European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 18, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Saturday August 18, 1990 the stars and stripes Page 9 Solzhenitsyn 22 others regain citizenship Gorbachev decree corrects injustices to writers artists scientists from wire reports Moscow the wife of Alexander i. Solzhenitsyn and the exiled writer s official representative in mos cow  denounced As inadequate presi Dent Mikhail s. Gorbachev s decree restoring soviet citizenship to him and 22 other dissidents exiled for political crimes Over the past two decades. Valentin Kulikov a representative of Gorbachev s press office told the official Tass news Agency that a presidential decree issued wednesday on restoration of citizenship applied to Solzhenitsyn and writers Vas ily Aksyonov Vladimir Voinovich lev Kopelev an Georgi Vladimor. Scientists Yuri Orlov and Valeri Chal Idze and chess player Viktor Korchnoy were also among those Cov ered. The government newspaper Izvestia added the name of an artist Oskar Rabin. No others on the list were announced. Kulikov said a parliamentary periodical later this month would publish the full tally of 23 writers academics and musicians who will regain their citizenship. The 23 were stripped of their citizenship Between 1966 and 1988. The most famous among the exiles is Solzhenitsyn author of the gulag archipelago and a Day in the life of Ivan Benisovich which chronicled the horrors of Stalin s prison Camps. He was charged with High treason in 1974, stripped of his citizenship and expelled. He now lives in Vermont. The official newspaper Izvestia on thursday quoted Gennady Cher Eynykh head of the citizenship and pardoning department of the supreme soviet legis lature s secretariat As saying Solzhenitsyn had agree to accept citizenship. Cher Eynykh added he did t know whether the exiled writer would return to the soviet Union but said i As a russian person would be very Happy if Alexander Sayevich Solzhenitsyn  but Solzhenitsyn s wife Natalia in a statement is sued from Vermont denied that he had agreed to accept soviet citizenship. She said that a court would have to annul charges of treason made against him at the time of his expulsion in 1974 before he would consider returning to his Homeland. Foreign ministry spokesman Yuri remit sikh had said wednesday he did t know for sure whether Solzhenitsyn s citizenship would be restored. Solzhenitsyn has said he would not return to the cry Freedom editor returns to s. Africa after years of exile Johannesburg South Africa a Donald Woods a former newspaper editor who escaped from South Africa in 1977 after being banned returned from exile thursday. I was determined i would never come Back Here unless i could do so freely said Woods whose flight across the Border was depicted in the Richard Attenborough film cry  Woods return to a Battery of cameras at Jan Smuts Airport was a Stark contrast to his escape in disguise late on new year s eve 12 years ago. I feel terrific. What a Nice Welcome said Woods who returned for a six week journey of  Woods was the editor of the East London daily dispatch when he and his family fled South Africa. Two months before his escape the government had served him with a Banning order that prevented his working As a journalist. He was placed under partial House arrest and other restrictions. He could not be quoted orally or in writing. Woods was banned after he challenged the police version of the death in detention of Steve Biko the Leader of the Black consciousness move ment and a close Friend of Woods. Biko 30, died in police custody on sept. 12, 1977. At the inquest a magistrate ruled that Bike s fatal head injuries were probably received during questioning but that no police of cer was to blame. Woods Book Biko published soon after he went into exile in London was used As the basis Lor cry  i d still like to know what happened to Steve Biko Woods said. "1 Don t think the Circum stances not Only of Steve Biko s death hut also his life will Ever be  soviet Union unless All of his books were published and available. A number of his books have been printed but almost nothing is widely available in the Short age plagued soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel prize for literature in 1970. Government pressure on him mounted in the following years and in 1974 he was arrested an forced onto a plane to Germany. Among his other Well known works arc cancer Ward and "1914." Tass said wednesday that Gorbachev s order dealt with injustices that occurred Between 1966 and1988." Cher Eynykh said 175 soviets were stripped of their citizenship during that period about 60 of them armenians who emigrated to the United states and Canada and the rest dissidents. Tass quoted Kulikov As saying the foreign ministry would inform those affected and Issue them soviet passports if they want them. In Geneva Korchnoy the chess grandmaster welcomed the restoration of his citizenship As an important Stepi but said he would not return. In Vermont the exiled georgian writer Valery Chal Idze said he was Happy with his american citizenship and was Uncer Tain whether he would return if invited. Under Leonid Brezhnev the soviet government revoked the citizenship of prominent authors and per forming artists who spoke out against