Dmitry Sakharov academician. Academician Andrey Dmitrievich Sakharov

Andrey Dmitrievich Sakharov

This man had an amazing fate. One of the authors himself terrible weapon - hydrogen bomb, became the owner Nobel Prize peace!

Above his grave is Academician D.S. Likhachev said: “He was a real prophet. A prophet in the ancient, original sense of the word, that is, a person who calls his contemporaries to moral renewal for the sake of the future. And, like any prophet, he was not understood and was expelled from his people.”

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was born on May 21, 1921 in Moscow into a family of intellectuals. Father, Dmitry Ivanovich Sakharov, a professor at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute, was the author of several popular books and a problem book on physics. From his mother, Ekaterina Alekseevna, née Sofiano, Andrei inherited not only appearance, but also such character traits as perseverance and non-contact.

Sakharov spent his childhood in a large, crowded Moscow apartment, “imbued with a traditional family spirit.”

After graduating from school with a gold medal in 1938, Sakharov entered the physics department of the Moscow state university. After the outbreak of the war, Andrei moved to Ashgabat with the university, where he seriously studied quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity.

In 1942, Sakharov graduated from the university with honors. To him, as the best student of the faculty, Professor A.A. Vlasov offered to stay in graduate school. But Andrei refused and was sent to a military plant, first in Kovrov, and then in Ulyanovsk. Here Andrey met future wife. In 1943, he united his fate with local resident Claudia Alekseevna Vikhireva, who worked as a chemical laboratory assistant at the same plant. They had three children - two daughters and a son.

After the end of the war, Sakharov entered graduate school at the P.N. Physical Institute. Lebedev to the famous theoretical physicist I.E. Tammu. In 1947, the young scientist brilliantly defended his Ph.D. thesis, where he proposed a new selection rule for charging parity and a method for taking into account the interaction of an electron and a positron during pair production.

In 1948, Sakharov was included in Tamm's group to create thermonuclear weapons. In 1950, Sakharov went to the nuclear research center - Arzamas-16. Here he spent eighteen whole years.

On August 12, 1953, the first thermonuclear bomb created according to his design was successfully tested. The Soviet government did not skimp on awards for the young scientist: he was elected an academician, he became a laureate of the Stalin Prize and a Hero of Socialist Labor. He was awarded the latter title three times, also receiving it in 1956 and 1962.

However, while working on the most destructive weapon in the history of mankind, Sakharov understood better than others the enormous danger it posed to civilization. In “Memoirs,” Andrei Dmitrievich indicated the date of his transformation into an opponent of nuclear weapons: the end of the fifties. He was one of the initiators of the Moscow Treaty banning tests in three environments. Because of this, Sakharov had a conflict with N. Khrushchev. However, a year after his speech international treaty on the ban on testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in water and in space was concluded.

In 1966, Sakharov, together with S.P. Kapitsa, Tamm and 22 other prominent intellectuals signed a letter addressed to Brezhnev in defense of writers A. Sinyavsky and Y. Daniel.

The scientist’s views increasingly did not coincide with the official ideology. Sakharov put forward the theory of convergence - about the rapprochement of the capitalist and socialist worlds, with reasonable sufficiency of weapons, openness and the rights of each individual person.

As V.I. writes Ritus: “In these same years, the social activities Sakharov, who increasingly diverged from the policies of official circles. He initiated appeals for the release of human rights activists P.G. from psychiatric hospitals. Grigorenko and Zh.A. Medvedev. Together with physicist V. Turchin and R.A. Medvedev wrote the “Memorandum on democratization and intellectual freedom.” I went to Kaluga to participate in picketing the courtroom, where the trial of dissidents R. Pimenov and B. Weil was taking place. In November 1970, together with physicists V. Chalidze and A. Tverdokhlebov, he organized the Human Rights Committee, which was supposed to implement the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1971, together with academician M.A. Leontovich actively opposed the use of psychiatry for political purposes and at the same time - for the right to return of the Crimean Tatars, freedom of religion, freedom to choose the country of residence and, in particular, for Jewish and German emigration."

The memorandum cost Sakharov all his posts: in 1969, Academician Sakharov was accepted to the position of senior researcher in the theoretical department of the Lebedev Physical Institute. At the same time, he was elected a member of many academies of sciences, such authoritative ones as the US National Academy of Sciences, the French, Roman, and New York Academies.

In 1969, Sakharov’s first wife died, and Andrei Dmitrievich took her loss very hard. In 1970, he met Elena Georgievna Bonner at a trial in Kaluga. In 1972 they got married. Bonner became true friend and her husband's colleague.

In 1973, Sakharov held a press conference for Western journalists at which he denounced what he called “détente without democracy.” In response to this, a letter from forty academicians appeared in Pravda. Only the intercession of the fearless P.L. saved Andrei Dmitrievich from expulsion from the Academy of Sciences. Kapitsa. However, neither Kapitsa nor anyone else could resist the growing persecution of the scientist.

On October 9, 1975, Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his fearless support of the fundamental principles of peace among men” and “for his courageous struggle against the abuse of power and all forms of suppression of human dignity.”

The scientist was not released from the country. His wife went to Stockholm. Bonner read out the speech of the Soviet academician, which called for “true detente and genuine disarmament,” for “general political amnesty in the world” and “the release of all prisoners of conscience everywhere.”

The next day, Bonner read her husband’s Nobel lecture “Peace, progress, human rights,” in which Sakharov argued that these three goals were “inextricably linked with one another” and demanded “freedom of conscience, the existence of an informed public opinion, pluralism in the education system, freedom press and access to sources of information,” and also put forward proposals for achieving detente and disarmament.

