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Mijn leven
Autobiografie van de Russische atoomgeleerde en strijder voor de mensenrechten (1921-1989).
846 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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566 people want to read
About the author
Andrei D. Sakharov
40 books37 followersSoviet physicist and dissident Andrei Dimitrievich Sakharov helped to develop the first Soviet hydrogen bomb and as an outspoken advocate of human rights and nuclear disarmament won the Nobel Prize of 1975 for peace; people banished him to Gorky (now Nizhniy Novgorod) from 1980 to 1986.
Russian activist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_...
Russian activist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_...
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
December 15, 2010
Andrey Sakharov was a rare example of a Noble Peace Prize winner who really deserved it. He almost alone confronted totalitarian system and in many many ways won. They couldn't do anything to him.
This memoirs can be divided into 3 parts:
1) Childhood, first steps in science, getting acclaimed in physics. This part is most boring. Nothing special niether in sense of literature nor in details or situations. Also a lot of formulas and other physics stuff which I totally lack of brains to understand, which is of course exclusively my personal problem;
2)Sakharov invents hydrogen weapon and becomes acclaimed scientist, kindly treated by the system, with all the dachas, cars and a lot of money and sea trips, everything USSR could offer to its heroes. Moral problems start to disturb Sakharov, he thinks a lot about his invention, starts to participate in different peace efforts and detente. Little by little he's getting involved in defense of different people who are suffering because of their thoughts and views. System still listens to him and he uses his possibilities to help different people.
3) 1968 Soviet invasion to Czechoslovakia happens and Sakharov becomes dissident actively fighting for human rights for soviet people and against the system. This part covers whole "legal" part of his activity till the late 70's and what happened after when he was deprived of all his titles and privileges, evicted to Gorky, separated from his friends and most of his family, his life under 7 years of home arrest up untill Perestroyka.
This last part is the biggest in the book and the most interesting one. All the tricks that he and his wife used to fool KGB are fun, but that's not the thing. The thing is this man who held biggest war secrets, but never had even littlest idea to bargain with the system about them or give them to US, he just fighted for the rights of his people and suffered. This book was re-written 3 (!!!) times because KGB was stealing manuscripts.
By the end of it Sakharov's fight is conspicuously moving to the zone of self-defense, but he had his reasons. A lot of. Nice, kind, facile, phisically weak man goes against the System and wins, they can't shut his mouth, can't kill him, can't throw him out of the country, they can only torture him, but he laughs at their faces. Gorbachev released him in the end, but that's beyond this book. I wish modern kids who are circling around Moscow today yealling nazi slogans and raising their right hand in Hitler's hail would have learned more about this man in school.
This memoirs can be divided into 3 parts:
1) Childhood, first steps in science, getting acclaimed in physics. This part is most boring. Nothing special niether in sense of literature nor in details or situations. Also a lot of formulas and other physics stuff which I totally lack of brains to understand, which is of course exclusively my personal problem;
2)Sakharov invents hydrogen weapon and becomes acclaimed scientist, kindly treated by the system, with all the dachas, cars and a lot of money and sea trips, everything USSR could offer to its heroes. Moral problems start to disturb Sakharov, he thinks a lot about his invention, starts to participate in different peace efforts and detente. Little by little he's getting involved in defense of different people who are suffering because of their thoughts and views. System still listens to him and he uses his possibilities to help different people.
3) 1968 Soviet invasion to Czechoslovakia happens and Sakharov becomes dissident actively fighting for human rights for soviet people and against the system. This part covers whole "legal" part of his activity till the late 70's and what happened after when he was deprived of all his titles and privileges, evicted to Gorky, separated from his friends and most of his family, his life under 7 years of home arrest up untill Perestroyka.
This last part is the biggest in the book and the most interesting one. All the tricks that he and his wife used to fool KGB are fun, but that's not the thing. The thing is this man who held biggest war secrets, but never had even littlest idea to bargain with the system about them or give them to US, he just fighted for the rights of his people and suffered. This book was re-written 3 (!!!) times because KGB was stealing manuscripts.
By the end of it Sakharov's fight is conspicuously moving to the zone of self-defense, but he had his reasons. A lot of. Nice, kind, facile, phisically weak man goes against the System and wins, they can't shut his mouth, can't kill him, can't throw him out of the country, they can only torture him, but he laughs at their faces. Gorbachev released him in the end, but that's beyond this book. I wish modern kids who are circling around Moscow today yealling nazi slogans and raising their right hand in Hitler's hail would have learned more about this man in school.
February 11, 2012
I read it as a preparation for an assignment I had to make on ethics in physics, and really enjoyed reading it. I knew nothing of Sakharov before I found a picture of him at the Nobel museum in Stockholm, Sweden, and thought that he would be a great theme for my assignment. So, I found this (rather heavy) book, and started reading.
If nothing else, I learned a lot of how physics was done in the old day's Russia, and it was an interesting piece of history to read about. And then of course you never hear much about the Russian nuclear program in other media, it's always just the US all over - so it was refreshing to hear something from "the other side" for once.
If nothing else, I learned a lot of how physics was done in the old day's Russia, and it was an interesting piece of history to read about. And then of course you never hear much about the Russian nuclear program in other media, it's always just the US all over - so it was refreshing to hear something from "the other side" for once.
September 1, 2017
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. The house was pervaded by a strong traditional family spirit - a vital enthusiasm for work and respect for professional competence. Within the family we provided one another with mutual support, just as we shared a love of literature and science.
My father played the piano remarkably well, in particular Chopin, Grieg, Beethoven and Scriabin. During the civil war he earned a living by playing the accompaniment to silent films at the cinema.
I am especially grateful for the memory of my grandmother, Maria Petrovna, who was the family's good spirit. She died before the war at the age of 79. My grandmother brought up six children and when she was around 50 years old she taught herself English all on her own. Right up to the time of her death she read English works of fiction in the original. From when we were quite small she read aloud to us, her grandchildren. I still have the most vivid memory of her reading to us those evenings. It would be Pushkin, Dickens, Marlowe or Beecher-Stowe, and in Holy Week, the Gospel.
The influence of my home has meant a great deal to me, particularly because I had my first lessons at home and later experienced the greatest difficulty in adapting myself to my classmates. I took my final school examination with distinction in 1938 and at once began to study at the Faculty of Physics in Moscow University. Here too I passed my Finals with distinction, in 1942 when because of the war, we had been evacuated to Ashkhabad.
In the summer and autumn of 1942 I lived for some weeks in Kovrov where I had originally been sent to work after my graduation. Later I worked as a lumberjack in a desolate rural settlement near Melekess. My first bitter impressions of the life of the workers and peasants in that very hard time are derived from those days. In September 1942 I was sent to a large munitions factory on the Volga where I worked as an engineer and inventor right until 1945. At the factory I made a number of inventions in the field of production control. But in 1944, while still employed at the factory, I wrote some scientific articles on theoretical physics and sent them to Moscow for appraisal and comment. These first works were never published, but they gave me the self-confidence so essential to every researcher.
