Soviet Woman Tells Divorce Court That Her Life Is on Line

A divorce court judge agreed Monday to consider the impassioned plea of a Soviet woman who asked him to save not only her seven-year marriage to an American ski instructor but possibly her life.

“My life will be in danger (from Soviet authorities). . . . Divorce will leave me helpless and without any protection before the biggest prosecution machine in the world,” Elena Vladimirovna Kaplan wrote in a letter to the court from Moscow.

She said that since her marriage to Gary D. Talanov in 1978, she has been harassed by the Soviet government. Talanov was forced to return to the United States, but as the wife of an American, Kaplan said, she received protection from the U.S. Embassy, which has the “right to interfere if anything happens to me now.” That protection would disappear if the divorce goes though, she wrote.

Met at University

Kaplan’s neatly typed letter in English to the judge arrived from Moscow Aug. 15 and explained how she and Talanov met while attending Moscow University, where she was studying mathematics and her husband-to-be was a student of Russian.

In the five-page letter, she described herself as a member of an “elite” Soviet family of scientists and said she and Talanov “fell in love so strongly” that they married in April, 1978, “despite the strong disapproval of my parents and my family and many problems in the university with authorities.”

She said her husband had to leave the Soviet Union when his visa expired in October, 1978, and Soviet authorities rejected her bid to leave the country a month later, the first of about a dozen failed attempts to emigrate to the United States.

The letter, addressed to the court of Judge James D. Garbolino, was the chief issue at a hearing on a petition for default in a divorce action brought by Talanov, who teaches at a ski resort near Lake Tahoe.

Garbolino said he wanted to study the letter before making a ruling. However, he said he might consider allowing the Soviet woman to contest the divorce, even though Soviet authorities have prevented her from leaving her homeland and she does not have a local attorney to represent her.

A contested divorce would result in a trial in which Talanov’s wife probably would not be present. The couple have no children and apparently no community property, other than what Talanov’s wife said was “my husband’s responsibility for my very life.”

Garbolino was guarded in his comments to reporters.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do about this problem,” he said.

Phone Disconnected

Talanov, 31, who was accompanied to court by a blonde woman who did not identify herself, swiftly left the courthouse after the hearing without talking to reporters. His telephone has been disconnected, and spokesmen at the ski resort refused to comment.

Talanov filed a do-it-yourself divorce action and was not represented by an attorney.

In her letter to the judge, Kaplan said that after her marriage, Soviet authorities revoked her Soviet “registration.” Without it, she wrote, “one cannot get a job, have medical treatment and becomes almost an outlaw.”

Kaplan said she was called a “traitor” and, in 1980, Soviet authorities “threw me out of Moscow,” forcing her to work in a factory in a small town 130 miles away.

Kaplan said, however, that she is optimistic about eventually leaving because of recent pressure by U.S. political leaders on behalf of Soviet citizens married to Americans. She said she has American friends in the Soviet Union and has met with “senior American officials, congressmen and senators who have visited Moscow during this spring and summer,” including House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.).

Wants to Join Husband

The woman said that if she is allowed to leave the Soviet Union, she hopes to re-establish her relationship with Talanov.

“When I get permission from Soviet authorities to go and join my husband, our marriage will be fine,” she wrote.

The judge said he believes the letter is authentic, saying Talanov had not disputed that his wife had written it.