It ended like this: “Many civilizations must exist in infinite space, including more intelligent, more “successful” ones than ours. I also defend the cosmological hypothesis, according to which the cosmological development of the Universe is repeated in its basic features an infinite number of times. At the same time, other civilizations, including more “successful” ones, must exist an infinite number of times on the “previous” and “following” pages of the book of the Universe to our world. But all this should not detract from our sacred desire in this very world, where we, like a flash in the darkness, arose for an instant from the black nothingness of the unconscious existence of matter, to fulfill the demand of Reason and create a life worthy of ourselves and the goal we vaguely discern.”

The apotheosis of Sakharov’s human rights activities came in 1979, when the academician spoke out against the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan. A little time passed, and by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated January 8, 1980, the human rights activist was deprived of the title of three times Hero of Socialist Labor and all other awards.

Sakharov was detained on the street in Moscow and sent into exile in the city of Gorky, where he lived under house arrest for seven years. His wife shared his fate. Andrei Dmitrievich was deprived of the opportunity to engage in science, receive magazines and books, and simply communicate with people.

The only available way to protest against the arbitrariness of the Soviet authorities was a hunger strike. But after the next one, in 1984, he was placed in a hospital and began to be force-fed. In a letter to the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences A.P. Sakharov wrote to Aleksandrov, his long-time colleague in “secret physics”: “I was forcibly held and tortured for 4 months. Attempts to escape from the hospital were invariably stopped by KGB officers, who were on duty around the clock at all possible escape routes. From May 11th to May 27th inclusive, I was subjected to painful and humiliating force-feeding. Hypocritically, all this was called saving my life. On May 25-27, the most painful and humiliating, barbaric method was used. They threw me onto the bed again and tied my arms and legs. They put a tight clamp on my nose, so I could only breathe through my mouth. When I opened my mouth to breathe in air, a spoonful of a nutritious mixture of broth with pureed meat was poured into my mouth. Sometimes the mouth was opened forcibly - with a lever inserted between the gums.”

Sakharov's political exile lasted until 1986, when perestroika processes began in society. After a telephone conversation with M. Gorbachev, Sakharov was allowed to return to Moscow and begin scientific work again.

In February 1987, Sakharov spoke at the international forum “For a nuclear-free world, for the survival of mankind” with a proposal to consider reducing the number of Euro-missiles separately from the problems of SDI, reducing the army, and security nuclear power plants. In 1988, he was elected honorary chairman of the Memorial Society, and in March 1989, a people's deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from the Academy of Sciences.

It would seem that fate was again favorable to him. However, the possibilities of democracy turned out to be limited, and Sakharov was never able to speak out loud about the problems that worried him. He again had to fight for the right to express his views from the rostrum of the people's assembly. This struggle undermined the scientist’s strength, and on December 14, 1989, returning home after another debate, Sakharov died of a heart attack. His heart, as shown by the autopsy, was completely worn out. Hundreds of thousands of people came to say goodbye to the great man.

Andrei Sakharov is hailed by his supporters as a kind of cult figure. Creator of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. A measure of morality. A freedom fighter. And many others. A symbol of something bright and good. Even selfless. But who was he really?

An avenue in Moscow, on which he never lived, bears his name. And a nearby museum, where people who receive grants from Russia’s geopolitical competitors usually gather for their events.

At the end of the 80s, when Gorbachev returned him from Gorky to Moscow, there were people who expected either political or moral revelations from Sakharov.

Andrey Sakharov. RIA Novosti / Igor Zarembo

True, after he took the podium at the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, many were clearly disappointed: poor diction, slurred speech, empty thoughts.

And there was also the obvious unethicality of the statements: many then, under the influence of “perestroika propaganda,” were negatively opposed to the participation of Soviet troops in the war in Afghanistan and were traumatized by rumors about closed coffins coming from there, but they were also offended by the words of this man, who named those who fought there Soviet soldiers"occupiers".

Whether he really was the creator of the hydrogen bomb is for physicists to judge. Officially, he was part of the group working on it. True, his colleagues in the specialty are somehow evasive about his contribution, vaguely asserting that “he was, of course, a competent physicist.” And sometimes it was said that his part of the contribution to the development of the bomb overlapped too much with the contents of the letter of some unknown provincial colleague.

Others also say that Igor Kurchatov signed his proposal for election to the Academy of Sciences in order to solve his housing problem.

Some, in response to the question about his role in the creation of the bomb, suggest thinking about why the man proclaimed its creator then never created anything in science equal to this invention. Not even in military affairs, but in peaceful nuclear physics.

But these are issues of corporate recognition. And then it’s up to physicists to figure it out. He himself became more interested in politics. And appeals to morality.

For example, when he was once told that in the struggle for the happiness of people and the future of humanity there are sacrifices, he was indignant and declared: “I am convinced that such arithmetic is fundamentally wrong. We, each of us, in every matter, both “small” and “big,” must proceed from specific moral criteria, and not from the abstract arithmetic of history. Moral criteria categorically dictate to us: “Thou shalt not kill.”

And in the draft Constitution he composed, he pathetically wrote: “All people have the right to life, freedom and happiness.” Whether the people of the country in whose destruction he took part have become freer and happier - everyone can judge this for themselves.

In 1953 he was made an academician at the age of 32.

By the end of the 50s, he would propose stopping new developments in the field of weapons and simply placing heavy-duty explosive devices of 100 megatons each along the US coast. And, if necessary, blow up the entire American continent.

What would happen to the people living there and to all the other continents did not particularly concern him: the idea was bold and beautiful.

Later, Roy Medvedev would write: “He lived for too long in some extremely isolated world, where they knew little about the events in the country, about the lives of people from other strata of society, and even about the history of the country in which and for which they worked.”

Even the extravagant Khrushchev was not inspired by Sakharov’s idea to blow everyone up. And the relationship between them began to deteriorate.

The last meeting of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, which was attended by Andrei Sakharov. RIA Novosti

And when the question of new tests arose, they separated. Khrushchev believed that it was necessary to study the possibilities and consequences of using nuclear weapons. Sakharov believed that this was unnecessary: everything that was already available could be blown up without particularly thinking about the consequences. And when the first one suggested that he not put forward his exotic ideas, but take up science, even if not military, the academician decided to fight for “human rights.”