In 1945 I began to read for my doctorate at the Lebedev Institute, the department of physics in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. My teacher there was the great theoretical physicist, Igor Evgenyevich Tamm.
He influenced me enormously and later became a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and a winner of the Nobel Prize for physics. In 1947 I defended my thesis on nuclear physics, and in 1948 I was included in a group of research scientists whose task was to develop nuclear weapons. The leader of this group was I.E. Tamm.
For the next 20 years I worked under conditions of the highest security and under great pressure, first in Moscow and subsequently in a special secret research centre. At the time we were all convinced that this work was of vital significance for the balance of power in the world and we were fascinated by the grandeur of the task. In the foreword to my book Sakharov Speaks, as well as in My Country and the World, I have already described the development of my socio-political views in the period 1953-68 and the dramatic events which contributed to or were the expression of this development. Between 1953 and 1962 much of what happened was connected with the development of nuclear weapons and with the preparations for and realization of the nuclear experiments. At the same time I was becoming ever more conscious of the moral problems inherent in this work. In and after 1964 when I began to concern myself with the biological issues, and particularly from 1967 onwards, the extent of the problems over which I felt uneasy increased to such a point that in 1968 I felt a compelling urge to make my views public.
Thus it was that the article Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom came into being. In reality these are the same themes which seven and a half years later were to become the title of my Nobel Lecture ("Peace, Progress and Human Rights"). I consider these themes to be fundamentally important and closely interconnected. My public stand represented a turning point for me and my entire future. The article very quickly became known throughout the world. For a long time the Soviet press contained no mention of the Progress, and later references were either disapproving in the extreme or else ironic. A great many critics, even if sympathetically disposed towards me, regarded my reflections in this work as exceedingly naive and speculative. Today, however, after eight intervening years, it seems that much of what may be termed important both in Soviet politics and in international politics is connected in one way or another with these thoughts.
From 1970 onwards the defence of human rights and the defence of the victims of political trials became all-important to me. Together with (Valery) Chalidze and Tverdokhlebov, and later with (Igor) Shafarevich and Podyapolski I shared in running the Committee for Human Rights, thus making my position quite clear. I feel bound to recall the fate of two of them. In April 1976 Andrei Tverdokhlebov was sentenced to five years exile for his social work, and in March Grigori Podyapolski was lost to us through his tragic premature death.
As early as 1950, Tamm and I were the joint originators of a Soviet work on controlled thermonuclear reaction (the thermonuclear reaction of hydrogen isotopes either for the production of electrical energy or for the production of fuel for nuclear reactors). Great advances have now been made in this work. A year later, at my initiative, experiments were started on the construction of implosive magnetic generators (devices by which chemical or nuclear reactions are transformed into magnetic field energy). In 1964 we attained a record with a magnetic field of 25 million gauss.
From July 1968, when my article was published abroad, I was removed from top-secret work and "relieved" of my privileges in the Soviet "Nomenclatura" (the privileged class at the top of the system). Since the summer of 1969 I have again been working at the Lebedev Institute where I studied, as an assistant, for my doctorate from 1945 to 1947 and began my scientific work. My present work concerns the problems connected with the theory of elementary particles, the theory of gravitation and cosmology and I shall be glad if I can manage to make some contribution to these important branches of science.
Nevertheless, it is the social issues which unremittingly demand that I make a responsible personal effort and which also lay increasing claims on my physical and mental powers. For me, the moral difficulties lie in the continual pressure brought to bear on my friends and immediate family, pressure which is not directed against me personally but which at the same time is all around me. I have written about this on many occasions but, sad to report, all that I said before applies equally today. I am no professional politician - which is perhaps why I am continually obsessed by the question as to the purpose served by the work done by my friends and myself, as well as its final result. I tend to believe that only moral criteria, coupled with mental objectivity, can serve as a sort of compass in the cross-currents of these complex problems.
I have stated in writing many times already that I intend to refrain from making any concrete political prognoses. There is a large measure of tragedy in my life at present. The sentences lately passed on my close friends - Sergei Kovalev (who just exactly at the time of the Nobel Prize ceremony was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and three years' exile) and Andrei Tverdokhlebov - represent the clearest and most unequivocal evidence of this. Yet, even so, both now and for always, I intend to hold fast to my belief in the hidden strength of the human spirit.
After receiving the prize, Sakharov continued to work for human rights and to make statements to the West through Western correspondents in Moscow. Early in 1980, after he had denounced the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he was exiled to Gorky. In 1984, Elena Bonner joined him, also under sentence of exile. Isolated from family and friends, they continued to be persecuted by the KGB. Sakharov resorted to hunger strikes to secure medical treatment for Bonner, who was finally given permission to leave the Soviet Union for heart surgery in 1985. After Mikhail Gorbachev came to power with a policy of liberalisation, they were freed and allowed to return to Moscow in 1986. Despite the measure of freedom now possible, which enabled him to take up a political role as an elected member of the Congress of the People's Deputies, Sakharov was critical of Gorbachev, insisting that the reforms should go much further. He died in Moscow on December 14, 1989.
My father played the piano remarkably well, in particular Chopin, Grieg, Beethoven and Scriabin. During the civil war he earned a living by playing the accompaniment to silent films at the cinema.
I am especially grateful for the memory of my grandmother, Maria Petrovna, who was the family's good spirit. She died before the war at the age of 79. My grandmother brought up six children and when she was around 50 years old she taught herself English all on her own. Right up to the time of her death she read English works of fiction in the original. From when we were quite small she read aloud to us, her grandchildren. I still have the most vivid memory of her reading to us those evenings. It would be Pushkin, Dickens, Marlowe or Beecher-Stowe, and in Holy Week, the Gospel.
The influence of my home has meant a great deal to me, particularly because I had my first lessons at home and later experienced the greatest difficulty in adapting myself to my classmates. I took my final school examination with distinction in 1938 and at once began to study at the Faculty of Physics in Moscow University. Here too I passed my Finals with distinction, in 1942 when because of the war, we had been evacuated to Ashkhabad.
In the summer and autumn of 1942 I lived for some weeks in Kovrov where I had originally been sent to work after my graduation. Later I worked as a lumberjack in a desolate rural settlement near Melekess. My first bitter impressions of the life of the workers and peasants in that very hard time are derived from those days. In September 1942 I was sent to a large munitions factory on the Volga where I worked as an engineer and inventor right until 1945. At the factory I made a number of inventions in the field of production control. But in 1944, while still employed at the factory, I wrote some scientific articles on theoretical physics and sent them to Moscow for appraisal and comment. These first works were never published, but they gave me the self-confidence so essential to every researcher.
