Letter of the Ninety-Nine
Letter of the Ninety-Nine was a public open letter written in 1968 by 99 Soviet mathematicians to defend their colleague Alexander Esenin-Volpin, who had been forcibly committed to a psychiatric hospital for his dissident activities. Esenin-Volpin was an active dissident who had been arrested many times since 1949 and repeatedly placed in psychiatric institutions. In 1965 he helped organize a rally in Moscow demanding a public trial for writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, who had been prosecuted for books published abroad, and he remained under heavy KGB surveillance. The authorities even tried to block his participation in the International Congress of Mathematicians in Moscow in 1966, fearing he would share critical information with foreigners.
On February 14, 1968, Esenin-Volpin was forcibly hospitalized by order of Moscow’s Chief Psychiatrist. The event was later called illegal by the Chronicle of Current Events: no court order was produced, and the required procedures—such as notifying relatives and having a three-person medical committee assess him within 24 hours—were not followed.
Some historians say the timing was deliberate, coinciding with the 15th anniversary of Stalin’s death, while others say the hospitalization was a reaction to his demand for a trial in the Sinyavsky-Daniel case. Friends and colleagues quickly gathered signatures for an open letter protesting the action, which became known as the Letter of Ninety-Nine. In reality, about 130 people signed, but a version with 99 signatures was sent. Organizers included Aleksandr Kronrod and Evgenii Landis; the first signatories were Izrail Gelfand and Igor Shafarevich. Many other famous scientists joined, including Pyotr Novikov, Israel Gelfand, Lazar Lyusternik, Andrei Markov, Dmitrii Menshov, Sergei Novikov, Isaak Yaglom, and 31 doctors and others.
The letter was sent to the Soviet health minister Boris Petrovsky and the prosecutor general Roman Rudenko, with a copy to Moscow’s Chief Psychiatrist. It also appeared in the West, notably in The New York Times and on Voice of America. A postscript asked readers to send replies to a Moscow State University address, which some historians say put the university at risk of government backlash. Although some prominent scientists did not sign, they sent letters in their own names, including leading figures who chose not to support the letter publicly.
On March 24, Esenin-Volpin’s mother and wife issued a statement protesting the authorities’ actions. He was moved on March 16 to a more secure ward at the Kashchenko Institute of Psychiatry and was released on May 12 after about three months in the hospital.
In Russia, the letter first appeared in print in 1999 in a collection that included some inaccuracies and 96 signatures. The Letter of the Ninety-Nine marked a turning point in the relationship between the Soviet authorities and the mathematical community. Many signatories faced repercussions, such as job losses and political pressure, and the event helped spark changes in leadership at Moscow State University’s mathematics department. Some viewed the signing as a bold stand for intellectual freedom, while others saw it as a potential provocation or manipulation by the authorities. The episode remains a notable milestone in the history of Soviet mathematics and the USSR’s human rights movement.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:37 (CET).