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Valeria Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya (Template:Lang-ru; born May 17, 1950, Baranavichy, Belarus, USSR) is a radical liberal Russian politician, Soviet 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. Many of her remarks have provoked controversy.

Career

Soviet Union

Novodvorskaya has been active in the Soviet dissidents movement since her youth, and first imprisoned by the Soviet authorities in 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 at Soviet psychiatric hospital. She described her experiences there in her book Beyond Despair–alleging that she was tortured by fellow inmates.

Russia

Political career

Novodvorskaya stood as a candidate for the radical liberal party Democratic Union in the 1993 Russian legislative election in a single-mandate district as part of the Russia's Choice bloc, and she also contested the 1995 Russian legislative election on the list of the Party of Economic Freedom. She was not elected in either election, and hasn't yet held public office.

Political activism

Novodvorskaya self-identifies as democratic and liberal politician. She also sometimes calls herself and her allies successors to the White Russian tradition.. She 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, 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. According to her, it was Russian governmental policies in Chechnya that turned Basayev 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. She later accused Venediktov of censorship and slander, and suggested that the decision to remove the interview may have been due to Gazprom, a state-owned company, being a controlling shareholder in Echo Moskvy.. Venediktov asserted this to be his own decision and confirmed that Novodvorskaya was banned from the station until the end of 2008.

Novodvorskaya has stated that human rights are not universal. They should be reserved for the moral and "good people", naming people like Khomeini or Kim Il-sung as not deserving rights. She looks upon this as justified discrimination. Novodvorskaya was prosecuted—charges were later dropped—for some of her statements in the mid-1990s..

In an interview with a Georgian newspaper, Novodvorskaya said that Georgia "did well" in terminating diplomatic relations with Russia because this will bring the "pleasure of seeing Russia destroyed."

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. Lukin, Alexander. The Political Culture of the Russian "Democrats". New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 0198295588, ISBN 9780198295587. P. 260n.
2. (also mentioned, Gleb Yakunin and Konstantin Borovoi) Arbatov, Alexei. Military Reform in Russia,International Security, Vol. 22, No. 4
3. 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)
4. Millar, James R. (2004). Encyclopedia of Russian History. Macmillan Reference USA. pp. 372–373. ISBN 0028659074. OCLC 62165740.
5. "Nad propast'yu vo lzhi" by Valeriya Novodvorskaya. AST Publishing, 1998. ISBN 5-7390-0423-3, ISBN 5-15-000959-8
6. Газета «Новый взгляд» N46 от 28 августа 1993г.. Democratic Union website
7. Комсомольская правда (9.2.2007)
8. Валерия Новодворская на радио "Эхо Москвы" 29 августа 2008 г., radio interview, August 29, 2008, on "Moscow Echo" (Echo Moskvy)
9. Aslan Maskhadov: Five Steps into History, Prague Watchdog, retrieved November 13, 2008.
10. Template:Ru icon Novodvorskaya, Valeriya. "Валерия Новодворская на радио "Эхо Москвы" 29 августа 2008 г." Democratic Union. Retrieved 2008-11-10.
11. Template:Ru icon "Новодворскую изгнали с "Эха Москвы" за восхваление Басаева". Lenta.ru. 1 September 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-16. at WebCite
12. Template:Ru icon Novodvorskaya, Valeriya (31 August 2008). "EchoMSK : Заявление Валерии Новодворской". Echo Moskvy. Retrieved 2008-11-10.
13. ""The radio that saddles"". Novaya Gazeta. 24 September 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-16. at WebCite
14. ^ "Ne otdadim nashe pravo nalevo!" by Valeriya Novodvorskaya. // "Noziy Vzglyad", N46 28 Aug 1993
15. ECHO of Moscow
16. Court accusation on Novodvorskaya's case
17. http://www.geotimes.ge/index.php?m=home&newsid=15600
18. 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

• 1950 births
• Living people
• Russians of Belarusian descent
• People from Belarus
• Russian anti-communists
• Russian political activists
• Russian politicians
• Soviet dissidents
• Victims of psychiatric repression