In 1945 I began to read for my doctorate at the Lebedev Institute, the department of physics in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. My teacher there was the great theoretical physicist, Igor Evgenyevich Tamm.
He influenced me enormously and later became a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and a winner of the Nobel Prize for physics. In 1947 I defended my thesis on nuclear physics, and in 1948 I was included in a group of research scientists whose task was to develop nuclear weapons. The leader of this group was I.E. Tamm.
For the next 20 years I worked under conditions of the highest security and under great pressure, first in Moscow and subsequently in a special secret research centre. At the time we were all convinced that this work was of vital significance for the balance of power in the world and we were fascinated by the grandeur of the task. In the foreword to my book Sakharov Speaks, as well as in My Country and the World, I have already described the development of my socio-political views in the period 1953-68 and the dramatic events which contributed to or were the expression of this development. Between 1953 and 1962 much of what happened was connected with the development of nuclear weapons and with the preparations for and realization of the nuclear experiments. At the same time I was becoming ever more conscious of the moral problems inherent in this work. In and after 1964 when I began to concern myself with the biological issues, and particularly from 1967 onwards, the extent of the problems over which I felt uneasy increased to such a point that in 1968 I felt a compelling urge to make my views public.
Thus it was that the article Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom came into being. In reality these are the same themes which seven and a half years later were to become the title of my Nobel Lecture ("Peace, Progress and Human Rights"). I consider these themes to be fundamentally important and closely interconnected. My public stand represented a turning point for me and my entire future. The article very quickly became known throughout the world. For a long time the Soviet press contained no mention of the Progress, and later references were either disapproving in the extreme or else ironic. A great many critics, even if sympathetically disposed towards me, regarded my reflections in this work as exceedingly naive and speculative. Today, however, after eight intervening years, it seems that much of what may be termed important both in Soviet politics and in international politics is connected in one way or another with these thoughts.
From 1970 onwards the defence of human rights and the defence of the victims of political trials became all-important to me. Together with (Valery) Chalidze and Tverdokhlebov, and later with (Igor) Shafarevich and Podyapolski I shared in running the Committee for Human Rights, thus making my position quite clear. I feel bound to recall the fate of two of them. In April 1976 Andrei Tverdokhlebov was sentenced to five years exile for his social work, and in March Grigori Podyapolski was lost to us through his tragic premature death.
As early as 1950, Tamm and I were the joint originators of a Soviet work on controlled thermonuclear reaction (the thermonuclear reaction of hydrogen isotopes either for the production of electrical energy or for the production of fuel for nuclear reactors). Great advances have now been made in this work. A year later, at my initiative, experiments were started on the construction of implosive magnetic generators (devices by which chemical or nuclear reactions are transformed into magnetic field energy). In 1964 we attained a record with a magnetic field of 25 million gauss.
From July 1968, when my article was published abroad, I was removed from top-secret work and "relieved" of my privileges in the Soviet "Nomenclatura" (the privileged class at the top of the system). Since the summer of 1969 I have again been working at the Lebedev Institute where I studied, as an assistant, for my doctorate from 1945 to 1947 and began my scientific work. My present work concerns the problems connected with the theory of elementary particles, the theory of gravitation and cosmology and I shall be glad if I can manage to make some contribution to these important branches of science.
Nevertheless, it is the social issues which unremittingly demand that I make a responsible personal effort and which also lay increasing claims on my physical and mental powers. For me, the moral difficulties lie in the continual pressure brought to bear on my friends and immediate family, pressure which is not directed against me personally but which at the same time is all around me. I have written about this on many occasions but, sad to report, all that I said before applies equally today. I am no professional politician - which is perhaps why I am continually obsessed by the question as to the purpose served by the work done by my friends and myself, as well as its final result. I tend to believe that only moral criteria, coupled with mental objectivity, can serve as a sort of compass in the cross-currents of these complex problems.
I have stated in writing many times already that I intend to refrain from making any concrete political prognoses. There is a large measure of tragedy in my life at present. The sentences lately passed on my close friends - Sergei Kovalev (who just exactly at the time of the Nobel Prize ceremony was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and three years' exile) and Andrei Tverdokhlebov - represent the clearest and most unequivocal evidence of this. Yet, even so, both now and for always, I intend to hold fast to my belief in the hidden strength of the human spirit.
After receiving the prize, Sakharov continued to work for human rights and to make statements to the West through Western correspondents in Moscow. Early in 1980, after he had denounced the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he was exiled to Gorky. In 1984, Elena Bonner joined him, also under sentence of exile. Isolated from family and friends, they continued to be persecuted by the KGB. Sakharov resorted to hunger strikes to secure medical treatment for Bonner, who was finally given permission to leave the Soviet Union for heart surgery in 1985. After Mikhail Gorbachev came to power with a policy of liberalisation, they were freed and allowed to return to Moscow in 1986. Despite the measure of freedom now possible, which enabled him to take up a political role as an elected member of the Congress of the People's Deputies, Sakharov was critical of Gorbachev, insisting that the reforms should go much further. He died in Moscow on December 14, 1989.
June 25, 2021
Knygoje visko tiek daug, kad prireikė kelių skaitymų. XX a. sovietijos istorija, su šuoliais į branduolinę fiziką, pagarba žmogui ir kultūrai, brandi meilė šeimai ir pasauliui, globalus laisvas mąstymas, neįtikėtinas darbštumas ir kuklumas. Asmenybė, lygintina su Dalai Lama XIV (iš tų, kurių tekstus teko skaityti). Tiesiog neįtikėtina, kad geležiniame KGB narve subrendo, išgyveno, išsiskleidė tokia laisva siela. Neįmanoma išmatuoti, kiek ir kokią įtaką A. Sacharovo veikla padarė žmogaus teisių evoliucijai, TSRS žlugimui ir bendrai pasaulio krypčiai. Norisi tikėti, kad ne tik atominių bandymų dulkės šimtmečiais lemia mūsų gyvenimus, bet ir mintys, sudėtos į šią ar panašias knygas. Tik imkime ir skaitykime. Šią galima skaityti kaip gyvąją istoriją, kaip detektyvą, kaip saviugdos knygą, kaip vidinės laisvės įmanomybės įrodymą.
December 30, 2008
I admire the constancy of his choices. The description of all the mean tricks done by the KGB is amazing. He must have cost them a fortune in surveillance fees. There are big parts about physics and science, but the main content is his life up to his return from Gorky, in 1986.
April 22, 2015
This was a little painful to read but the guy is so amazing I had to finish it. Truly an impressive person. I'm not a big biography fan so it's not the highest rating but if you like biographies you'll probably love this book!
February 21, 2011
The beginning is exquisite, one of the most elegant descriptions of childhood -- especially Soviet childhood -- I've ever read. Wanes later, especially in volume 2.
