M. Gessen interview with Yelena Bonner (1923-2011), wife of Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident and nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989), published in the LGBTQ magazine "Tema."

Three moments in the early history of Memorial, a human rights group established in Gorbachev-era Russia (and abolished by Putin’s government in 2022) to document and memorialize Soviet political repressions and abuses.

The return from exile of physicist, dissident, and 1975 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989) was a media sensation—here emblematized in a photograph of reporters swarming him as he steps out of a car in Moscow. His return marked a powerful popular comeback for the renowned human rights activist who, despite years of official condemnation, received growing press support through perestroika until his death in 1989.

Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989), a physicist and Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident, returned to Moscow from internal exile in 1986. He quickly became one of the USSR's most popular and respected public figures, surpassing even Gorbachev in some polls. His sudden death in December 1989 drew tens of thousands of mourners, despite a muted official response.

Just five months before his death, Nobel Peace Prize-winning physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989) spoke out at the USSR’s First Congress of People’s Deputies, defying Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022) to advocate for a multi-party system in a speech broadcast live to millions—yet silenced within the Congress hall itself.

Televised footage of the USSR’s first Congress of People’s Deputies in 1989. So many Soviet citizens tuned in to the live broadcast that production rates fell nationwide.