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The Soviet physicist, dissident, and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. The first Russian to have been so recognized, Sakharov in his Nobel lecture held that humanity had a \"sacred endeavor\" to create a life worthy of its potential, that \"we must make good the demands of reason,\" by confronting the dangers threatening the world, both then and now: nuclear annihilation, famine, pollution, and the denial of human rights. Meeting the Demands of Reasonprovides a comprehensive account of Sakharov's life and intellectual development, focusing on his political thought and the effect his ideas had on Soviet society. Jay Bergman places Sakharov's dissidence squarely within the ethical legacy of the nineteenth-century Russian intelligentsia, inculcated by his father and other family members from an early age. In 1948, one year after receiving his doctoral candidate's degree in physics, Sakharov began work on the Soviet hydrogen bomb and later received both the Stalin and the Lenin prizes for his efforts. Although as a nuclear physicist he had firsthand experience of honors and privileges inaccessible to ordinary citizens, Sakharov became critical of certain policies of the Soviet government in the late 1950s. He never renounced his work on nuclear weaponry, but eventually grew concerned about the environmental consequences of testing and feared unrestrained nuclear proliferation. Bergman shows that these issues led Sakharov to see the connection between his work in science and his responsibilities to the political life of his country. In the late 1960s, Sakharov began to condemn the Soviet system as a whole in the name of universal human rights. By the 1970s, he had become, with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the most recognized Soviet dissident in the West, which afforded him a measure of protection from the authorities. In 1980, however, he was exiled to the closed city of Gorky for protesting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In 1986, the new Gorbachev regime allowed him to return to Moscow, where he played a central role as both supporter and critic in the years of perestroika. Two years after Sakharov's death, the Soviet Union collapsed, and in the courageous example of his unyielding commitment to human rights, skillfully recounted by Bergman, Sakharov remains an enduring inspiration for all those who would tell truth to power.

The definitive biography of Soviet Jewish dissident writer Vasily Grossman If Vasily Grossman's 1961 masterpiece, Life and Fate, had been published during his lifetime, it would have reached the world together with Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago and before Solzhenitsyn's Gulag. But Life and Fate was seized by the KGB. When it emerged posthumously, decades later, it was recognized as the War and Peace of the twentieth century. Always at the epicenter of events, Grossman (1905-1964) was among the first to describe the Holocaust and the Ukrainian famine. His 1944 article \"The Hell of Treblinka\" became evidence at Nuremberg. Grossman's powerful anti-totalitarian works liken the Nazis' crimes against humanity with those of Stalin. His compassionate prose has the everlasting quality of great art. Because Grossman's major works appeared after much delay we are only now able to examine them properly. Alexandra Popoff's authoritative biography illuminates Grossman's life and legacy.

This groundbreaking critical biography of Andrei Siniavskii (1925-1997) as a writer in and of his time shows how this subtle and complex author found his way in a society polarised into heroes and villains, patriots and traitors, how he progressed from identification with the value system and ideology of his time to reaction against it, and his dissidence expressed in literary terms. Based on a close reading of his work, Andrei Siniavskii: A Hero of his Time? explores the way in which Siniavskii's art does not simply reflect the circumstances of his life and times but is actively shaped by an intricate commerce between the two.

How did Andrei Sakharov, a theoretical physicist and the acknowledged father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, become a human rights activist and the first Russian to win the Nobel Peace Prize? This study of Andrei Sakharov as a scientist as well as a public figure aims to examine the real context of Sakharov's life.