August 11, 2018
Crap on tap. And it starts from the dust cover. A hero. A designer of a nuclear bomb. Well, after US designs. And a peace loving being that helped proliferate the worst weapon of them all. A smart politician that was able to adapt to the tune global politics were singing. Understandable, his political activities and his secret police contacts are completely forgotten. In a huge Gulag, this guy has a straight spine.
Inside you will find a liar. He talks with top secret police officers, yet the talks are very clean.
Also he is well corrupted by the state ideology and close to a simpleton. Page 95. He is glad he receives two rooms in somebody else's house. He obviously does not care. After all its his two room home. And he is glad "no more [...] capricious landlords", although his two room becomes one 14m2 room because of the intervention of one of the directors to place his mother. Again, obviously Sakharov omits weather the mother was a blood physicist meaning a blood relative was and she was not.
In short: the glory of the Peace and the trophy of the Democracy is simply a rat. He never cared about the others or their lives or their propriety. When the communists were unable to offer him more than the West he was glad to denounce and move on.
Inside you will find a liar. He talks with top secret police officers, yet the talks are very clean.
Also he is well corrupted by the state ideology and close to a simpleton. Page 95. He is glad he receives two rooms in somebody else's house. He obviously does not care. After all its his two room home. And he is glad "no more [...] capricious landlords", although his two room becomes one 14m2 room because of the intervention of one of the directors to place his mother. Again, obviously Sakharov omits weather the mother was a blood physicist meaning a blood relative was and she was not.
In short: the glory of the Peace and the trophy of the Democracy is simply a rat. He never cared about the others or their lives or their propriety. When the communists were unable to offer him more than the West he was glad to denounce and move on.
October 16, 2018
Enlightening and well written biography of the "father of the soviet H-bomb" and human rights activist extraordinaire. A long read, but worth the effort. He made a difference. More importantly, he did so in the face of extreme and clever adversity which would have shaken many people's confidence in their cause. His wife, Elena Bonner, was very much his equal. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.
June 6, 2018
While many sections of this book were a grind to get through, I overall enjoyed it and took a lot a way from it. It was fascinating and grim to read about the tactics the KGB used to silence dissidents: gaslighting, libel, threats – but rarely outright physical violence, and never in the open. Sakharov's commitment to his principles in the face of all this adversity was truly inspiring.
September 30, 2025
dawg was anti nukes for forever because of the genetic changes brought by any outfall. admits wrong doing for Ukraine and Poland because he under exaggerated how serious Chernobyl. genuinely a boring book but dang this guy was doing hunger strikes and hustling for human rights and that's cool
July 1, 2021
Chilling
January 3, 2012
Закончил читать "Воспоминания" Сахарова, взятые наобум в библиотеке. Впечатление неоднозначное - мужик выдающийся, но мне совсем не "по душе".
Сама книга не особо читабельная, в основном пролистывал по диагонали.
Краткое содержание - родился и вырос в классической "старой" интеллигентской московской семье. Очень умный, пошел по научной линии, во время войны учился на физика в МГУ. После этого некоторое время занимался наукой, в конце 40-х начал участвовать в разработке атомной и водородной бомбы. Считается главным "автором" советской водородной бомбы. В 50-е и начале 60-х годов был на короткой ноге со с верхушкой руководства СССР. Очень интересные описания встреч с Берией, Маленковым, Хрущевым, Брежневым. сахаров уже тогда был человеком с принципами - отказался вступать в партию, постоянно имел свою точку зрения и не боялся ее высказывать самому высшему руководству. До поры до времени ему все прощали, т.к. он был "суперзвездой". Потом он постепенно перешел к открытому диссидентству, выступал против ввода войск в Чехословакию, начал общаться с другими диссидентами, писать "подрывные" заявления для публикации на Западе. Его очень быстро отстранили от работ над атомным оружием.
Вторая половина книги - описания диссидентских дел, психбольниц, отказников, ссылки в Горький, происков КГБ и т.д. Написано все в начале 80-х, тогда для него это была животрепещущая тема, сегодня это читать совершенно неинтересно. Даже сочувствия особого эти диссиденты не вызывают, они ведь сами "напрашивались". Это не как в 30-е, когда сажали всех подряд.
Сахарова относительно не трогали - все равно он оставался героем-академиком, лауреатом Нобелевской премии, и был на особом положении - за границей о нем было хорошо известно, сильно обидеть его власти не решались. Даже во время ссыли в Горький он мог передавать письма и заявления заграницу, слушал "голоса" по радио.
Интересные моменты:
- громадный процент евреев среди ученых, разрабатывавших атомную бомбу, Сахаров был одним из немногих русских. Фразы типа "Мы с Израилем Моисеевичем не согласились с предложением Наума Марковича", вызывают улыбку.
- Берия лично курировал атомный проект, Сахаров несколько раз был у него в кабинете. Интересная история, как его привлекли к проекту - его вызвали к главному руководителю проекта и предложили принять участие - он начал отказываться. Тут зазвонил телефон, на трубке был Берия - "Я очень прошу вас принять наше предложение". После этого у него не оставалось вариантов.
- упоминаются люди "поднявшие" все с административной стороны - это были матерые сталинские кадры, такие как Завенягин с Магнитки Это действительно был совершенно особый тип людей, котороые не жалели ни себя ни других, но могли из ничего, на ровном месте, организовать проект гигантского масштаба. Их периодически сажали, а потом снова выпускали на свободу и бросали в бой.
Сама книга не особо читабельная, в основном пролистывал по диагонали.
Краткое содержание - родился и вырос в классической "старой" интеллигентской московской семье. Очень умный, пошел по научной линии, во время войны учился на физика в МГУ. После этого некоторое время занимался наукой, в конце 40-х начал участвовать в разработке атомной и водородной бомбы. Считается главным "автором" советской водородной бомбы. В 50-е и начале 60-х годов был на короткой ноге со с верхушкой руководства СССР. Очень интересные описания встреч с Берией, Маленковым, Хрущевым, Брежневым. сахаров уже тогда был человеком с принципами - отказался вступать в партию, постоянно имел свою точку зрения и не боялся ее высказывать самому высшему руководству. До поры до времени ему все прощали, т.к. он был "суперзвездой". Потом он постепенно перешел к открытому диссидентству, выступал против ввода войск в Чехословакию, начал общаться с другими диссидентами, писать "подрывные" заявления для публикации на Западе. Его очень быстро отстранили от работ над атомным оружием.
Вторая половина книги - описания диссидентских дел, психбольниц, отказников, ссылки в Горький, происков КГБ и т.д. Написано все в начале 80-х, тогда для него это была животрепещущая тема, сегодня это читать совершенно неинтересно. Даже сочувствия особого эти диссиденты не вызывают, они ведь сами "напрашивались". Это не как в 30-е, когда сажали всех подряд.
