Honorary Graduates
Orations and responses
Dr Andrei Vladimirovich Gnezdilov
Oration given on 5 April 2001
Chancellor, the Senate of the University has resolved that
the degree of Doctor of the University be conferred upon ANDREI
VLADIMIROVICH GNEZDILOV.
What a turbulent time it was just a decade ago! The Soviet Union was in a
state of collapse; tanks were on the streets of Moscow; new states were coming
into existence (or old ones were being restored); while in Russia’s northern
capital, Leningrad (soon to revert to its original name - St Petersburg), the
city’s newly-elected democratic mayor, Anatolii Sobchak, assisted, let it be
said, by one of his former students, Vladimir Putin, was desperately trying to
keep the forces of reaction at bay.
In the midst of this turmoil, a man, once persona non grata in the USSR for
his alleged anti-Soviet views, was endeavouring to set up Russia’s first hospice
for the terminally ill.
That man was the late Victor Zorza, for many years the Manchester Guardian’s
highly regarded Kremlinologist. Himself the bereaved father of a beloved
daughter who had died from an exceptionally painful form of cancer, he had
decided to do whatever he could to relieve the pain (literally and
metaphorically) of the long-suffering people struggling to find their way along
a road for which there were no directions.
Having decided to set up a hospice, Zorza’s first concern was to enlist the
support of someone who was not only medically competent to undertake that work,
but also who had the necessary human qualities to do so. He found that
person in Leningrad: it was Dr Andrei Vladimirovich Gnezdilov, who at that time,
1990, was working as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist at the Institute of
Oncology, and also, simultaneously, as assistant Professor in the Department of
Psychiatry at the Second Medical Institute.
It was in 1973 that Dr Gnezdilov first started working with the dying and
patients beyond hope of recovery. Since then, as a fervent believer in the
holistic approach to medicine, he has developed the use of art therapy for the
terminally ill, as well as being the founder of a psychotherapy theatre, where
musical – and, in particular, bell (bells occupy a special place in Russian
culture) – therapy, psychodrama and shadow theatre are used to relieve patients’
distress.
The obstacles that confronted Victor Zorza and Andrei Gnezdilov at the
beginning of the 1990s were immense. Through the good offices of Mayor
Sobchak, premises for Russia’s first hospice were secured in the village of
Lakhta on the outskirts of Leningrad: they were described as being a “timber
shack”, together with surrounding outbuildings. They had to be cleaned,
renovated, equipped and staffed, all at a time when the country’s health service
was collapsing and when it was well-nigh impossible to obtain even simple
aspirin for the relief of pain. So, in addition to running the Lakhta
hospice, Dr Gnezdilov had to set about raising money, as well as battling with
Russia’s notorious bureaucracy, including at times the medical bureaucracy.
Dr Gnezdilov is truly a son of his city. Born in 1940, he was just one
year old when the terrible 900-day siege of Leningrad began in September 1941.
His father was Professor of Biology and Parasitology at one of the most
brilliant medical institutions of the time, the Military Medical Academy.
His mother was a sculptor and thus a member of Leningrad’s renowned creative
intelligentsia. Towards the end of the blockade, the family, together with
the Medical Academy, was evacuated to Samarkand in Central Asia; but as soon as
the blockade was lifted, they returned to Leningrad.
Although it is in Leningrad / St Petersburg that Dr Gnezdilov’s work is
focussed, it has created ever-widening ripples throughout Russia. If
Lakhta was once the only hospice in Russia, today St Petersburg alone has three;
while Dr Gnezdilov is President of the recently-formed Palliative Care
Association of Russia. It is in that role that he has been able to
disseminate his own experience and that of the staff of the Lakhta hospice
throughout a country from which palliative care had long been totally absent.
It was while on a private visit to Russia that a local Colchester
businessman, Michael Siggs, became aware of the work of the hospice founded by
Victor Zorza and Andrei Gnezdilov. Since then, Mr Siggs has been
instrumental in setting up in the town, the Friends of St Petersburg Healthcare
Trust. With the selfless assistance of the local Rotary movement, members
of the medical profession, and the support of volunteers who have collected
medicines and equipment and raised funds, as well as the involvement of a member
of this University, Ann Feltham, help, expertise, money and, not least, no fewer
than twenty-four hospital beds and two hoists have been provided for the Lakhta
hospice. The work continues.
Russians sometimes say of themselves: “we are a rich country of poor people”.
What they mean is that Russia has an abundance of valuable raw materials and a
wealth of intellectual resources but that these have too often been squandered
in the pursuit of unattainable goals. At the present time, the country is
making a difficult transition from a past that everyone knows from first-hand
experience to a future the like of which no one knows what. Some citizens
have already acquired great personal wealth in the process, but many, many more
are very poor indeed. Yet, even against this formidable background, Dr
Gnezdilov is adamant that the Russian hospice movement should preserve the
principle of free treatment; he insists on the individual’s right to die with
dignity and it is to those ends that he and his devoted staff have dedicated
their professional lives.
Last October marked the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Lakhta
hospice in St Petersburg. In conferring this degree, the University of
Essex is remembering the initiative of Victor Zorza. It celebrates the
devotion of the staff of the hospice and pays tribute to those who today are
extending the work of the hospice movement throughout Russia. It
acknowledges the efforts of those people in Colchester and our region who are
playing their part in supporting the Lakhta hospice in St Petersburg.
Colchester was one of the first communities in the United Kingdom to set up a
hospice. So it is particularly appropriate that Colchester’s University
should honour the moving spirit of Russia’s first hospice.
Chancellor, I present to you ANDREI VLADIMIROVICH GNEZDILOV
Orator: Professor Peter Frank