Once upon a time he began to study the problems of the peaceful use of thermonuclear energy, but quickly moved away from the topic: it took a long time to work, and no quick result was expected.

Yes, he will receive the Nobel Prize. But not for scientific discoveries - the peace prize. Like Gorbachev, for fighting against his country. And after Keldysh and Khariton, Simonov and Sholokhov and dozens of other iconic figures, scientists and writers, publicly condemn Sakharov.

Sakharov will often swear in the name of morality and appeal to the commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.” But in 1973 he would write a letter of greeting to General Pinochet, calling his coup and executions the beginning of an era of happiness and prosperity in Chile. The academician always believed that people have the right to life, freedom and happiness.

His human rights activist followers do not like to remember this. Just as they deny in every possible way that at the end of the 70s he wrote a letter to the President of the United States calling on him to inflict a preventive, intimidating attack - for the sake of forcing the observance of “human rights” in the USSR nuclear attack.

In 1979, he published a letter condemning the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan on the pages of leading Western publications. Before that, he had not published such letters with any condemnation American war in Vietnam, nor Israel's Middle East wars. And he will not condemn either the war between England and Argentina for the Falkland Islands, or the American invasion of Granada or Panama.

As a true intellectual and humanist, he only knew how to condemn his own country. Obviously, believing that condemnation of other countries is the business of their intellectuals and humanists.

In general, as those who knew him recalled school years mathematician Yaglom, even when solving the problem, Sakharov “could not explain how he came to the solution, he explained it in a very abstruse way, and it was difficult to understand him.”

And academician Khariton, giving a posthumous interview after Sakharov’s funeral, in which, of course, the rule “either good or nothing” applied, was still forced to say that Sakharov “couldn’t even imagine that someone would figure something out.” better than him. Somehow one of our colleagues found a solution to a gas-dynamic problem that Andrei Dmitrievich could not find. This was so unexpected and unusual for him that he extremely energetically began to look for flaws in the proposed solution. And only after some time, having not found them, I was forced to admit that the decision was correct.”

And even then, in 1989, in conditions of hysteria, when it was simply dangerous to say anything in condemnation of Sakharov or in defense of Soviet society, Khariton would say, assessing him political activity: “I have great respect for that part of his activity, when he fought against obvious injustice. My skepticism concerns his ideas regarding economic issues. The fact is that I did not agree with some of the provisions that Andrei Dmitrievich developed, in particular concerning the characteristics of socialism and capitalism.”

Gorbachev brought him back from Gorky, and Sakharov became a deputy of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR from the Academy of Sciences. True, voters will fail it at the first vote. The media, supervised by Alexander Yakovlev, will throw a hysteria, and Gorbachev will cancel the election results, giving instructions to hold a repeat vote - with an expansion of the circle of voters and a strict attitude: “We need to elect.”

In violation of the electoral norm, Sakharov will be made a deputy: Gorbachev recruited supporters for the congress. But having become a deputy, Sakharov will immediately turn away from his patron and become one of the leaders of the opposition to him - the “Interregional Deputy Group”, whose co-chairs were also Boris Yeltsin, Gavriil Popov, and Yuri Afanasyev.

But, as the latter two do not admit today, Sakharov began to burden them more and more with his unintelligible speeches from the rostrum, his discrediting manner of speaking and his claim to be absolutely right.

It’s difficult to say what actually happened there, on December 14, 1989, at a meeting of this “group,” but on the evening of the same day, Sakharov died of a heart attack. And it’s strange - he became much more useful and profitable to his dead comrades than to his living ones.

And a month before this, Sakharov will present his draft of a new Constitution, where he will proclaim the right of all peoples to statehood, that is, to proclaim their own states and to destroy the Soviet Union.

Andrei Sakharov with Elena Bonner. RIA Novosti

It is generally accepted that his departure from scientific work and the transition to the fight against his country was mainly influenced by his new wife, Elena Bonner. This is not entirely true: Sakharov met her in 1970 at the trial of a group of “dissidents” in Kaluga. Already then he wrote “Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom”, the main idea containing a call for the country to abandon its socio-economic structure and transition to development according to the Western model. And then he regularly went to such trials.

But the truth is that it was after this acquaintance (they officially married two years later) that he focused almost entirely on “dissident activities.”

As he himself writes in his diary about the role of his new wife: “Lucy told me (the academician) a lot that I would not have understood or done otherwise. She’s a big organizer, she’s my think tank.” She suggested so much and so urgently that he not only adopted her children, but also almost forgot about his own. As his own son Dmitry would later joke bitterly: “Do you need the son of Academician Sakharov? He lives in the USA, in Boston. And his name is Alexey Semyonov. For almost 30 years, Alexey Semyonov gave interviews as “the son of Academician Sakharov”; foreign radio stations shouted in his defense in every possible way. And with my father alive, I felt like an orphan and dreamed that dad would spend at least a tenth of the time with me that he devoted to my stepmother’s offspring.”

The son recalled that one day he felt especially embarrassed for his father. He, already living in Gorky, in once again went on a hunger strike, demanding that the fiancée of Bonner's son, who had already remained in the United States without any permission, be allowed to go there. Dmitry came to his father. I tried to persuade him not to risk his health on this matter: “It is clear that if he had sought to stop nuclear weapons testing in this way or demanded democratic reforms... But he just wanted Lisa to be allowed to go to America to see Alexei Semyonov. But Bonner’s son might not have bothered to go abroad if he really loved the girl so much.” After marrying Bonner, Sakharov would move in with her, leaving his fifteen-year-old son to live with his 22-year-old sister; he considered that they were already adults, and without his attention they could make do. Until he was 18, he helped his son with money, but then he stopped. Everything is according to the law.

