The dissident movement in the USSR consisted of various circles. Also various were its aims and means of opposition against the Soviet authori-tarian rule. The movement had, thus, different faces and today can be defined in a number of ways. The article attempts to consolidate the most important terms and notions, it shows chorological framework, provides definitions. First objections and speeches which were dissident in nature we see in the context of the scandal concerning Doctor Zhivago and the Nobel price for its author – Boris Pasternak. Later on there were the arrests of writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel. The following years brought better and better an institutional organization of the dissident community.
The article discusses the work of Frida Vigdorova, a Moscow teacher, journalist and publicist who took the minutes of the court hearing during the trial of Joseph Brodsky and then publicised them without official censorship. The publication in the second circulation of a direct transcript of the court hearing become an example to follow for later such texts. The dissident circles in the USSR regarded free access to information as one of the fundamental human and citizen rights. The document created by Frida Vigdorova became known all over the world. It was also published in the Western press and it became a symbolic evidence of breaking the right to a fair trial in the USSR.
