responsibilities to ensure human and civil rights.

Andrei Sakharov was one of the bravest critics of the Soviet regime who eventually became the symbol of the struggle for fundamental human rights. After gaining prominence as the inventor of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, the scientist became concerned about the consequences his invention would have on the humanity's future and began raising awareness of the dangers of nuclear arms. In the USSR, Andrei Sakharov was seen as a dangerous dissident. His efforts contributed to the signing of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963 and the establishment of the Committee on Human Rights seven years later, which was the result of joint work by Sakharov and his peers. In recognition of his achievements, Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. Because of the activist's consistent attempts to liberate other Soviet dissidents and criticism of the regime, Sakharov was exiled to the isolated city of Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) in order to restrict his foreign connections. The European Parliament has established the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, which is awarded to individuals or organizations that fight for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Goals[edit]

The objectives and goals of the center were formulated as follows:

To organize public events, seminars and round-table discussions, including annual commemorations of the work and moral authority of Andrei Sakharov;
To support research and facilitate the publication of research reports, monographs and other writings that contribute to the aims of the Center;
To collect published materials and archival holdings that are related to the goals of the Center and allow researchers to access them during their work;
To contribute to the development of a democratic society based on the rule of law and support those who encounter opposition from non-democratic and non-liberal forces.

Executive Office[edit]

Prof. Robert van Voren, is Chief Executive of Human Rights in Mental Health - Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry (FGIP) and a Sovietologist by education. He is currently Professor of Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies at the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania, and the Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia, and Executive Director of the Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development in Lithuania. Van Voren is board member of several organizations in the field of human rights and mental health. Van Voren has written extensively on Soviet issues and, in particular, issues related to mental health and human rights, and published a dozen books. His most recent ones are On Dissidents and Madness (2009), Cold War in Psychiatry (2010) and Undigested Past – the Holocaust in Lithuania (2011).

Dr. Dainius Genys, sociologist, defended his PhD in 2011 at Vytautas Magnus University focusing on “The boundaries of civil society and its conflicts”. His interests focus on democratization processes (with a special focus on civil society, sociology of energy security, and sport). Dainius Genys published 20 academic papers in Lithuanian and English and gave more than 20 presentations at international and national conferences.

Activities[edit]

Ongoing projects[edit]

The center's priority is to revive and restore the 1975 Helsinki Accords, Such plans are included in 2020-2025 Peace, Progress and Human Rights project that focuses on reversing the negative spiral on European continent with regards to cooperation, security, tolerance and human rights. It is based on the ideals and principles as reflected in the 1975 Helsinki Accord (or Helsinki Final Act), that formed the basis for détente and peaceful relations between states in East and West. The project has two main components, Celebrating Europe - focusing on the basic values that were cherished in the Helsinki Final Act, and the other, Celebrating Sakharov, which is a personification of the ideals and values of Helsinki Final Act.

Celebrating Europe

The 2020-2025 program includes a series of International Sakharov Hearings and Conferences that focus on the value and implementation of the principles of the Helsinki Accords. The series of Sakharov Hearings starts in May, 2020 in the Lithuanian Parliament, during which several key elements of the 1975 Helsinki Accords will be reviewed against the backdrop of the current political situation in Europe. The 2023 Sakharov Hearings in Amsterdam will continue deliberations of 2020 and formulate new approaches to the existing situation and alternatives that would help revive the Accords in line with the demands of the 21st century. The 2025 Hearings, held fifty years after the signing of the original Helsinki Accords, will result in a "Helsinki 2.0", a reconfirmation of the Helsinki Accords. The intermediate 2021, 2022 and 2024 Sakharov Conferences will focus on a number of specific areas, providing in-depth knowledge and understanding of the situation on hand.

Celebrating Sakharov

Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989) is the only person in twentieth century Eastern Europe, who had the moral authority to function as a source of inspiration to others and is an example of a scholar activist. Sakharov combines the position of a leading scientist in his field with that of a prominent defender of human rights. The program for the 2021 Centennial focuses on Sakharov as a source of inspiration, showing him with all aspects of his life and work, as a scientist, humanist and human rights defender. The program targets younger generations that were born after the disintegration of the communist state. Instead of developing a full-scale agenda of activities focusing on the younger generations, the plan is to involve the ultimate target group in designing activities themselves through means of variety of events in 2020.

