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Revision as of 18:30, 9 November 2008 by Russavia (talk | contribs) (→Post-Soviet Russia: tweaked)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)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.
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
Novodvorskaya is openly critical of Russian government policies, including Chechen Wars, domestic policies of Vladimir Putin, and the rebirth of Soviet propaganda in Russia In an interview with Echo Moskvy on 28 August 2008, Novodvorskaya claimed that Shamil Basayev was a democrat, given that he allegedly supported Boris Yeltsin during the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt and he participated in the government of Aslan Maskhadov in 1997. She went on to opine that it was Russia that turned him into a terrorist, although Basayev had a history of terrorist acts predating the First Chechen War, for example on 9 November 1991 he hijacked an Aeroflot aircraft, and was also implicated in atrocities which occurred as part of the ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia.
Awards
She 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
- 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)
- Газета «Новый взгляд» N46 от 28 августа 1993г.. Democtratic Union website
- Комсомольская правда (9.2.2007)
- Template:Ru icon Novodvorskaya, Valeriya. "Валерия Новодворская на радио "Эхо Москвы" 29 августа 2008 г." Democratic Union. Retrieved 2008-11-10.
- "Shamil Basayev". The Times. 11 July 2006. Retrieved 2008-11-10.
- 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
External links
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