Roger Huard invites readers to explore Plato s myth of the Cave, which is central to his magnum opus on political philosophy, The Republic. Using The Cave as a key, Huard debunks conventional interpretations of to Plato s political thought (conservative and progressive interpretations alike), and unfolds Plato's notions about the structure of the world, his ideas about justice and human well being, challenging many of our conceptions of the cosmos and political beliefs.The primary goal of this exploration is to arrive at an understanding of Plato s political ideas -- an understanding that is not saddled with the misconceptions that plague contemporary interpretations of his thinking, conservative and progressive alike. The author argues further that this re-examination provides a way to look at the human condition that is significantly different from most available perspectives on the matter and that, by virtue of this difference, challenges both our conceptions of the cosmos and many of our deeply held political beliefs.The author provides a reinterpretation of the cave myth that discusses specifically the structure of knowledge that is imbedded in the myth as well as the concept of philosophy and the philosopher that it details especially in terms of the relationship of the philosopher to the greater social order.An examination follows of the structure of the world that Plato s myth rests upon. This is important because this structure is fundamentally different from current scientific and religious conceptions of the cosmos. It is also significant because Plato s notions about the structure of the world are linked to his ideas about justice and human well being, a link that is forged (albeit implicitly) in his Myth of the Cave. The author then proceeds to a discussion of four topics that separate contemporary political thinking from Plato s: freedom, equality, truth, and art A two-part examination of these topics demonstrates, first, that Plato s thoughts on these matters are not as we conventionally think them to be; and second, turns a critical gaze on how contemporary political thought may be mistaken about its own ideas concerning freedom, equality, truth and art. A key feature in this re-examination is the differing conceptions we have from Plato s on the private and public realms and how these realms are connected to our ideas about economics and politics.The book concludes with a discussion on the importance of Plato s political philosophy and how it is linked at a fundamental level to some of our cherished political beliefs about justice, human well-being and community.

From a debut author, an intimate, multigenerational narrative of the Russian and Chinese revolutions through the eyes of the Chinese youth who traveled to the Soviet Union and the fate of their blended offspring.

When examining history, one must be careful not to blame rapid political change solely on famine, war, economic inequality, or structural disfunctions alone.These conditions may linger for decades without social upheaval.

The book contains the memoirs of Robert van Voren covering the period 1977-2008 and provides unique insights into the dissident movement in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, both inside the country and abroad. As a result of his close friendship with many of the leading dissidents and his dozens of trips to the USSR as a courier, he had intimate knowledge of the ins and outs of the dissident movement and participated in many of the campaigns to obtain the release of Soviet political prisoners. In the late 1980s he became involved in building a humane and ethical practice of psychiatry in Eastern Europe and the (ex-) USSR, based on respect for the human rights of persons with mental illness. The book describes the dissident movement and many of the people who formed it, mental health reformers in Eastern Europe and the response of the Western psychiatric community, the battle with the World Psychiatric Association over Soviet, and later, Chinese political abuse of psychiatry, his contacts with former KGB officers and problems with the KGB's successor organization, the FSB. It also vividly describes the emotional effects of serving as a courier for the dissident movement, the fear of arrest, the pain of seeing friends disappear for many years into camps and prisons, sometimes never to return.

From My Recent Past is a memoir written by Russian revolutionary Grigory Gershuni (1870-1908). The book depicts his revolutionary activities, arrest, tribunal, and years of imprisonment. It is presented here in English translation by Katya Vladimirov, with an introduction by Katya Vladimirov and an afterword by Jack Moran.

Russia's attempt to consolidate its authority in the North Caucasus has exerted a terrible price on both sides since the mid-nineteenth century. Michael Khodarkovsky's book tells the story of a single man with multiple allegiances and provides a concise and compelling history of the mountainous region between the Black and Caspian seas. After forays beginning in the late 1500s, Russia tenuously conquered the peoples of the region in the 1850s; the campaign was defined by a cruelty on both sides that established a pattern repeated in our own time, particularly in Chechnya. At the center of Khodarkovsky's sweeping account is Semën Atarshchikov (1807-1845). His father was a Chechen translator in the Russian army, and Atarshchikov grew up with roots in both Russian and Chechen cultures. His facility with local languages earned him quick promotion in the Russian army. Atarshchikov enjoyed the confidence of his superiors, yet he saw the violence that the Russians inflicted on the native population and was torn between his duties as a Russian officer and his affinity with the highlanders. Twice he deserted the army to join the highlanders in raids against his former colleagues. In the end he was betrayed by a compatriot who sought to gain favor with the Russians by killing the infamous Atarshchikov. Khodarkovsky places Atarshchikov's life in a rich context: we learn a great deal about the region's geography, its peoples, their history, and their conflicts with both the Russians and one another. Khodarkovsky reveals disputes among the Russian commanders and the policies they advocated; some argued for humane approaches but always lost out to those who preferred more violent means. Like Hadji Murat-the hero of Tolstoy's last great work-Atarshchikov moved back and forth between Russian and local allegiances; his biography is the story of the North Caucasus, one as relevant today as in the nineteenth century.