My father really was self-tormenting. Sakharov's heart was seriously aching, and there was a huge risk that his body would not withstand the nervous and physical activity. But his stepson’s fiancée, because of whom he was starving... “By the way, I found Lisa at dinner! As I remember now, she ate pancakes with black caviar", the son recalls. But Dmitry Sakharov and Bonner strongly opposed the emigration: “My stepmother was afraid that I could become a competitor to her son and daughter, and - most importantly - she was afraid that the truth about Sakharov’s real children would be revealed. Indeed, in this case, her offspring could receive fewer benefits from foreign human rights organizations.”

In 1982, the young artist Sergei Bocharov, fascinated by the legend of the “freedom fighter,” came to Gorky to visit Sakharov; he wanted to paint a portrait of the “people’s defender.” Only he will see something completely different from the legend: “Andrei Dmitrievich sometimes even praised the USSR government for some successes. Now I don’t remember why exactly. But for every such remark he immediately received a slap on the bald head from his wife. While I was writing the sketch, Sakharov got hit no less than seven times. At the same time, the world’s luminary meekly endured the cracks, and it was clear that he was used to them.”

And the artist, having realized who really makes decisions and dictates to the “celebrities” what to say and what to do, painted a portrait of Bonner instead of his portrait. She flew into a rage and rushed to destroy the sketch: “I told Bonner that I didn’t want to draw a “hemp” who repeated the thoughts of his evil wife and even suffered beatings from her. And Bonner immediately kicked me out into the street.”

Those who made and make him their banner declare him a “great humanist.”

Andrei Sakharov with Elena Bonner, her daughter and grandchildren. Photo by ITAR-TASS

Him, who first called on the USSR to blow up the American continent, then called on the United States to launch a nuclear strike on the USSR in the name of “human rights.”

Him, who welcomed Pinochet and declared the soldiers of his country occupiers.

Him, who essentially abandoned his own children and was controlled by their stepmother, meekly enduring slaps from her when trying to praise his country. He did not know his country, nor its people, nor its history and suffered everything from his wife, who turned him into her political instrument.

Of course, anyone who wants can continue to read it. But at a minimum, the truth must be told about him to the end. Who is he? Who was he? What he destroyed. And what exactly does it have to do with humanism and morality? And at the very least, admit that the citizens of the country they hate have neither the obligation nor the need to speak about it with reverence.

Sergei CHERNYAKHOVSKY

Sakharov Andrey Dmitrievich(May 21, 1921, Moscow - December 14, 1989, Moscow) - Soviet physicist, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences and politician, dissident and human rights activist, one of the creators of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1975.

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (May 21, 1921, Moscow - December 14, 1989, Moscow) - Soviet physicist, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences and politician, dissident and human rights activist, one of the creators of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1975.

His father, Dmitry Ivanovich Sakharov, is a physics teacher at the Pedagogical Institute. Lenina, mother Ekaterina Alekseevna Sakharova (ur. Sofiano) - daughter of the hereditary military man Alexei Semenovich Sofiano - housewife. My maternal grandmother Zinaida Evgrafovna Sofiano is from the family of Belgorod nobles Mukhanov.

The godfather is the famous musician Alexander Borisovich Goldenweiser. He spent his childhood and early youth in Moscow. Primary education Sakharov got home. I went to school from the seventh grade.

After graduating from high school in 1938, Sakharov entered the physics department of Moscow University.

After the start of the war, in the summer of 1941 he tried to enroll in military academy, but was not accepted due to health reasons, in 1941 he was evacuated to Ashgabat. In 1942 he graduated from the university with honors.

In 1942, it was distributed to the People's Commissar of Armaments, from where it was sent to the cartridge factory in Ulyanovsk. In the same year, he made an invention to control armor-piercing cores and made a number of other proposals.

From 1943 to 1944, he independently did several scientific works and sent them to the Physics Institute. Lebedev to the head of the theoretical department, Igor Evgenievich Tamm. At the beginning of 1945, he was called there to take postgraduate exams, and after passing he was enrolled in the institute’s graduate school.

In 1947 he defended his Ph.D. thesis.

In 1948, he was enrolled in a special group and until 1968 he worked in the field of development of thermonuclear weapons, participated in the design and development of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb according to the scheme called “Sakharov’s layer”. At the same time, Sakharov, together with I. Tamm, in 1950–51. carried out pioneering work on controlled thermonuclear reactions.

Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (1953). In the same year, at the age of 32, he was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1955, he signed the “Letter of the Three Hundred” against the notorious activities of academician T. D. Lysenko.

Since the late 1950s, he has actively campaigned for an end to nuclear weapons testing. Contributed to the conclusion of the Moscow Test Ban Treaty in three areas.

Since the late 1960s, he was one of the leaders of the human rights movement in the USSR.

In 1968, he wrote the brochure “Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom,” which was published in many countries.

In 1970, he became one of the three founding members of the Moscow Human Rights Committee (together with Andrei Tverdokhlebov and Valery Chalidze).

In 1971, he addressed the Soviet government with a “Memoir”.

In 1974, he held a press conference at which he announced the Day of Political Prisoners in the USSR.

In 1975 he wrote the book “About the Country and the World.” In the same year, Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In September 1977, he sent a letter to the organizing committee on the problem of the death penalty, in which he advocated its abolition in the USSR and throughout the world.

In December 1979 and January 1980, he made a number of statements against the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, which were published on the editorial pages of Western newspapers.

In the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (published in 1975) and then in those published until 1986. encyclopedic reference books the article about Sakharov ended with the phrase “In recent years moved away from scientific activity" According to some sources, the formulation belonged to M. A. Suslov.

On January 22, 1980, on the way to work, he was arrested and, with his second wife Elena Bonner, exiled to the city of Gorky without trial.

At the same time, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he was deprived of the title of three times Hero of Socialist Labor and by decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR - the title of laureate of the Stalin (1953) and Lenin (1956) prizes (also the Order of Lenin, the title of member of the USSR Academy of Sciences was not deprived).

