Human rights activist Lyudmila Alekseeva is 85 years old

On July 20, 85 years old is the famous Russian human rights activist, a participant in the dissident movement in the USSR , the chairman of the Moscow Helsinki group Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alekseeva.

Lyudmila Mikhailovna in 1950 graduated from the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, in 1956 - graduate school of the Moscow Economic and Statistical Institute. In 1959-1968 she worked as a scientific editor of the editorial office of archeology and ethnography in the publishing house "Science". In 1970-1977 - an employee of the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In 1965 - 1966 Lyudmila Alekseeva took part in human rights actions in defense of writers Daniel and Sinyavsky in connection with the court over them for the publication of her works of art abroad. In the late 1960s, she participated in a petition campaign, which unfolded in connection with the political process over Alexander Ginzburg, Yuri Galanskov, etc. in April 1968 was excluded from the CPSU and was dismissed from work.

She continued human rights, signed a number of documents of the dissident movement. In 1968-1972, he was the first driver of the Bulletin of the Chronicle of Current Events. Since 1968, she has repeatedly been subjected to searches and interrogations. In 1974, she was announced by an official warning by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for the "systematic production and distribution of anti -Soviet works."

In early 1976, she accepted the proposal of Yuri Orlov to join the created human rights organization - the Moscow Helsinki group (MHG).

In February 1977, under the threat of arrest, Lyudmila Alekseeva was forced to emigrate from the USSR and settled in the United States. In exile was a foreign representative of the ICG. In 1977-1984 Prepared by the publication of the group documents. From 1977 she worked on the monograph “History of dissent in the USSR. The latest period ”is the first fundamental historical study on this topic/ for the first time the work was published in New York in 1984.

In 1993, she returned to Russia. In May 1996, he was elected chairman of the Moscow Helsinki group. In 1998-2004 - President of the International Helsinki Federation.

In 2002-2012, Lyudmila Alekseeva was a member of the Commission on Human Rights under the President of the Russian Federation (subsequently - the Council under the President of the Russian Federation on the development of civil society and human rights).

Lyudmila Mikhailovna performed in the cycle “Public Lectures“ Polit.ru ”on the topic “ History and worldview of the human rights movement in the USSR and Russia ”.

In the lecture, Lyudmila Mikhailovna noted: “ The book on independent movements in Russia, all that were after the death of Stalin in the Soviet Union, I called the history of dissent in the USSR. But perhaps the real dissent, the alternative to Soviet ideology and the image of thinking, was proposed by just human rights activists. As it turned out - a rather mysterious thing. Because we can derive our ideology from the ideology of our pre -revolutionary predecessors, say, cadets or such famous lawyers as Kistyakovsky. But now we know them. And then, believe me, we simply did not know either their names, nor, moreover, what their ideas were - all this was cut off. Cultural tradition, development were rigidly interrupted by Soviet censorship.

You might think that it came from the west. Moreover, we have the beginning of the human rights movement, the emergence of its ideology, activity falls in the mid-60s. As we know, the second half of the 60s. -These are student unrest and even uprising in France, in America and the famous slogan of the Con-Bendy “Be real-demand the impossible!” We also professed this slogan, but learned about it much later. There were some echoes, but we really did not know what was being done in the West. And, of course, they were not our teachers.

We came up with this ourselves. Just because they were not very literate: they did not know either their predecessors or the course of Western thought - both the former and modern to us . ”

Describing the principles of movement with which Lyudmila Aleksveev identifies itself, she said: “The first and most important principle that human rights activists began to profess and which is still very firmly present in the already Russian human rights movement - this is non -power. Even our principles, even all the most expensive for us, we did not intend to affirm with the help of power.

We did not believe that by evil you can reach good, and categorically denied. Despite the persecution, which the participants in this movement were fully survived, none of them resorted to violence and preached it. This is a very important point and completely new at that time on an ideological field.

Another very important and unexpected moment, in comparison with previous periods, was the openness of our movement. ”

In full accordance with these dinks, Lyudmila Mikhailovna has been operating all these years.

Polit.ru joins numerous congratulations to the hero of the day.

See also:

• " The history and worldview of the human rights movement in the USSR and Russia"
• “I was lucky to be at that time and in the place where the human rights movement originated” ( Part 1 , Part2 )