Valeriya Novodvorskaya

The political activist never married, and blamed her sexual abstinence on her regular arrests by the Soviet government.

She was fond of cats, and in her leisure time, she like swimming, reading science fiction and watching theatre performances.

On July 12, 2014, Valeriya succumbed to ‘Toxic Shock Syndrome’, a fatal infection caused by accumulated pus in her left foot.

Valeriya Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya was born to Nina Fyodorovna, who was a doctor, and her engineer husband, on May 17, 1950, at Baranovichi, in present Belarus.

She completed her secondary education in 1968, and went on to pursue a course in French translation and teaching from the 'Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages'.

In 1969, at the young age of 19, Novodvorskaya formed an association comprising students, whose main objective was to revolt against the Communist government in Czechoslovakia. She distributed pamphlets that said “Thank you, the Communist Party for our bitterness and despair, for our shameful silence, thank you the Party!”

This led to her arrest, and she was sent to the 'Soviet Psychiatric Hospital' in 1970 and she was confined there for two years, on claims of being schizophrenic.

In 1972 Valeriya helped in publishing papers for the underground press in Moscow. The next three years, she was employed as a teacher at a children's medical establishment.

During 1977-1978 this political activist tried to form a party that would protest against the Soviet regime. She also formed a trade guild called ‘Free Inter-Professional Union of Workers’, which vehemently fought for labour rights, leading to the arrest of all the members.

This Russian political activist was arrested for being a nonconformist, on three occasions from 1978-86. In the following years, she regularly held illegal meetings and protest marches, which caused the government to imprison her seventeen times.

Valeriya Novodvorskaya is known for her impassioned protests against the Soviet government which have often led her to trouble with the law, and intermittent stints at psychiatric institutions. Her most popular book ‘Beyond Despair’, describes these experiences, and her motivation behind the struggle for democracy in Russia.