Сахарова относительно не трогали - все равно он оставался героем-академиком, лауреатом Нобелевской премии, и был на особом положении - за границей о нем было хорошо известно, сильно обидеть его власти не решались. Даже во время ссыли в Горький он мог передавать письма и заявления заграницу, слушал "голоса" по радио.
Интересные моменты:
- громадный процент евреев среди ученых, разрабатывавших атомную бомбу, Сахаров был одним из немногих русских. Фразы типа "Мы с Израилем Моисеевичем не согласились с предложением Наума Марковича", вызывают улыбку.
- Берия лично курировал атомный проект, Сахаров несколько раз был у него в кабинете. Интересная история, как его привлекли к проекту - его вызвали к главному руководителю проекта и предложили принять участие - он начал отказываться. Тут зазвонил телефон, на трубке был Берия - "Я очень прошу вас принять наше предложение". После этого у него не оставалось вариантов.
- упоминаются люди "поднявшие" все с административной стороны - это были матерые сталинские кадры, такие как Завенягин с Магнитки Это действительно был совершенно особый тип людей, котороые не жалели ни себя ни других, но могли из ничего, на ровном месте, организовать проект гигантского масштаба. Их периодически сажали, а потом снова выпускали на свободу и бросали в бой.
May 17, 2012
Fascinating and moving. I picked this up at my college library because I was a physics major and wanted to read about a physicist who had made a difference as a humanitarian. For those of you who don't know him, Andrei Sakharov is usually considered the father of the Soviet H-bomb project. As a winner of the multiple awards including the Lenin prize, and known for his scientific reputation throughout the world, he was basically immune to most forms of punishment in the USSR, and his untouchability ensured that his views would be heard. As a result of his work to prevent the use of the bombs he had helped to develop and for his outspoken criticism of Soviet repression, Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In order to even exist, this book had to be completely rewritten, because the first version was confiscated by the KGB. It is filled with countless fascinating and unexpected incidents. Some of the most memorable include the time Sakharov was confronted by a Black Septembrist in his apartment, the time he noticed KGB agents hiding in the bushes at his daughter's wedding, the time he spoke out against Lysenko at the Academy of Sciences, and the time he had to shake hands with Lavrenty Beria (whom Sakharov described as the most frightening human being he had ever met), and so on and so on.
Readers who aren't interested in physics or science particularly might be baffled by some of the interludes about theoretical physics which Sakharov mixes in almost at random. Skipping them wouldn't detract much from the main drift of the story, but the book could not have been written without them; it is impossible to understand Sakharov the man without taking into account that he was first and foremost a scientist whose ingenuity was only matched by his tireless work ethic. The fact that he applied these same talents to humanitarianism no doubt makes him one of the most fascinating personalities of the twentieth century.
In order to even exist, this book had to be completely rewritten, because the first version was confiscated by the KGB. It is filled with countless fascinating and unexpected incidents. Some of the most memorable include the time Sakharov was confronted by a Black Septembrist in his apartment, the time he noticed KGB agents hiding in the bushes at his daughter's wedding, the time he spoke out against Lysenko at the Academy of Sciences, and the time he had to shake hands with Lavrenty Beria (whom Sakharov described as the most frightening human being he had ever met), and so on and so on.
Readers who aren't interested in physics or science particularly might be baffled by some of the interludes about theoretical physics which Sakharov mixes in almost at random. Skipping them wouldn't detract much from the main drift of the story, but the book could not have been written without them; it is impossible to understand Sakharov the man without taking into account that he was first and foremost a scientist whose ingenuity was only matched by his tireless work ethic. The fact that he applied these same talents to humanitarianism no doubt makes him one of the most fascinating personalities of the twentieth century.
April 24, 2013
"The biggest hoax ever played on the American people...the Cold War with Russia."
My take from the memoirs of Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (Russian: Андре́й Дми́триевич Са́харов; May 21, 1921 – December 14, 1989) a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and human rights activist.
My take from the memoirs of Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (Russian: Андре́й Дми́триевич Са́харов; May 21, 1921 – December 14, 1989) a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and human rights activist.
October 3, 2008
he'like my most favororite disident soviet scinetist ever.
January 25, 2013
Another WOW: difficult yet enjoyable to read, all at the same time - the best reading experience imaginable!!
April 9, 2015
This was one of the most interesting and captivating biographies I've ever read.
June 30, 2016
Not a whole lot of memoirs out there from Soviet citizens, so this one is especially interesting.
Read
September 1, 2017I 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. The house was pervaded by a strong traditional family spirit - a vital enthusiasm for work and respect for professional competence. Within the family we provided one another with mutual support, just as we shared a love of literature and science.
My father played the piano remarkably well, in particular Chopin, Grieg, Beethoven and Scriabin. During the civil war he earned a living by playing the accompaniment to silent films at the cinema.
I am especially grateful for the memory of my grandmother, Maria Petrovna, who was the family's good spirit. She died before the war at the age of 79. My grandmother brought up six children and when she was around 50 years old she taught herself English all on her own. Right up to the time of her death she read English works of fiction in the original. From when we were quite small she read aloud to us, her grandchildren. I still have the most vivid memory of her reading to us those evenings. It would be Pushkin, Dickens, Marlowe or Beecher-Stowe, and in Holy Week, the Gospel.
The influence of my home has meant a great deal to me, particularly because I had my first lessons at home and later experienced the greatest difficulty in adapting myself to my classmates. I took my final school examination with distinction in 1938 and at once began to study at the Faculty of Physics in Moscow University. Here too I passed my Finals with distinction, in 1942 when because of the war, we had been evacuated to Ashkhabad.
In the summer and autumn of 1942 I lived for some weeks in Kovrov where I had originally been sent to work after my graduation. Later I worked as a lumberjack in a desolate rural settlement near Melekess. My first bitter impressions of the life of the workers and peasants in that very hard time are derived from those days. In September 1942 I was sent to a large munitions factory on the Volga where I worked as an engineer and inventor right until 1945. At the factory I made a number of inventions in the field of production control. But in 1944, while still employed at the factory, I wrote some scientific articles on theoretical physics and sent them to Moscow for appraisal and comment. These first works were never published, but they gave me the self-confidence so essential to every researcher.
In 1945 I began to read for my doctorate at the Lebedev Institute, the department of physics in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. My teacher there was the great theoretical physicist, Igor Evgenyevich Tamm.
He influenced me enormously and later became a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and a winner of the Nobel Prize for physics. In 1947 I defended my thesis on nuclear physics, and in 1948 I was included in a group of research scientists whose task was to develop nuclear weapons. The leader of this group was I.E. Tamm.