Importance of the project

The Helsinki Accords of 1975 regulated in the first place the relations between states and defined cooperation on multiple levels, e.g. economics, science, environment and security. A key element in the document concerned human rights, by which the signatory states committed themselves to respect the human rights of their citizens e.g. freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, without distinction as to race, sec, language or religion, and to promote and encourage the effective exercise of civil, political, economic, social, cultural and other rights and freedoms.

Sakharov lived to witness the end of Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the beginning of what seemed like a new world order where human rights would be respected. Those hopes were soon dashed, however, as much of the post-Soviet world reverted to authoritarian methods and suppression of fundamental human rights and progressively to suffocating and criminalizing dissent.

Researches and publications[edit]

For now, the only research and publication the center has is the "Legacy of Soviet Psychiatry". The publication had its own conference which happened on September 21st, 2018. The publication discussed the continued human right abuses and how those issues can be amended, and what barriers can be created against the use of psychiatry for political purposes.

Conferences and public events[edit]

The Center organizes on average six public lectures per annum. Public lectures are usually held at the small auditorium of Vytautas Magnus University or at the neighboring Valdas Adamkus Library. The lectures and events have free admission and are open to both students and staff of VMU, as well as the general public.

Past events include:

May 29, 2018, public lecture and debate "Russia after Putin's election". The event addressed the questions of the Russia's road-map after Vladimir Putin's election, including security and effects on global politics. Main speaker Andrei A. Kovalev, son of a former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union and himself actively involved in the human rights negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the years 1988–1991;
September 21, 2018 "The Legacy of Soviet Psychiatry", a one-day conference discussing the political abuse of psychiatry and issues on human rights;
November 23, 2018 "Human rights in Putinist Russia", an open lecture by human rights activist in Ural region Nikolai Shchur;
January 21, 2019 "The Vory", a public lecture about inter-linkage between criminality and the Putin administration by British scholar Mark Galeotti;
March 21, 2019 "The New Cold War and how to win it", a public event and lecture by British writer and security-policy expert Edward Lucas;
May 21–22, 2019 "Ninth Sakharov Conference";
May 23,2019 "Mapping Russian Trolls in Lithuania", a conference addressing social network uses for propaganda purposes, international warfare and manipulation of public opinion;
September 10, 2019 "The Story of Batun", a public lecture about the history of BATUN (Baltic Appeal to United Nations), by Sirje Okas Ainso and dr. Heinso Anso;
September 20, 2019, "Building Bridges: The Other Russia", the second conference (and a concert) to honor and to remember the eminent thinker, philosopher, and beloved member of Vytautas Magnus University's (VMU) community, professor Leonid Donskis. The event also sought to bring attention to the need for distinguishment between the Russia leadership and its people;

Archival holdings and materials[edit]

Over the past six years, a large quantity of books and archives have found their way to Kaunas. There are more than 10,000 books from individual donors (e.g. Andrew Blane, Ellen Dahrendorf, Martin Dewhirst, Peter Reddaway and John Roberts) and institutions (e.g. St. Anthony's College).

Currently the following archives are accessible for research purposes:

The archive of the International Association on the Political Use of Psychiatry 1974–1993, an Amsterdam-based organization that was the main engine of the campaign against the use of psychiatry against dissidents in the USSR and several other countries in the world. Of this archive no copies exist anywhere else;
The independent press archive of the Bukovsky Foundation (incomplete). The Bukovsky Foundation/Second World Center in Amsterdam kept record of as many independent publications as possible during the years 1987–1991;
The photo archive of the Bukovsky Foundation. This archive contains up to 3,000 photographs of dissidents in the USSR and is one of the largest archives of its kind. The University of Bremen (Eastern Europe Research Center) started the cataloguing process and digitalization of this archive is planned;
Half of the Peter Reddaway archive on Sovietology, Russian Studies, human rights etc. in total approximately 30 meters. The other half of Reddaway's archive is at George Washington University in the United States;
Parts of the archives of Martin Dewhirst. Martin Dewhirst is widely seen as one of the world's leading experts on censorship and the Soviet prison system;
The oral history archive of the Foundation to Preserve the History of Maidan. This archive is currently being developed, and currently contains over 600 unique oral history interviews with people involved in Maidan. Another copy is kept at the Easter Europe Research Center at Bremen University (Germany);
The archive of the complaints bureau of the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association covering the years 1991–2011, which contains files of 15,000 complains submitted and processed of political abuse of psychiatry, misuse of psychiatry and/or inhuman and degrading treatment;