Andrei Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his struggle for human rights in the Soviet Union and his activism for disarmament and international cooperation.

Full name: Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov
Born: 21 May 1921, Moscow, Russia
Died: 14 December 1989, Moscow, USSR (now Russia)
Date awarded: 9 October 1975

Promoting human rights in the Soviet Union

Andrei Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts as human rights advocate in the Soviet Union. He was not permitted to travel to Oslo to receive his award, so his wife, Elena Bonner, accepted it on his behalf. In 1980 Sakharov was stripped of all his Soviet titles, and the couple was exiled to the city of Gorky. Not until 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, were they allowed to return to a normal life in Moscow. After WWII, Sakharov worked to develop a hydrogen bomb for the Soviet Union. A patriot, he believed it was crucial to break the USA’s monopoly on nuclear weapons. Gradually, however, he began to voice concerns that an arms race could have catastrophic results, and in the 1960s and 1970s he became a harsh critic of the Soviet system, maintaining that it violated the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

A Soviet hydrogen bomb

In 1949 the Soviet Union detonated its first atom bomb, but in 1952 the USA developed the much more powerful hydrogen bomb. Sakharov, a physicist, participated in a top-secret research group to help the Soviet Union catch up with the USA’s nuclear lead. He maintained that one country should not have a monopoly on nuclear weapons. In August 1953, Sakharov witnessed the detonation of the Soviet Union’s first hydrogen bomb at a test ground in Kazakhstan. Although he recognised the terrible power of the weapon he had helped to create, he was convinced that it would safeguard peace and stability.

A social critic emerges

After WWII, the Soviet Union and the USA entered into a nuclear arms race. Sakharov warned of the effects of radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing. From the mid-1960s, he became increasingly critical of the Soviet system. He took part in demonstrations advocating freedom of speech, human rights and environmental protection, and he claimed that the Soviet Union’s ability to achieve social, political and economic development was in decline due to a lack of democracy. In the 1970s, Sakharov declared that he was no longer a communist and cautioned Western leaders not to trust the Soviet leadership.

Soviet leadership and the peace prize

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Sakharov in 1975 was denounced by communist parties throughout the world. In the Soviet Union, the Academy of Sciences disassociated itself from Sakharov, calling him unpatriotic. The mass media labelled him a traitor and an adversary of peace and disarmament. Since Sakharov was not permitted to travel to Oslo, his wife, Elena Bonner, accepted the peace prize and spoke on his behalf. She had been allowed to travel abroad for treatment of an eye disease. Sakharov’s Nobel Prize lecture was an attack on the Soviet dictatorship. It contained the names of over 100 political prisoners with whom Sakharov wished to share the peace prize.

Elected to the congress of people’s deputies

After being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Sakharov was punished by Soviet authorities. His telephone was tapped, his mail opened, and he was prevented from making phone calls abroad. In 1980 he was stripped of all his honours and exiled to the city of Gorky, where he was under KGB surveillance day and night. After Gorbachev came to power in 1985, Sakharov was elected to the new Congress of People’s Deputies as a non-communist member. He criticised Gorbachev for slowing down the reform process in the Soviet Union. Sakharov suffered a stroke while in the midst of these efforts, dying only a short time after the fall of the Berlin Wall in the autumn of 1989.

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Biography of Andrei Sakharov

I was born on 21 May 1921. My father was a well-known teacher of physics and the author of textbooks, exercise books and works of popular science. I grew up in a large communal apartment where most of the rooms were occupied by my family and relations and only a few by outsiders ...

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