Grigory Tsezarevich Svirsky (Russian: Григорий Цезаревич Свирский) (September 29, 1921 – 2016) was a Russian-born Canadian writer.

Svirsky was born in Ufa in September 1921. He was a military pilot during World War II from 1941 to 1944, then worked as a journalist. After publishing several books, Svirsky openly criticized censorship in the Soviet Union,[1] and all his writings were forbidden and destroyed in 1968.[2] Svirsky also criticized the 1968 suppression of the Prague Spring by Soviet military forces.[3] He was forced to emigrate to Israel on the personal request from KGB director Yuri Andropov in 1972.[3]

He published numerous fiction and non-fiction books, short stories, and plays. He was also an active participant of political discussions in RuNet, Russian blogosphere.[4]

One of his recent books was about the Internet brigades - teams of FSB agents who conduct psychological operations in the internet against political bloggers.[5][6][7] These "internet brigades" allegedly disseminate disinformation and prevent free discussion of undesirable subjects in the internet forums by harassing and intimidating the bloggers [8] He was interested in moral aspects of their work: "It seems that offending, betraying, or even "murdering" people in the virtual space is easy. This is like killing an enemy in a video game: one do not see a disfigured body or eyes of the person who is dying right in front of you. However, human soul lives by its own basic laws that force it to pay the price in the real life".[9]

He died in 2016.[10]

References

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  1. ^ "Доклад чекиста Евдокимова, 1927 г. Из выступления писатели Григория Свирского, 1968 г. Письма в Президиум Верховного Совета СССР, 1974 г".
  2. ^ "Григорий Свирский, Кретьен, Вадим Рабинович, Юрий Андропов, КГБ, Канада, Торонто, Grigory Svirsky, Andropov, Vadim Rabinovich, Canada, Toronto".
  3. ^ a b "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-10-27. Retrieved 2009-10-25.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. ^ Internet in handcuffs? This is madness. by Grigory Svirsky
  5. ^ Commissars of the Internet. The FSB at the Computer. Archived 2019-12-19 at the Wayback Machine by Anna Polyanskaya, Andrei Krivov, and Ivan Lomko, Vestnik online, April 30, 2003 (English translation)
  6. ^ Interview of Roman Sadykhov, grani.ru 03.04.2007
  7. ^ China's secret internet police target critics with web of propaganda, by Jonathan Watts in Beijing, June 14, 2005, Guardian Unlimited
  8. ^ " Grigory Svirsky Anastasya. A story on-line (Full text in Russian)
  9. ^ Eye for an eye (Russian) by Grigory Svirsky and Vladimur Bagryansky, publication of Russian Center for Extreme Journalism [1]
  10. ^ Григорий Цезаревич СВИРСКИЙ (1921–2016)
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His books

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