Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (1921 - 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist who played a central role in developing the Soviet Union's first hydrogen bomb before becoming one of the twentieth century's most prominent advocates for human rights, nuclear disarmament, and civil liberties.[1] Honoured at the highest levels of the Soviet state and later stripped of those honours for his dissent, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.
Early life and education
Sakharov was born in Moscow on 21 May 1921 into a family of the Russian intelligentsia; his father was a physics teacher. He studied physics at Lomonosov Moscow State University, graduating in 1942, and completed his doctoral research under the physicist Igor Tamm at the Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow.[2]
Nuclear physics
In 1948 Sakharov joined the secret Soviet programme to develop thermonuclear weapons. His contributions, including a layered design sometimes called the "Sakharov puff," were instrumental in the Soviet Union's first hydrogen bomb test in 1953.[3] Working with Tamm, he also proposed early concepts for controlled nuclear fusion using magnetic confinement, ideas that influenced later tokamak reactor research. In 1953, at the age of 32, he became one of the youngest people ever elected to the USSR Academy of Sciences, and he received the Stalin Prize, the Lenin Prize, and the title Hero of Socialist Labour three times.
Human rights activism
From the late 1950s Sakharov grew increasingly concerned about the environmental and moral consequences of nuclear testing, and he supported the movement that led to the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In 1968 he wrote the essay Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom, which circulated in samizdat and was published abroad, calling for cooperation between East and West and for greater intellectual freedom.[1] He co-founded the Committee on Human Rights in the USSR in 1970. In 1975 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; barred from leaving the country, he was represented at the ceremony by his wife, Yelena Bonner.[4]
Exile and final years
After publicly protesting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Sakharov was arrested in January 1980, stripped of his state honours, and exiled without trial to the closed city of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod). During nearly seven years there he staged hunger strikes to protest his treatment and that of his family. He was released in December 1986 on the initiative of Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1989 he was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies, where he argued for democratic reform until his death in Moscow on 14 December 1989.[2]
Legacy
Sakharov is remembered as a symbol of moral conscience who moved from the heart of the Soviet weapons establishment to open opposition to its abuses. The European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, established in 1988, is named in his honour and remains one of the world's leading human rights awards.[3]
