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Valeria Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya (Russian: Валерия Ильинична Новодворская) (born May 17, 1950, Baranavichy, Belarus) is a Russian politician, dissident, the founder and the chairwoman of the "Democratic Union" party, and a member of the editorial board of The New Times. She is considered among the most liberal of Russia's politicians.

Political activism

Soviet Union

Novodvorskaya has been active in the Soviet dissidents movement since her youth, and first imprisoned by the Soviet authorities on 1969 for distributing leaflets that criticized the Soviet invasion in Czechoslovakia (Prague Spring). The leaflets included her poetry: "Thank you, the Communist Party for our bitterness and despair, for our shameful silence, thank you the Party!". Novodvorskaya was only 19 at this time. She was arrested, imprisoned and tortured in a Soviet psychiatric hospital. She described her experiences there in her book Beyond Despair.

Post-Soviet Russia

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Novodvorskaya is openly critical of Russian government policies, including Chechen Wars, domestic policies of Vladimir Putin, and the alleged rebirth of Soviet propaganda in Russia.

In an interview with Echo Moskvy on 28 August 2008 in which she was discussing the 2008 South Ossetia War, Novodvorskaya opined that Shamil Basayev was a democrat, given his support of Boris Yeltsin during the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, and his participation in the government of Aslan Maskhadov in 1997, who had appointed Basayev Deputy Premier of the Ichkerian government. Novodvorskaya also charged it was Russia that turned him into a terrorist. In response Alexey Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of the radio station, pulled the recording and transcripts of the program from the Echo Moskvy website. On 31 August 2008, on her Echo Moskvy blog, she stated that had not justified terrorism, and would not have supported Basayev as he had stepped over the line which separates good from bad. She also justified her comments based upon Basayev's "westernisation" measures on which he ran for the Chechen presidency, which included basing the Chechen army on the American model, introduction of American-style development and computerisation of Chechnya. She also accused Venediktov of censorship and slander, and appeared to suggest that the decision to remove the interview may have been due to Gazprom, a state-owned company, being a controlling shareholder in Echo Moskvy. In an interview with Novaya Gazeta, Venediktov confirmed that she had been banned from the station as a result of her remarks during the interview.

Awards

Novodvorskaya received the Starovoytova award "for contribution to the defense of human rights and strengthening democracy in Russia". She said at the ceremony that "we are not in opposition to, but in confrontation with, the present regime".

Notes

1. (also mentioned, Gleb Yakunin and Konstantin Borovoi) Arbatov, Alexei. Military Reform in Russia,International Security, Vol. 22, No. 4
2. Barron, John (1975). KGB - The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents. London: Corgi Books. ISBN 0-552-09890-6. p. 55 in Russian edition (ISBN 0-911971-29-7)
3. Газета «Новый взгляд» N46 от 28 августа 1993г.. Democtratic Union website
4. Комсомольская правда (9.2.2007)
5. Валерия Новодворская на радио "Эхо Москвы" 29 августа 2008 г., radio interview, August 29, 2008, on "Moscow Echo" (Echo Moskvy)
6. Aslan Maskhadov: Five Steps into History, Prague Watchdog, retrieved November 13, 2008.
7. Template:Ru icon Novodvorskaya, Valeriya. "Валерия Новодворская на радио "Эхо Москвы" 29 августа 2008 г." Democratic Union. Retrieved 2008-11-10.
8. Template:Ru icon "Новодворскую изгнали с "Эха Москвы" за восхваление Басаева". Lenta.ru. 1 September 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-16. at WebCite
9. Template:Ru icon Novodvorskaya, Valeriya (31 August 2008). "EchoMSK : Заявление Валерии Новодворской". Echo Moskvy. Retrieved 2008-11-10.
10. ""The radio that saddles"". Novaya Gazeta. 24 September 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-16. at WebCite
11. Anna Politkovskaya (2007) A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia, Random House, ISBN 978-1-4000-6682-7, page 38.

Her books

• Valeriya Novodvorskaya. Beyond despair. .Moscow, Novosti. 1993 Валерия Новодворская. По ту сторону отчаяния. Template:Ru icon

See also

• Larisa Arap

External links

• The Democratic Union
• Opinions on grani.ru (Russian)
• «It can very soon come to pogroms», interview with Novodvorskaya, Jewish Observer, 21/40. November 2002

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