Andrei D. Sakharov

May 21, 1921, Mr.. - December 14, 1989
Russian physicist and human rights campaigner Andrei Sakharov was born in Moscow. On the family. information, little is known, only that his father, Dmitry Sakharov, has been professor of physics at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute named after Lenin. According to the most MS, he grew up in a large communal apartment, soaked in the spirit of the traditional family, which was valued above all, hard work and professional competence. The mild and modest young man, with. was particularly attached to his grandmother. Knowing the English language, she read each night grandchildren book by Charles Dickens, Christopher Marlowe, Harriet Beecher Stowe. The Orthodox holidays she read them the Gospel.
With. studied at the Moscow State University, where he was considered the best student ever enrolled at the Physics Department. After graduating with honors in 1942. S. was released from service in the army and sent to a military plant in the Volga region.
Returning to Moscow after the war, C. went to work for the well-known expert on quantum physics Igor Tamm in behalf of the Lebedev Institute. Two years later, at the age of 26, P. received his doctorate in physics and mathematics.
Working in secrecy, S., Tamm, and their colleagues have developed a hydrogen bomb, which was tested in August 1953. This success has brought honor above all. In 1953, Mr.. S. became the youngest scientist ever elected to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR-elite ruling body of Soviet science. As academician, he had the income and standard of living significantly above average.
From that time until 1968,. S. worked on improving nuclear weapons. Describing his life in those years, P. later said: "Subjectively, I felt that I was working for peace, that my work strengthens the balance of power and therefore benefited the Soviet people, and humanity in general '. However, over time there has arisen a sense of protest against nuclear testing, initially for fear of biological hazards tests in the atmosphere
In 1958, before ending the moratorium on nuclear testing in the atmosphere, C. was a memorandum to Communist Party chief Nikita Khrushchev. Convinced of the uselessness of tests that only provoke an arms race, with. proposed to stop all nuclear testing. Has influenced whether Khrushchev this memorandum is unknown, but the moratorium lasted for three more years. At the end of the moratorium with. renewed attempts to achieve a test ban, but to no avail. 'I could not do anything with what he thought were wrong and unnecessary - recalled with. later .- I had a terrible feeling of powerlessness. After that I became a different person '.
Interests with. even then not limited to nuclear physics. In 1958, Mr.. He opposed Khrushchev's plan to reduce secondary. Five years later he was among other scholars have rid the Soviet genetics from the harmful influence of the agronomist Trofim Lysenko. Unscientific theory of Lysenko (in particular his view that the heredity of plants can be changed by the environment) to a large extent resulted in the failure of agriculture under Stalin. In 1966, Mr.. writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel were sentenced to prison for slandering the Soviet Union in the books published in the West. S. with Tamm, Pyotr Kapitsa, and 22 other prominent intellectuals sent a letter to the receiver Khrushchev Leonid Brezhnev. The letter noted that any attempt to revive the Stalinist policy of intolerance of dissent 'would be the greatest disaster' for the Soviet people.
Thus C. alienated itself from official circles. In 1968. he wrote a manifesto 'Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom', which the American journalist Harrison E. Salisbury later spoke of as 'a movement for liberalization in the communist world'. Condemning the nuclear arms race, . document called for the cooperation of the Soviet Union and the United States, . predicted a gradual convergence of the two systems, . demanded the unification of the Soviet and American resources to combat the global threat of famine, . overpopulation and environmental pollution,
. S. argued for the abolition of censorship, political trials, against the detention of dissidents in psychiatric hospitals. Circulating in the territory of the Soviet Union's manifesto was published in the United States under the title 'Progress, coexistence and intellectual freedom. "
Official reaction to the heretical utterances with. was fairly mild: he was only dismissed from all posts related to military secrets. Later he was admitted to the Institute name P.N. Lebedev, a Senior Scientific Officer - the lowest of those that can take the Soviet Academy. Here he continued to theoretical studies of elementary particles, gravity and structure of the universe, started earlier.
Around the same time, the wife of S., bore him three children, died. In 1970. together with other Soviet physicists. founded the Committee 'For Human Rights', which was supposed to embody the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A year later, with. married Elena Bonner, whom he met while picketing the courtroom where the trial was over dissidents.
With more. disagreed with the Soviet policy, the longer it took him dissident activities. In 1973, despite warnings by the deputy prosecutor general, C. held a press conference for 11 Western journalists, during which condemned not only the threat of persecution, but also what he called 'detente without democratization'. Applications. intense criticism: in the newspaper Pravda published an article, . signed by 40 academicians; article of similar content, signed by 25 physicians (among whom was Evgeny Chazov, . later co-chair of the organization "Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War ') was published in the newspaper Izvestia.,
. S
. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 1975. for 'fearless support of the fundamental principles of peace between people' and for 'courageous fight against the abuse of power and all forms of suppression of human dignity'. The representative of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Ose Liones said: 'The Committee deeply regrets the fact that Andrei Sakharov was not allowed to ... get peace prize in person '.
The award was accepted Elena Bonner, who told the crowd that her husband is in Vilnius, where he was trying to support one of his colleagues, put on trial for publishing in the protection of human rights. After that, Bonner announced the speech with. 'To maintain self-respect, - said in a speech - a man must act accordingly universal longing for peace, true detente, real disarmament'. Appeal to 'a general political amnesty in the world' and 'release of all prisoners of conscience everywhere', C. asked listeners to keep in mind that this award 'is shared by all prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as those who fight for their liberation'.
. The next day, Bonner read Nobel lecture husband 'Peace, Progress, Human Rights', in which C
. argued that these three objectives 'are inextricably linked with one another'. He described the progress is not only inevitable, but also indivisible, noting that he calls 'freedom of conscience, the existence of informed public opinion, pluralism in education, press freedom and access to sources of information'. All this, said S. 'sorely lacking in the socialist countries'. Then C. outlined proposals to achieve detente and disarmament.
Despite open opposition to the regime, C. no attempt to arrest until 1980, when he sharply condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. S. was stripped of all awards, including the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and without trial and exiled to the military-industrial city of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod), closed to foreigners, where he was placed under house arrest. Bonner was allowed to stay in Moscow, but four years later, it was also exiled to Gorky, accusing him of anti-Soviet slander. In December 1986. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announced C. call the end of links. A few days. with Bonner returned to Moscow, where he resumed his scientific work. He continued to seek the release of Soviet dissidents, prisoners on political grounds. In 1987, taking in Moscow, a member of the diploma of the French Academy of Sciences,. rebuked the Soviet Academy for the fact that she did not support him during the "illegal deportation".
However, the first free elections of People's Deputies in 1989. S. decided to run only from the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, although he was nominated in many territorial constituencies secured by an unconditional victory. S. a lot of thinking about the reform of the political structure of the USSR, they had prepared a draft "Constitution of the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia '. The purpose of the people and States. declared 'a happy, full meaning of life, liberty, material and spiritual, welfare, peace and security for its citizens, for all people on earth, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, age and social status'.
With. died December 14, 1990, after a hard day of work at the Congress of People's Deputies. Tribute to the great man came to hundreds of thousands of people.
Assessment of scientific merit with. impossible before the expiration of the secrecy of his work. Nevertheless, it is clear that C. did a lot for the development of nuclear weapons, and for the use of force of the atom for peaceful purposes. S. Vysokooriginalnaya work, published in 1969. (it addressed the role of quarks, possibly explaining the balance of matter and antimatter), gives reason to believe that his contribution to the theory of the universe is not inferior to its role in nuclear technology. However, neither the one nor the other can not exceed its incomparable achievements in the protection of peace and human rights.