In Gorky, Sakharov held three of the longest hunger strikes. In 1981, he, together with Elena Bonner, endured the first, seventeen-day trial - for the right to visit her husband abroad for L. Alekseeva (the Sakharovs' daughter-in-law).

(Izvestia, July 3, 1983) four academicians (Prokhorov, Scriabin, Tikhonov, Dorodnitsyn) signed a letter “When they lose honor and conscience” condemning A.D. Sakharov. For calling on the US and Europe for the arms race, the repeated use of nuclear weapons against people.

In May 1984, the second (26 days) - in protest against the criminal prosecution of E. Bonner. In April-October 1985 - the third (178 days) - for the right of E. Bonner to travel abroad for heart surgery. Sakharov was forcibly hospitalized and force-fed.

During the entire time of A. Sakharov’s exile, a campaign was going on in many countries of the world in his defense. For example, the square, a five-minute walk from the White House, where the Soviet embassy was located in Washington, was renamed “Sakharov Square.” “Sakharov Hearings” have been held regularly in various world capitals since 1975.

On October 22, 1986, Sakharov asks to stop his deportation and the exile of his wife, again (previously he turned to M.S. Gorbachev with a promise to focus on scientific work and stop public appearances if his wife’s travel for treatment is allowed) promising to end his public activities.

On December 15, a telephone was unexpectedly installed in his apartment (he did not have a telephone during his entire exile); before leaving, the security officer said: “They will call you tomorrow.” The next day the phone actually rang: “Hello, this is Gorbachev speaking. You will have the opportunity to return to Moscow. Get back to patriotic matters."

At the end of 1986, together with Elena Bonner, Sakharov triumphantly returned to Moscow. After returning, he continued to work at the Physical Institute. Lebedeva. Consulted with Sofia Kalistratova on legal issues.

In November-December 1988, Sakharov's first trip abroad took place (meetings took place with Presidents R. Reagan, G. Bush, F. Mitterrand, M. Thatcher).

In 1989 he was elected people's deputy of the USSR, in May-June of the same year he participated in the 1st Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, where his speeches were often accompanied by slamming, shouts from the audience, and whistling from some of the deputies, who were later the leader of the MDG , historian Yuri Afanasyev and the media characterized it as an aggressively obedient majority

In November 1989, he presented a draft of a new constitution, which is based on the protection of individual rights and the right of all peoples to statehood. (See Euro-Asian Union)

December 14, 1989, at 15:00 - Sakharov’s last speech in the Kremlin at a meeting of the Interregional Deputy Group (II Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR).

He was buried at the Vostryakovsky cemetery in Moscow.

In 1943, Andrei Sakharov married Klavdiya Alekseevna Vikhireva (1919–1969), a native of Ulyanovsk (died of cancer). They had three children - two daughters and a son.

In 1970 he met and in 1972 married Elena Georgievna Bonner. He then had three children, and Elena Bonner had two; the children of both spouses were already quite old. They had no children together.

One of the creators of the hydrogen bomb (1953) in the USSR. Works on magnetic hydrodynamics, plasma physics, controlled thermonuclear fusion, elementary particles, astrophysics, gravity.

Awards and prizes

Hero of Socialist Labor (1953, 1955, 1962) (in 1980 “for anti-Soviet activities” he was stripped of his title and all three medals);
Stalin Prize (1953) (in 1980 he was deprived of the title of laureate of this prize);
Lenin Prize (1956) (in 1980 he was deprived of the title of laureate of this prize);
Order of Lenin (August 12, 1953) (in 1980 he was also deprived of this order) (he was never restored to the awards that he was deprived of in 1980. He himself categorically refused this, and Gorbachev did not sign the corresponding Decree);
Nobel Peace Prize (1975); also awards from foreign countries, including:
Grand Cross of the Order of the Knight's Cross (January 8, 2003, posthumously)

In July 1983, four academicians (Prokhorov, Scriabin, Tikhonov, Dorodnitsyn) signed a letter “When they lose honor and conscience” (Pravda newspaper, July 2, 1983) condemning A.D. Sakharov. Some Russian researchers (for example, A. G. Dugin, O. A. Platonov) consider A. D. Sakharov an “agent of influence” Western countries, in particular the USA.

The Sakharov Archive was founded at Brandeis University in 1993, but was soon transferred to Harvard University. Documents from this archive were published in 2005 by Yale University Press. There is an on-line version: images of the original pages and texts in Windows-1251 encoding, as well as English translations).

The Sakharov archive contains KGB documents related to the dissident movement. Most of the documents in the archive are letters from KGB leaders to the CPSU Central Committee about the activities of dissidents and recommendations for interpreting or hushing up certain events in the media. mass media. The archive documents date from 1968 to 1991.

Bibliography

A. D. Sakharov, “Gorky, Moscow, then everywhere,” 1989
A. D. Sakharov, Memoirs (1978–1989). 1989
Edward Kline. Moscow Committee of Human Rights. 2004 ISBN 5-7712-0308-4
Yu. I. Krivonosov. Landau and Sakharov in the developments of the KGB. Komsomolskaya Pravda. August 8, 1992.
Vitaly Rochko “Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov: fragments of biography” 1991
Memoirs: in 3 volumes / Comp. Bonner E. - M.: Time, 2006.
Diaries: in 3 volumes - M.: Vremya, 2006.
Anxiety and hope: in 2 volumes: Articles. Letters. Performances. Interview (1958–1986) / Comp. Bonner E. - M.: Time, 2006.
And one warrior in the field 1991 [Collection / Compiled by G. A. Karapetyan]

In 1979, an asteroid was named after A.D. Sakharov.

In August 1984, in New York, the intersection of 67th Street and 3rd Avenue was named “Sakharov-Bonner Corner”, and in Washington, the square where the Soviet embassy was located was renamed “Sakharov Square” (English: Sakharov Plaza) (appeared as a sign of protest by the American public against the retention of A. Sakharov and E. Bonner in Gorky’s exile).