For the next 20 years I worked under conditions of the highest security and under great pressure, first in Moscow and subsequently in a special secret research centre. At the time we were all convinced that this work was of vital significance for the balance of power in the world and we were fascinated by the grandeur of the task. In the foreword to my book Sakharov Speaks, as well as in My Country and the World, I have already described the development of my socio-political views in the period 1953-68 and the dramatic events which contributed to or were the expression of this development. Between 1953 and 1962 much of what happened was connected with the development of nuclear weapons and with the preparations for and realization of the nuclear experiments. At the same time I was becoming ever more conscious of the moral problems inherent in this work. In and after 1964 when I began to concern myself with the biological issues, and particularly from 1967 onwards, the extent of the problems over which I felt uneasy increased to such a point that in 1968 I felt a compelling urge to make my views public.
Thus it was that the article Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom came into being. In reality these are the same themes which seven and a half years later were to become the title of my Nobel Lecture ("Peace, Progress and Human Rights"). I consider these themes to be fundamentally important and closely interconnected. My public stand represented a turning point for me and my entire future. The article very quickly became known throughout the world. For a long time the Soviet press contained no mention of the Progress, and later references were either disapproving in the extreme or else ironic. A great many critics, even if sympathetically disposed towards me, regarded my reflections in this work as exceedingly naive and speculative. Today, however, after eight intervening years, it seems that much of what may be termed important both in Soviet politics and in international politics is connected in one way or another with these thoughts.
From 1970 onwards the defence of human rights and the defence of the victims of political trials became all-important to me. Together with (Valery) Chalidze and Tverdokhlebov, and later with (Igor) Shafarevich and Podyapolski I shared in running the Committee for Human Rights, thus making my position quite clear. I feel bound to recall the fate of two of them. In April 1976 Andrei Tverdokhlebov was sentenced to five years exile for his social work, and in March Grigori Podyapolski was lost to us through his tragic premature death.
As early as 1950, Tamm and I were the joint originators of a Soviet work on controlled thermonuclear reaction (the thermonuclear reaction of hydrogen isotopes either for the production of electrical energy or for the production of fuel for nuclear reactors). Great advances have now been made in this work. A year later, at my initiative, experiments were started on the construction of implosive magnetic generators (devices by which chemical or nuclear reactions are transformed into magnetic field energy). In 1964 we attained a record with a magnetic field of 25 million gauss.
From July 1968, when my article was published abroad, I was removed from top-secret work and "relieved" of my privileges in the Soviet "Nomenclatura" (the privileged class at the top of the system). Since the summer of 1969 I have again been working at the Lebedev Institute where I studied, as an assistant, for my doctorate from 1945 to 1947 and began my scientific work. My present work concerns the problems connected with the theory of elementary particles, the theory of gravitation and cosmology and I shall be glad if I can manage to make some contribution to these important branches of science.
Nevertheless, it is the social issues which unremittingly demand that I make a responsible personal effort and which also lay increasing claims on my physical and mental powers. For me, the moral difficulties lie in the continual pressure brought to bear on my friends and immediate family, pressure which is not directed against me personally but which at the same time is all around me. I have written about this on many occasions but, sad to report, all that I said before applies equally today. I am no professional politician - which is perhaps why I am continually obsessed by the question as to the purpose served by the work done by my friends and myself, as well as its final result. I tend to believe that only moral criteria, coupled with mental objectivity, can serve as a sort of compass in the cross-currents of these complex problems.
I have stated in writing many times already that I intend to refrain from making any concrete political prognoses. There is a large measure of tragedy in my life at present. The sentences lately passed on my close friends - Sergei Kovalev (who just exactly at the time of the Nobel Prize ceremony was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and three years' exile) and Andrei Tverdokhlebov - represent the clearest and most unequivocal evidence of this. Yet, even so, both now and for always, I intend to hold fast to my belief in the hidden strength of the human spirit.
After receiving the prize, Sakharov continued to work for human rights and to make statements to the West through Western correspondents in Moscow. Early in 1980, after he had denounced the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he was exiled to Gorky. In 1984, Elena Bonner joined him, also under sentence of exile. Isolated from family and friends, they continued to be persecuted by the KGB. Sakharov resorted to hunger strikes to secure medical treatment for Bonner, who was finally given permission to leave the Soviet Union for heart surgery in 1985. After Mikhail Gorbachev came to power with a policy of liberalisation, they were freed and allowed to return to Moscow in 1986. Despite the measure of freedom now possible, which enabled him to take up a political role as an elected member of the Congress of the People's Deputies, Sakharov was critical of Gorbachev, insisting that the reforms should go much further. He died in Moscow on December 14, 1989.
My father played the piano remarkably well, in particular Chopin, Grieg, Beethoven and Scriabin. During the civil war he earned a living by playing the accompaniment to silent films at the cinema.
I am especially grateful for the memory of my grandmother, Maria Petrovna, who was the family's good spirit. She died before the war at the age of 79. My grandmother brought up six children and when she was around 50 years old she taught herself English all on her own. Right up to the time of her death she read English works of fiction in the original. From when we were quite small she read aloud to us, her grandchildren. I still have the most vivid memory of her reading to us those evenings. It would be Pushkin, Dickens, Marlowe or Beecher-Stowe, and in Holy Week, the Gospel.
The influence of my home has meant a great deal to me, particularly because I had my first lessons at home and later experienced the greatest difficulty in adapting myself to my classmates. I took my final school examination with distinction in 1938 and at once began to study at the Faculty of Physics in Moscow University. Here too I passed my Finals with distinction, in 1942 when because of the war, we had been evacuated to Ashkhabad.
In the summer and autumn of 1942 I lived for some weeks in Kovrov where I had originally been sent to work after my graduation. Later I worked as a lumberjack in a desolate rural settlement near Melekess. My first bitter impressions of the life of the workers and peasants in that very hard time are derived from those days. In September 1942 I was sent to a large munitions factory on the Volga where I worked as an engineer and inventor right until 1945. At the factory I made a number of inventions in the field of production control. But in 1944, while still employed at the factory, I wrote some scientific articles on theoretical physics and sent them to Moscow for appraisal and comment. These first works were never published, but they gave me the self-confidence so essential to every researcher.
In 1945 I began to read for my doctorate at the Lebedev Institute, the department of physics in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. My teacher there was the great theoretical physicist, Igor Evgenyevich Tamm.
He influenced me enormously and later became a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and a winner of the Nobel Prize for physics. In 1947 I defended my thesis on nuclear physics, and in 1948 I was included in a group of research scientists whose task was to develop nuclear weapons. The leader of this group was I.E. Tamm.
