Mediaאדוארד קוזנצוב

Eduard Kuznetsov

Eduard Kuznetsov was a Soviet-Israeli dissident, journalist and writer, known as one of the leaders of the 1970 Dymshits-Kuznetsov hijacking affair.

1939 to 2024The Dymshits-Kuznetsov hijacking affairEditing the newspaper VestiThe novel Prison Diary

Born: 29 January 1939, Moscow
Died: 22 December 2024, Israel
Occupation: journalist, writer, dissident
Education: Lomonosov Moscow State University

Eduard Kuznetsov was born in 1939 in Moscow

Kuznetsov was born in Moscow in 1939 to a Jewish father and a Russian mother. He studied philosophy at Moscow State University. There he joined the first unofficial samizdat magazines and helped edit underground literary journals.

In 1961 he was arrested for samizdat work and for political speeches at poetry readings in Mayakovsky Square, and was sentenced to 7 years. After his release in 1968, he and Mark Dymshits organized a 1970 attempt to hijack an empty plane from Leningrad to escape the Soviet Union. He was sentenced to death, but after international protests the sentence was changed to 15 years.

In 1979 he was freed in a prisoner exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States and moved to Israel. From 1983 to 1990 he headed the news department of Radio Liberty in Munich. He later edited the Russian-language newspaper Vesti until 1999.

He wrote three novels, two of them in prison, and Prison Diary won the Gulliver Award in France in 1974. In 2017 he received a lifetime achievement award from Channel 9. He died on 22 December 2024 and was buried in Hadera.