At the western entrance to Jerusalem are the Sakharov Gardens; Streets in some Israeli cities are named after him.

In Moscow there is Academician Sakharov Avenue, and there is also a museum and community center his name.

In Nizhny Novgorod there is a Sakharov Museum - an apartment on the first floor of a 12-story building (Shcherbinki microdistrict), in which Sakharov lived during seven years of exile. Since 1992, the city has hosted the Sakharov International Arts Festival.

In St. Petersburg, the square on which the monument is installed and the “Park named after Academician Sakharov” are named after A.D. Sakharov.

In Belarus, the International State Ecological University is named after Sakharov

In 1988, the European Parliament established the Andrei Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, which is awarded annually for “achievements in the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as for respect for international law and the development of democracy.”

In 1991, the USSR Post Office issued a stamp dedicated to A.D. Sakharov.

In Riga, Dubna, Chelyabinsk, Kazan, Lvov (see Sakharov Street), Haifa, Odessa, Sukhum, Ivano-Frankovsk, Kolomyia there is a street named after Sakharov. In Sarov there is Academician Sakharov Street.
In Schwerin (Germany) there is Andrej Sakharov Street (German: Andrej-Sacharow-Strasse).

In Nuremberg (Germany) there is a square named after Andrei Sakharov (German: Andrej-Sacharow-Platz).

In the center of Barnaul there is Sakharov Square, where the annual City Day and other city events are held public events.

In Yerevan, the square on which a monument was erected to him is named after A.D. Sakharov. Also named after A.D. Sakharov high school № 69.

In Vilnius (Lithuania) there is a square named after Andrei Sakharov (lit. Andrejaus Sacharovo aikste), which is not designed in any way compositionally.

In December 2009, on the twentieth anniversary of the death of A.D. Sakharov, the RTR channel showed documentary“Exclusively science. No politics. Andrei Sakharov."

At the Lebedev Physical Institute. Lebedev has a bust of Sakharov in front of the entrance.

Andrei Sakharov realized his talent in two, at first glance, mutually exclusive fields - as a developer of thermonuclear weapons and as a fighter for disarmament. The European Parliament annually awards a prize named after him “For Freedom of Thought,” and the American Physical Society has established an award of the same name for the achievements of scientists in protecting human rights.

Prime Minister of the Russian Empire

When the war began, physics students were sent to a medical examination: they had to enter a flight school. Andrei Sakharov did not pass the commission and did not sign up as a volunteer: he reasoned that, having completed his studies, he would be more useful at the military plant. In October 1941, the university was evacuated to Ashgabat. In 1942, Sakharov received a diploma with honors in defense metallurgy.

The young specialist was assigned first to Kovrov, where there was no place for him, then to a cartridge factory in Ulyanovsk. The unexpected happened there: the theoretical physicist was sent to logging. Work in his specialty began for him only with the transfer to the Central Factory Laboratory. Here Andrei Sakharov invented a device with which it was possible to control how the cores of bullets for anti-tank rifles were hardened.

Andrei Sakharov with his family. Photo: moslenta.ru

Andrei Sakharov with his wife Elena Bonner. Photo: kulturologia.ru

Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner with their grandchildren. Photo: jo-jo.ru

"Armor-piercing steel cores bullets... were hardened in salt baths. Sometimes... the quenching did not cover the entire volume and an unquenched core remained inside the core... To reject unhardened batches, five cores were taken at random from each box and broken... 1.5% of the finished cores went for remelting). My task was to find a control method without destroying the core. A month later I already had good decision, and I began the first control experiments on a prototype model that I made with my own hands with the help of a laboratory mechanic.”

Andrey Sakharov. Interview at the USSR Academy of Sciences conference in Moscow. 1989. Photo: Vladimir Fedorenko / Wikipedia

In 1943, Andrei Sakharov married Klavdiya Vikhareva, who worked at the same plant as a laboratory assistant. The couple had three children - Tatyana, Lyubov and Dmitry. In 1945, the young inventor entered graduate school at the Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Lebedev (FIAN). The famous physicist Igor Tamm became his scientific supervisor.

At the end of 1946, Sakharov was offered to work in a certain secret “system for carrying out important government tasks.” The scientist refused: “I thought that this was not why I left the factory for recent months war at the Lebedev Physical Institute to Igor Evgenievich for scientific work on cutting edge theoretical physics to give it all up now".

Two years later, a special group was formed at the Physics Institute research group- She checked the calculations for creating a hydrogen bomb. Andrei Sakharov became part of this group under the leadership of Tamm. In 1949, the first tests were carried out in the USSR atomic bomb, and the creation of more powerful hydrogen was next step in the arms race.

"So that thermonuclear weapons deter war, but are never used"

The future project is based on information received from foreign scientists. Sakharov proposed a fundamentally different design for a thermonuclear charge. His ideas were complemented by the research of his colleague Vitaly Ginzburg. The first test of a hydrogen bomb took place on August 12, 1953. In October of the same year, Sakharov, who applied for the title of corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, was unanimously elected immediately as an academician. Together with Igor Tamm, they received the title of Heroes of Socialist Labor, members of the group were awarded the Stalin Prize.

Andrey Sakharov. Photo: g2.dcdn.lt

Andrey Sakharov. Photo: academic.ru

Andrey Sakharov. Photo: moslenta.ru

In 1955, an “improved” hydrogen bomb was tested - the same group worked on it. Sakharov by this time began to think about the humanitarian consequences nuclear tests.

“The main thing for me was the inner conviction that this work is necessary. The monstrous destructive force, the enormous efforts required for development, the funds taken from a poor and hungry war-torn country, human casualties in hazardous industries and in forced labor camps - all this emotionally intensified the feeling of tragedy, forced us to think and work in such a way that everything the sacrifices (implied to be inevitable) were not in vain. My most passionate dream is for thermonuclear weapons to deter war but never be used.”