For the next 20 years I worked under conditions of the highest security and under great pressure, first in Moscow and subsequently in a special secret research centre. At the time we were all convinced that this work was of vital significance for the balance of power in the world and we were fascinated by the grandeur of the task. In the foreword to my book Sakharov Speaks, as well as in My Country and the World, I have already described the development of my socio-political views in the period 1953-68 and the dramatic events which contributed to or were the expression of this development. Between 1953 and 1962 much of what happened was connected with the development of nuclear weapons and with the preparations for and realization of the nuclear experiments. At the same time I was becoming ever more conscious of the moral problems inherent in this work. In and after 1964 when I began to concern myself with the biological issues, and particularly from 1967 onwards, the extent of the problems over which I felt uneasy increased to such a point that in 1968 I felt a compelling urge to make my views public.
Thus it was that the article Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom came into being. In reality these are the same themes which seven and a half years later were to become the title of my Nobel Lecture ("Peace, Progress and Human Rights"). I consider these themes to be fundamentally important and closely interconnected. My public stand represented a turning point for me and my entire future. The article very quickly became known throughout the world. For a long time the Soviet press contained no mention of the Progress, and later references were either disapproving in the extreme or else ironic. A great many critics, even if sympathetically disposed towards me, regarded my reflections in this work as exceedingly naive and speculative. Today, however, after eight intervening years, it seems that much of what may be termed important both in Soviet politics and in international politics is connected in one way or another with these thoughts.
From 1970 onwards the defence of human rights and the defence of the victims of political trials became all-important to me. Together with (Valery) Chalidze and Tverdokhlebov, and later with (Igor) Shafarevich and Podyapolski I shared in running the Committee for Human Rights, thus making my position quite clear. I feel bound to recall the fate of two of them. In April 1976 Andrei Tverdokhlebov was sentenced to five years exile for his social work, and in March Grigori Podyapolski was lost to us through his tragic premature death.
As early as 1950, Tamm and I were the joint originators of a Soviet work on controlled thermonuclear reaction (the thermonuclear reaction of hydrogen isotopes either for the production of electrical energy or for the production of fuel for nuclear reactors). Great advances have now been made in this work. A year later, at my initiative, experiments were started on the construction of implosive magnetic generators (devices by which chemical or nuclear reactions are transformed into magnetic field energy). In 1964 we attained a record with a magnetic field of 25 million gauss.
From July 1968, when my article was published abroad, I was removed from top-secret work and "relieved" of my privileges in the Soviet "Nomenclatura" (the privileged class at the top of the system). Since the summer of 1969 I have again been working at the Lebedev Institute where I studied, as an assistant, for my doctorate from 1945 to 1947 and began my scientific work. My present work concerns the problems connected with the theory of elementary particles, the theory of gravitation and cosmology and I shall be glad if I can manage to make some contribution to these important branches of science.
Nevertheless, it is the social issues which unremittingly demand that I make a responsible personal effort and which also lay increasing claims on my physical and mental powers. For me, the moral difficulties lie in the continual pressure brought to bear on my friends and immediate family, pressure which is not directed against me personally but which at the same time is all around me. I have written about this on many occasions but, sad to report, all that I said before applies equally today. I am no professional politician - which is perhaps why I am continually obsessed by the question as to the purpose served by the work done by my friends and myself, as well as its final result. I tend to believe that only moral criteria, coupled with mental objectivity, can serve as a sort of compass in the cross-currents of these complex problems.
I have stated in writing many times already that I intend to refrain from making any concrete political prognoses. There is a large measure of tragedy in my life at present. The sentences lately passed on my close friends - Sergei Kovalev (who just exactly at the time of the Nobel Prize ceremony was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and three years' exile) and Andrei Tverdokhlebov - represent the clearest and most unequivocal evidence of this. Yet, even so, both now and for always, I intend to hold fast to my belief in the hidden strength of the human spirit.
After receiving the prize, Sakharov continued to work for human rights and to make statements to the West through Western correspondents in Moscow. Early in 1980, after he had denounced the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he was exiled to Gorky. In 1984, Elena Bonner joined him, also under sentence of exile. Isolated from family and friends, they continued to be persecuted by the KGB. Sakharov resorted to hunger strikes to secure medical treatment for Bonner, who was finally given permission to leave the Soviet Union for heart surgery in 1985. After Mikhail Gorbachev came to power with a policy of liberalisation, they were freed and allowed to return to Moscow in 1986. Despite the measure of freedom now possible, which enabled him to take up a political role as an elected member of the Congress of the People's Deputies, Sakharov was critical of Gorbachev, insisting that the reforms should go much further. He died in Moscow on December 14, 1989.
Read
September 1, 2017I 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. The house was pervaded by a strong traditional family spirit - a vital enthusiasm for work and respect for professional competence. Within the family we provided one another with mutual support, just as we shared a love of literature and science.
My father played the piano remarkably well, in particular Chopin, Grieg, Beethoven and Scriabin. During the civil war he earned a living by playing the accompaniment to silent films at the cinema.
I am especially grateful for the memory of my grandmother, Maria Petrovna, who was the family's good spirit. She died before the war at the age of 79. My grandmother brought up six children and when she was around 50 years old she taught herself English all on her own. Right up to the time of her death she read English works of fiction in the original. From when we were quite small she read aloud to us, her grandchildren. I still have the most vivid memory of her reading to us those evenings. It would be Pushkin, Dickens, Marlowe or Beecher-Stowe, and in Holy Week, the Gospel.
The influence of my home has meant a great deal to me, particularly because I had my first lessons at home and later experienced the greatest difficulty in adapting myself to my classmates. I took my final school examination with distinction in 1938 and at once began to study at the Faculty of Physics in Moscow University. Here too I passed my Finals with distinction, in 1942 when because of the war, we had been evacuated to Ashkhabad.
In the summer and autumn of 1942 I lived for some weeks in Kovrov where I had originally been sent to work after my graduation. Later I worked as a lumberjack in a desolate rural settlement near Melekess. My first bitter impressions of the life of the workers and peasants in that very hard time are derived from those days. In September 1942 I was sent to a large munitions factory on the Volga where I worked as an engineer and inventor right until 1945. At the factory I made a number of inventions in the field of production control. But in 1944, while still employed at the factory, I wrote some scientific articles on theoretical physics and sent them to Moscow for appraisal and comment. These first works were never published, but they gave me the self-confidence so essential to every researcher.
In 1945 I began to read for my doctorate at the Lebedev Institute, the department of physics in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. My teacher there was the great theoretical physicist, Igor Evgenyevich Tamm.
He influenced me enormously and later became a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and a winner of the Nobel Prize for physics. In 1947 I defended my thesis on nuclear physics, and in 1948 I was included in a group of research scientists whose task was to develop nuclear weapons. The leader of this group was I.E. Tamm.
