Lyudmila Alexeyeva
| Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alexeyeva | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Native name | Людмила Михайловна Алексеева |
| Born |
July 20, 1927 Yevpatoria, Crimea, Soviet Union |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Citizenship |
 Soviet Union (1927–1991) →  Russian Federation (1991–present) |
| Alma mater | the Moscow State University, the graduate school of the Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics, and Informatics |
| Occupation | Russian historian, activist, chairwomen of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group |
| Known for | Human rights activism with participation in the Moscow Helsinki Group |
| Movement | Moscow Helsinki Group, Strategy-31, other rights-related movements |
| Spouse(s) | Nikolay Williams |
| Awards | Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Olof Palme Prize, Légion d'honneur, Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas, Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, Sakharov Prize |
Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alexeyeva (Russian: Людми́ла Миха́йловна Алексе́ева, IPA: [lʲʊˈdmʲilə ɐlʲɪˈksʲeɪvə], born 20 July 1927, Yevpatoria, Crimea) is a Russian historian, leading human rights activist, founding member of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, and one of the last Soviet dissidents still active in modern Russia.
Alexeyeva was born in Yevpatoria, Crimea. She was trained as an archeologist, graduating from the History Department of the Moscow State University in 1950 and finishing the graduate school of the Moscow Institute for Economics and Statistics in 1956. Alexeyeva joined the Communist Party of the USSR in 1952. From 1959–1968, she worked as an editor in the ethnography and archeology section of the publishing house “Science”.
Alexeyeva’s worldview was significantly affected by the Khrushchev Thaw that lasted from the mid-1950s through the early 1960s. She belonged to the group of people, mostly intellectuals, who formed the dissident movement in the USSR in the 1960s. In 1966, Alexeyeva campaigned in defense of Daniel and Siniavsky, the writers who were arrested and tried for publishing their works abroad. In the late 1960s she signed petitions in defense of other dissidents who were prosecuted by the Soviet authorities, including Alexander Ginzburg and Yuri Galanskov.
In April 1968, Alexeyeva was expelled from the Communist Party and fired from her job at the publishing house. Nonetheless, she continued her activities in defense of human rights. In 1968–1972 she worked clandestinely as a typist for the first underground bulletin The Chronicle of Current Events devoted to human rights violations in the USSR.
...
Wikipedia