In 1958, the academician published an article about radioactive consequences explosions thermonuclear bomb. "At average duration human life 20 thousand days, each x-ray of global exposure will reduce it by a week.”, he later summed up. Andrei Sakharov called for stopping nuclear testing, defended physics and mathematics schools (they were going to be closed as contrary to the principles of pedagogy) and the discoveries of genetics, which was then disgraced. The USSR government was going to suspend nuclear testing anyway, but negotiations with the West on this matter made virtually no progress. Then Khrushchev decided to resume the tests, and accused Sakharov of “messing with his own business.” The Treaty Banning Tests of Nuclear Weapons in Three Environments was signed by the USSR, Great Britain and the USA in 1963.

Dissident and Nobel laureate

Since the 1960s, Andrei Sakharov began to increasingly interfere in “not his own” affairs. Opposed the new law allowing “more massive persecution for beliefs and information activities”, against compulsory treatment V psychiatric hospitals. As part of the Committee on Lake Baikal, Sakharov fought for a ban on industrial activity on the shore of the lake. In 1968, his article “Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom” was distributed in samizdat.

“The disunity of humanity threatens its destruction. Civilization is threatened by: general thermonuclear war; catastrophic famine for most of humanity; stupefaction in the dope of “mass culture” and in the grip of bureaucratized dogmatism; the spread of mass myths that throw entire nations and continents into the power of cruel and insidious demagogues; death and degeneration from the unforeseen results of rapid changes in the conditions of existence on the planet.”
Excerpt from the article “Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom”

Andrei Sakharov (left) talks with voters during the First Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR. Photo: moslenta.ru

Andrei Sakharov speaks at the First Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR. Photo: moslenta.ru

Andrei Sakharov at a rally in Luzhniki, which took place during the First Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR. Photo: moslenta.ru

Soon the article went abroad and was published in the New York Times. Sakharov was removed from secret work and fired from the institute. His scientific interests during this period focused on the problems of cosmology, astrophysics and futurology - the science of the future.

In 1969, the scientist’s wife, Claudia Sakharov, died. At the request of Igor Tamm, the academician was again hired at FIAN to the lowest possible position - senior researcher. Sakharov was a member of the Human Rights Committee - founded by activists in 1970 - and helped Crimean Tatars, which were not registered in Crimea, since they were legally enshrined in Uzbekistan since the time of Stalin. The scientist involved all possible authorities so that ethnic Germans could leave for their historical homeland. Writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn spoke about the social work of Andrei Sakharov in his book of essays “A Calf Butted an Oak Tree.”

). The academician was deprived of government awards and prizes. In Gorky's isolation, Sakharov continued to work. Six years later, in December 1986, Andrei Sakharov received a call from the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Mikhail Gorbachev: “Andrey Dmitrievich, come back”. The day before, a telephone was specially installed in the academician’s Gorky apartment.

In March 1989, Andrei Sakharov was elected people's deputy. Even during the period of exile, KGB officers twice stole the manuscript of “Memoirs,” which Sakharov began writing in 1978. Twice he reconstructed the book from memory. The scientist concluded the epilogue to “Memoirs” on December 13, 1989 with the words: “The main thing is that Lyusya (Elena Bonner - Ed.) and I are together. And this book is dedicated to my dear, beloved Lucy. Life goes on. We are together". The next day Andrei Sakharov passed away.

May 21, 2011 marks the 90th anniversary of the birth of the “father” of the Soviet hydrogen bomb and Nobel Peace Prize laureate - Soviet physicist, public figure, human rights activist Andrei Sakharov.

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was born on May 21, 1921 in Moscow in the family of physics teacher Dmitry Ivanovich Sakharov, the author of many popular science books. His mother Ekaterina Alekseevna (before Sofiano's marriage) was a housewife.

Andrei Sakharov spent his childhood and early youth in Moscow. He received his primary education at home. I went to school from the seventh grade.

In 1938, Andrei Sakharov graduated from school with honors and entered the physics department of Moscow University.

In 1942, while evacuated in Ashgabat, he graduated with honors from Moscow State University. In September 1942, he was placed at the disposal of the People's Commissariat of Armaments, from where he was sent to a large military plant in Ulyanovsk, where until 1945 he worked as an engineer-inventor and became the author of a number of inventions in the field of product control methods.

From 1943 to 1944, Andrei Sakharov independently did several scientific works and sent them to the Physics Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences named after P.N. Lebedeva (FIAN) to Igor Tamm.

In 1945, he entered graduate school at the Lebedev Physical Institute, and in November 1947 defended his Ph.D. thesis.

In 1948, Andrei Sakharov was included in the research group for the development of thermonuclear weapons, led by Igor Tamm, where he worked until 1968.

Together with Tamm, Sakharov became one of the initiators of work on the study of controlled thermonuclear reactions. He put forward the idea of magnetic cumulation to obtain ultra-strong magnetic fields and the idea of laser compression to obtain a pulsed controlled thermonuclear reaction. Sakharov is the author of several key works in cosmology, works on field theory and elementary particles.

In 1953, Sakharov defended his doctoral dissertation and in the same year was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Since the late 1950s, Andrei Sakharov, considered the “father” of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, has been an active advocate for stopping nuclear weapons testing. In 1957, he wrote an article about the dangers of nuclear tests, and in 1958 he spoke out (together with Kurchatov) against the planned nuclear tests. He was one of the initiators of the 1963 Moscow Treaty banning tests in three environments (in the atmosphere, in water and in space), and in 1967 he participated in the Committee for the Protection of Lake Baikal.

In 1966-1967, Andrei Sakharov’s first appeals appeared in defense of the repressed; in 1968, he wrote the brochure “Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom,” which was published in many countries. Since July 1968, after this article was published abroad, Sakharov was removed from work at the “facility” and dismissed from all posts related to military secrets.

In 1969, he returned to scientific work at FIAN. On June 30, 1969, Sakharov was assigned to the department of the institute where his scientific work began, to the position of senior researcher - the lowest position that a Soviet academician could hold.

