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Raisa Gorbachev

Raisa Gorbacheva
RIAN archive 684237 Raisa Gorbacheva, spouse of CPSU General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.jpg
Wife of the President of the Soviet Union
In office
15 March 1990 – 25 December 1991
Spouse of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
In office
11 March 1985 – 24 August 1991
Preceded by Anna Chernenko
Succeeded by Office abolished
Spouse of the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union
In office
25 May 1989 – 15 March 1990
Preceded by Office established
Succeeded by Ludmila Lukyanova
Spouse of the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union
In office
1 October 1988 – 25 May 1989
Preceded by Lydia Gromyko
Succeeded by Office abolished
Personal details
Born Raisa Maximovna Titarenko
(1932-01-05)5 January 1932
Rubtsovsk, West Siberian Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Died 20 September 1999(1999-09-20) (aged 67)
Münster, Germany
Cause of death Leukemia
Spouse(s) Mikhail Gorbachev (m. 1953–1999; her death); 1 child
Relations
  • Maxim Andreyevich Titarenko (father)
  • Alexandra Petrovna Porada (mother)
Children Irina Mikhailovna Virganskaya
Alma mater Moscow State University
Profession Philosopher

Raisa Maximovna Gorbacheva (Russian: Раи́са Макси́мовна Горбачёва tr. Raisa Maksimovna Gorbachyova, née Titarenko, Титаре́нко; 5 January 1932 – 20 September 1999) was the wife of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. She raised funds for the preservation of Russian cultural heritage, fostering of new talent, and treatment programs for children's blood cancer.

Raisa Maximovna Titarenko was born in the city of Rubtsovsk in the Altai region of Siberia. She was the eldest of three children of Maxim Andreyevich Titarenko, a railway engineer originally from Chernigov in Ukraine, and his Siberian wife, Alexandra Petrovna Porada, originally from Veseloyarsk. She spent her childhood in the Ural Mountains, and met her future husband while studying philosophy in Moscow. She earned an advanced degree at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute, and taught briefly at Moscow State University.

They married in September 1953 and moved to her husband's home region of Stavropol in southern Russia upon graduation. There, she taught Marxist–Leninist philosophy and defended her sociology research thesis about kolkhoz life. She gave birth in 1958 to their only child, Irina Mikhailovna (married name: Virganskaya; Ири́на Миха́йловна Вирга́нская). When her husband returned to Moscow as a rising Soviet Communist Party official, Gorbacheva took a post of a lecturer at her alma mater, Moscow State University. She left the post when her husband became a leader of the Soviet Union in 1985. Her public appearances beside her husband as first lady were a novelty at home and went a long way in humanizing the country's image. She was one of the few wives of a communist party leader to have a high public profile of her own.


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