Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (Russian: Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров; 21 May 1921 – 14 December 1989) was a Soviet physicist and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, which he was awarded in 1975 for emphasizing human rights around the world.
For the historian, see Andrey Nikolayevich Sakharov.
Andrei Sakharov
21 May 1921
14 December 1989 (aged 68)
Vostryakovskoye Cemetery
Soviet Union
- Klavdia Vikhireva (1943–1969; her death)
- Yelena Bonner (1972–1989; his death)
- Hero of Socialist Labor
(1953, 1955, 1962) - Stalin Prize (1953)
- Lenin Prize (1956)
- Prix mondial Cino Del Duca (1974)
- Nobel Peace Prize (1975)
- Elliott Cresson Medal (1985)
Although he spent his career in physics in the Soviet program of nuclear weapons, overseeing the development of thermonuclear weapons, Sakharov also did fundamental work in understanding particle physics, magnetism, and physical cosmology. Sakharov is mostly known for his political activism for individual freedom, human rights, civil liberties and reforms in the Soviet Union, for which he was deemed a dissident and faced persecution from the Soviet establishment.[1]
In his memory, the Sakharov Prize was established and is awarded annually by the European Parliament for people and organizations dedicated to human rights and freedoms.[2]
Biography[edit]
Family background and early life[edit]
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was born in Moscow on 21 May 1921, to a Russian family. His father, Dmitri Ivanovich Sakharov, was a physics professor at the Second Moscow State University and an amateur pianist.[3][4] His grandfather, Ivan, was a lawyer in the former Russian Empire who had displayed respect for social awareness and humanitarian principles (including advocating the abolition of capital punishment). Sakharov's mother, Yekaterina Alekseevna Sofiano, was a daughter of Aleksey Semenovich Sofiano, a general in the Tsarist Russian Army with Greek heritage.[5][6]
Sakharov's parents and paternal grandmother, Maria Petrovna, largely shaped his personality; his mother and grandmother were members of the Russian Orthodox Church, although his father was a non-believer. When Andrei was about thirteen, he realized that he did not believe in God. However, despite being an atheist,[7] he did believe in a "guiding principle" that transcends the physical laws.[8]
After schooling, Sakharov studied physics at the Moscow State University in 1938 and, following evacuation in 1941 during the Eastern Front with Germany, he graduated in Aşgabat in Turkmenistan.[9] In 1943, he married Klavdia Alekseyevna Vikhireva, with whom he raised two daughters and a son. Klavdia would later die in 1969. In 1945, he joined the Theoretical Department of Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences under Igor Tamm in Moscow. In 1947, Sakharov was successful in defending his thesis for the Doctor of Sciences (lit. Doktor Nauk), which covered the topic of nuclear transmutation.[10]
Influence[edit]
Memorial prizes[edit]
The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought was established in 1988 by the European Parliament in his honour, and is the highest tribute to human rights endeavours awarded by the European Union. It is awarded annually by the parliament to "those who carry the spirit of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov"; to "Laureates who, like Sakharov, dedicate their lives to peaceful struggle for human rights."[51]
An Andrei Sakharov prize has also been awarded by the American Physical Society every second year since 2006 "to recognize outstanding leadership and/or achievements of scientists in upholding human rights".
The Andrei Sakharov Prize for Writer's Civic Courage was established in October 1990.[52]
In 2004, with the approval of Yelena Bonner, an annual Sakharov Prize for journalism was established for reporters and commentators in Russia. Funded by former Soviet dissident Pyotr Vins,[53] now a businessman in the US, the prize is administered by the Glasnost Defence Foundation in Moscow. The prize "for journalism as an act of conscience" has been won over the years by famous journalists such as Anna Politkovskaya and young reporters and editors working far from Russia's media capital, Moscow. The 2015 winner was Yelena Kostyuchenko.[54]
Andrei Sakharov Archives and Human Rights Center[edit]
The Andrei Sakharov Archives and Human Rights Center, established at Brandeis University in 1993, are now housed at Harvard University.[55] The documents from that archive were published by the Yale University Press in 2005.[56] These documents are available online.[57] Most of documents of the archive are letters from the head of the KGB to the Central Committee about activities of Soviet dissidents and recommendations about the interpretation in newspapers. The letters cover the period from 1968 to 1991 (Brezhnev stagnation). The documents characterize not only Sakharov's activity, but that of other dissidents, as well as that of highest-position apparatchiks and the KGB. No Russian equivalent of the KGB archive is available.
In 1980, Sakharov was stripped of all Soviet awards for "anti-Soviet activities".[65] Later, during glasnost, he declined the return of his awards and, consequently, Mikhail Gorbachev did not sign the necessary decree.[66]