repression and barred their work from appearing in their Homeland. Gorbachev has since restored the citizenship of a number of them notably cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife Singer Galina Vishnevskaya dissident historian Zhores Medvedev and theater director Yuri Lyubimov. Aside from political exiles soviets who emigrate to Israel Are automatically stripped of their citizenship. Che Rem Yah said most of the 400,000 soviets in this category including prominent dissident poet Joseph Brodsky had left the country voluntarily and indicated there was no Chance their citizenship would be restored. But he said some were forced to leave and authorities Are trying to Correct the mistakes that were  these on the initial list included Solzhenitsyn s Pris on Friend writer lev Kopelev who left the soviet Union in november 1980 with his wife raise Orlova. Both lost their citizenship in 1981. Alexander Solzhenitsyn Nio Voinovich is a satirist who emigrated to West Germany in 1980 after being expelled from the soviet writer Union in 1974 following the publication abroad of his Book the adventures of private Ivan  Vladimor was one of the leading writers of the mag Azine Yuhost during the 1960s, and Rabin was one of the organizers of a non conformist Art exhibit in mos cow that was bulldozed in 1974. Orlov a founder of the Helsinki monitoring group in Moscow was arrested and exiled for his human rights work. Aksyonov author of the 1960 instant bestseller Kolle i was criticized by soviet authorities for his bad Lan Guage which actually was the Slang of soviet youth. He emigrated after a Brush with the authorities in 1980. As soviet heroes foil from Grace their names Are wiped off the map Tver . A citizens of Tver and Doz ens of other soviet cities Are casting off the names and symbols of a painful past. The people of this ancient City 100 Miles Northwest of Moscow started by taking Back the name it bore for centuries before Stalin called it Kalinin after a Hench Man born near Tver. To Catherine the great the City s 18th-Century architecture made it the most Beautiful in the Empire after St. Petersburg now Leningrad. As the namesake of Mikhail Kalinin the soviet president from 1938 to 1946, it became a reminder of repression and death. Gorki Street in Moscow the capital s main thoroughfare has been changed Back to Tverskaya Street. Fashionable shops and stores lined the Street before the bolshevik revolution and outside the City it be came the main Road to Tver. On july 19, the front Page of Kalini Skaya pravda the local newspaper carried a decree to rename the City that was signed by Boris Yeltsin president of the russian Republic. Yeltsin had reversed half a Century and fulfilled a dream of Many , even the newspaper will have to Call itself something else. The name game is sweeping this vast country. For decades cities streets ships farms and factories were renamed for bolshevik heroes and officials. Then As political times changed under Mikhail Gorbachev and history was rewritten some of the officials were disgraced and their names fell out of favor. The russian City of Naber Ethnye Cheleny renamed Bre Nev was returned to its original name. Tsar Tsyn renamed Stalingrad became Volgograd. Other name changes or expected ones include the transformation of Kui Bashev to Samara Gorki to Nizhni Novgorod kirov to Yatka Sverdlovsk to Ekaterinburg Andropov to r bins Zhdanov to Mariupol Vor Shilov Grad to Lugansk and Ord Honik Idze to Vladikavkaz. Some people who Are fed up with the old order even want to change Leningrad Back to St. Petersburg. Former president Kalinin s name was attached  places other than Tver which became his namesake on his birthday in 1931. Konigsberg a historic German City incorporated into the soviet Union at the end of world War ii became Kaliningrad. Major streets in other soviet Cit ies including Moscow also Honor Kalinin the figurehead president was hated by victims of the collectivization of agriculture a dark period in the country s history. Millions of people including Many from Kalinin s Home Region were arrested and executed As enemies of the people " when farms were collect sized in the 1930s. Some of the bodies Are believed to have been dumped into mass unmarked Graves near Tver. The Campaign to regain Kalinin s old name began in the 1960s, but did not get far until Gorbachev and his policy of glasnost came along. In March 1988, 11 Engi neers and intellectuals founded a group called return with the name change As its goal. Boris Yershov a Leader of the group and a local legislator said return s members were described at first As extremists sometimes As  but support for return gradually increased Yershov said and More than 14,000 of the City s 475,000 peo ple signed a petition last year demanding the change to Tver. Local party and legislative xxx lies eventually gave their support and the idea was ratified by Yeltsin a Radical reformer elected president of Russia the country s largest Republic in june. Not everyone was satisfied however. I m not in a festive mood said Natalya Dro Den to who was waiting in a Long line to buy chickens. It s Only right to change the name and we have been struggling for it lending our signatures to petitions Etc Etera but somehow i understand it s  and it won t affect our