From 1967 to 1980, he published more than 15 scientific papers: on the baryon asymmetry of the Universe with the prediction of proton decay (as Sakharov himself believed, this was his best theoretical work, which influenced the formation of scientific opinion in the next decade), on cosmological models of the Universe, on the connection of gravity with quantum fluctuations of the vacuum, mass formulas for mesons and baryons, etc.

Since 1970, the protection of human rights, the protection of people who have become victims of political violence, has come to the fore for the scientist. In 1970, Sakharov became one of the founders of the Moscow Committee for Human Rights and spoke out on the problem of pollution environment, for the abolition of the death penalty, for the right to emigrate, against the forced treatment of “dissidents” in psychiatric hospitals.

Andrei Sakharov became the most famous Soviet human rights activist. In 1971, he addressed a “Memorandum” to the Soviet government on urgent issues of internal and foreign policy, in 1974 published abroad the article “The World in Half a Century,” in which he reflected on the prospects of scientific and technological progress and outlined his vision of the structure of the world.

In 1975, Andrei Sakharov wrote the book “About the Country and the World.” In the same year, “for his fearless support of the fundamental principles of peace among nations and for his courageous struggle against abuse of power and any form of suppression of human dignity,” Andrei Sakharov was awarded the title of Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

In 1976, Sakharov was elected vice-president of the International League of Human Rights. In September 1977, he sent a letter to the organizing committee on the problem of the death penalty, in which he advocated its abolition in the USSR and throughout the world. In December 1979 - January 1980, Sakharov repeatedly opposed the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan.

On January 8, 1980, a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was adopted depriving Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov of all government awards and prizes (the Order of Lenin, the title of three times Hero of Socialist Labor and, by resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the title of laureate of the Stalin (1953) and Lenin (1956) prizes).

On January 22, 1980, Andrei Sakharov was exiled to the city of Gorky without trial (since the city was closed to foreigners). In Gorky, he was in conditions of almost complete isolation and under round-the-clock police surveillance. Here Sakharov held three long hunger strikes. In 1981 - seventeen days (together with his wife Elena Bonner) in protest against the illegal actions of the authorities towards his relatives, in May 1984 - 26 days - in protest against the criminal prosecution of Elena Bonner, in April-October 1985 - 178 days - for Bonner's right to travel abroad for heart surgery. Sakharov was forcibly hospitalized and force-fed.

With the beginning of perestroika, in December 1986, by order of Mikhail Gorbachev, Andrei Sakharov was released from Gorky exile. He and his wife returned to Moscow, where he continued to work at the Physical Institute. P.N. Lebedeva.

The theoretical department of FIAN, which was headed by Academician Ginzburg after Tamm’s death, ensured that Andrei Dmitrievich remained an employee of the department (for all seven years, a sign with his name was kept on the door of his room at FIAN).

In November-December 1988, Sakharov’s first trip abroad took place; he met with Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Francois Mitterrand.

In the last years of his life, Sakharov was actively involved in human rights activities. In March 1989, he was elected people's deputy of the USSR from the Academy of Sciences, becoming one of the leaders of the group of the most radical deputies.

Andrei Sakharov was a foreign or honorary member of many scientific associations. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Physical Society, the French Academy (Institut de France), the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences (France), the Accademia Dei Lincei (Italy), the Venetian Academy, Dutch Academy (Sakharov is its first and only foreign member).

He was the recipient of many international and national awards: the Nobel Peace Prize, the Cino del Duco Prize, the Eleanor Roosevelt Prize, the Freedom House Prize (USA), the Human Rights League Prize (UN), the International Anti-Defamation League Prize, the Benjamin Franklin Prize (physics), Leo Szilard Prize, Tamall Prize (physics), St. Boniface; Albert Einstein Peace Prize, etc.

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov died on the evening of December 14, 1989 from a heart attack. The day before, at a meeting of the Interregional Deputy Group (II Congress of People's Deputies), his last speech in the Kremlin took place.

He was buried in Moscow at the Vostryakovsky cemetery.

Andrei Sakharov's first wife was Klavdia Vikhireva (1919-1969), a native of Ulyanovsk, a laboratory chemist, with whom he married in 1943. They had three children - two daughters and a son. Since 1972, Sakharov was married to Elena Bonner, whom he met in the fall of 1970. They had no children together.

On May 21, 1992, at the main entrance to the P.N. Physics Institute. Lebedev (FIAN), where Sakharov worked in 1945-1950 and 1969-1989, the grand opening of a memorial plaque dedicated to Academician Sakharov took place. The author of the memorial plaque is sculptor Leonid Shtutman.

In Moscow there is Academician Sakharov Avenue, and there is also a museum and public center named after him. The Sakharov Museum also exists in Nizhny Novgorod; this is an apartment on the first floor of a 12-story building in which Sakharov lived during seven years of exile.

In Riga, Dubna, Chelyabinsk, Kazan, Lvov, Haifa, Odessa, Sarov, Sukhumi there are streets named after him. In St. Petersburg, a park and a square where a monument was erected to him are named after Andrei Sakharov; there is a similar square in Yerevan, where a monument to Sakharov is also erected, and secondary school number 69 is named after him. In the center of Barnaul there is Sakharov Square, where the annual City Day and other city public events are held. In Belarus, the International State Ecological University is named after Sakharov. There are Sakharov Gardens in Jerusalem.

A mountain peak in Altai is named after Academician Sakharov. The peak is located on the North Chuysky ridge in the area of the Shavlo gorge. His name was given to one of the mountain peaks of the Caucasus, which a group of climbers from Moscow, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Volga region, Ural conquered on July 31, 1996.

In 1979, an asteroid was named after Andrei Sakharov.

In 1991, the USSR Post Office issued a stamp dedicated to Sakharov.

Since 1992, the International Sakharov Arts Festival has been held.

In 1993, the Sakharov Archive was founded at Brandeis University and was soon moved to Harvard University. The archive documents date from 1968 to 1991.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources