Galina Starovoitova
| Galina Vasilyevna Starovoitova | |
|---|---|
| Native name | Галина Васильевна Старовойтова |
| Born |
May 17, 1946 Chelyabinsk |
| Died | November 20, 1998 (aged 52) St Petersburg |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Alma mater | Leningrad College of Military Engineering Leningrad University Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography |
| Known for | human rights activism with participation in the Moscow Helsinki Group |
| Awards | Commander's Grand Crosses of the Order of the Cross of Vytis |
Galina Vasilyevna Starovoitova (Russian: Гали́на Васи́льевна Старово́йтова; 17 May 1946, in Chelyabinsk – 20 November 1998, in St Petersburg) was a Soviet dissident,Russian politician and ethnographer known for her work to protect ethnic minorities and promote democratic reforms in Russia. She was shot to death in her apartment building.
Born in the Ural mountains city of Chelyabinsk on 17 May 1946 to a Belarusian father and a Russian mother, Starovoitova earned an undergraduate degree from the Leningrad College of Military Engineering in 1966 and an MA in social psychology from Leningrad University in 1971. In 1980, she earned a doctorate in social anthropology from the Institute of Ethnography, USSR Academy of Sciences, where she worked for seventeen years. She conducted PhD research at the end of the 1970s, focusing on a sensitive topic at that period, specifically on the role of ethnic groups in Soviet cities. The data of her study were drawn mainly from Leningrad. Her PhD thesis, published in 1987, was a study of the Tatars of Leningrad. She also published extensively on anthropological theory, cross-cultural studies, and Caucasian anthropology—with fieldwork notably in the areas of Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia. In early 1988, after the birth of the Armenian national-democratic movement, she became a supporter of the self-determination of the Nagorno-Karabakh region. In December 1988, she accompanied Academician Andrei Sakharov on a fateful trip to Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Karabakh region in an attempt at mediation and reconciliation. From 1994 to 1998, she was a visiting professor at the Watson Institute for International Studies of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, lecturing on the politics of self-determination for ethnic minorities.
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