For the next 20 years I worked under conditions of the highest security and under great pressure, first in Moscow and subsequently in a special secret research centre. At the time we were all convinced that this work was of vital significance for the balance of power in the world and we were fascinated by the grandeur of the task. In the foreword to my book Sakharov Speaks, as well as in My Country and the World, I have already described the development of my socio-political views in the period 1953-68 and the dramatic events which contributed to or were the expression of this development. Between 1953 and 1962 much of what happened was connected with the development of nuclear weapons and with the preparations for and realization of the nuclear experiments. At the same time I was becoming ever more conscious of the moral problems inherent in this work. In and after 1964 when I began to concern myself with the biological issues, and particularly from 1967 onwards, the extent of the problems over which I felt uneasy increased to such a point that in 1968 I felt a compelling urge to make my views public.
Thus it was that the article Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom came into being. In reality these are the same themes which seven and a half years later were to become the title of my Nobel Lecture ("Peace, Progress and Human Rights"). I consider these themes to be fundamentally important and closely interconnected. My public stand represented a turning point for me and my entire future. The article very quickly became known throughout the world. For a long time the Soviet press contained no mention of the Progress, and later references were either disapproving in the extreme or else ironic. A great many critics, even if sympathetically disposed towards me, regarded my reflections in this work as exceedingly naive and speculative. Today, however, after eight intervening years, it seems that much of what may be termed important both in Soviet politics and in international politics is connected in one way or another with these thoughts.
From 1970 onwards the defence of human rights and the defence of the victims of political trials became all-important to me. Together with (Valery) Chalidze and Tverdokhlebov, and later with (Igor) Shafarevich and Podyapolski I shared in running the Committee for Human Rights, thus making my position quite clear. I feel bound to recall the fate of two of them. In April 1976 Andrei Tverdokhlebov was sentenced to five years exile for his social work, and in March Grigori Podyapolski was lost to us through his tragic premature death.
As early as 1950, Tamm and I were the joint originators of a Soviet work on controlled thermonuclear reaction (the thermonuclear reaction of hydrogen isotopes either for the production of electrical energy or for the production of fuel for nuclear reactors). Great advances have now been made in this work. A year later, at my initiative, experiments were started on the construction of implosive magnetic generators (devices by which chemical or nuclear reactions are transformed into magnetic field energy). In 1964 we attained a record with a magnetic field of 25 million gauss.
From July 1968, when my article was published abroad, I was removed from top-secret work and "relieved" of my privileges in the Soviet "Nomenclatura" (the privileged class at the top of the system). Since the summer of 1969 I have again been working at the Lebedev Institute where I studied, as an assistant, for my doctorate from 1945 to 1947 and began my scientific work. My present work concerns the problems connected with the theory of elementary particles, the theory of gravitation and cosmology and I shall be glad if I can manage to make some contribution to these important branches of science.
Nevertheless, it is the social issues which unremittingly demand that I make a responsible personal effort and which also lay increasing claims on my physical and mental powers. For me, the moral difficulties lie in the continual pressure brought to bear on my friends and immediate family, pressure which is not directed against me personally but which at the same time is all around me. I have written about this on many occasions but, sad to report, all that I said before applies equally today. I am no professional politician - which is perhaps why I am continually obsessed by the question as to the purpose served by the work done by my friends and myself, as well as its final result. I tend to believe that only moral criteria, coupled with mental objectivity, can serve as a sort of compass in the cross-currents of these complex problems.
I have stated in writing many times already that I intend to refrain from making any concrete political prognoses. There is a large measure of tragedy in my life at present. The sentences lately passed on my close friends - Sergei Kovalev (who just exactly at the time of the Nobel Prize ceremony was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and three years' exile) and Andrei Tverdokhlebov - represent the clearest and most unequivocal evidence of this. Yet, even so, both now and for always, I intend to hold fast to my belief in the hidden strength of the human spirit.
After receiving the prize, Sakharov continued to work for human rights and to make statements to the West through Western correspondents in Moscow. Early in 1980, after he had denounced the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he was exiled to Gorky. In 1984, Elena Bonner joined him, also under sentence of exile. Isolated from family and friends, they continued to be persecuted by the KGB. Sakharov resorted to hunger strikes to secure medical treatment for Bonner, who was finally given permission to leave the Soviet Union for heart surgery in 1985. After Mikhail Gorbachev came to power with a policy of liberalisation, they were freed and allowed to return to Moscow in 1986. Despite the measure of freedom now possible, which enabled him to take up a political role as an elected member of the Congress of the People's Deputies, Sakharov was critical of Gorbachev, insisting that the reforms should go much further. He died in Moscow on December 14, 1989.
My father played the piano remarkably well, in particular Chopin, Grieg, Beethoven and Scriabin. During the civil war he earned a living by playing the accompaniment to silent films at the cinema.
I am especially grateful for the memory of my grandmother, Maria Petrovna, who was the family's good spirit. She died before the war at the age of 79. My grandmother brought up six children and when she was around 50 years old she taught herself English all on her own. Right up to the time of her death she read English works of fiction in the original. From when we were quite small she read aloud to us, her grandchildren. I still have the most vivid memory of her reading to us those evenings. It would be Pushkin, Dickens, Marlowe or Beecher-Stowe, and in Holy Week, the Gospel.
The influence of my home has meant a great deal to me, particularly because I had my first lessons at home and later experienced the greatest difficulty in adapting myself to my classmates. I took my final school examination with distinction in 1938 and at once began to study at the Faculty of Physics in Moscow University. Here too I passed my Finals with distinction, in 1942 when because of the war, we had been evacuated to Ashkhabad.
In the summer and autumn of 1942 I lived for some weeks in Kovrov where I had originally been sent to work after my graduation. Later I worked as a lumberjack in a desolate rural settlement near Melekess. My first bitter impressions of the life of the workers and peasants in that very hard time are derived from those days. In September 1942 I was sent to a large munitions factory on the Volga where I worked as an engineer and inventor right until 1945. At the factory I made a number of inventions in the field of production control. But in 1944, while still employed at the factory, I wrote some scientific articles on theoretical physics and sent them to Moscow for appraisal and comment. These first works were never published, but they gave me the self-confidence so essential to every researcher.
In 1945 I began to read for my doctorate at the Lebedev Institute, the department of physics in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. My teacher there was the great theoretical physicist, Igor Evgenyevich Tamm.
He influenced me enormously and later became a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and a winner of the Nobel Prize for physics. In 1947 I defended my thesis on nuclear physics, and in 1948 I was included in a group of research scientists whose task was to develop nuclear weapons. The leader of this group was I.E. Tamm.
For the next 20 years I worked under conditions of the highest security and under great pressure, first in Moscow and subsequently in a special secret research centre. At the time we were all convinced that this work was of vital significance for the balance of power in the world and we were fascinated by the grandeur of the task. In the foreword to my book Sakharov Speaks, as well as in My Country and the World, I have already described the development of my socio-political views in the period 1953-68 and the dramatic events which contributed to or were the expression of this development. Between 1953 and 1962 much of what happened was connected with the development of nuclear weapons and with the preparations for and realization of the nuclear experiments. At the same time I was becoming ever more conscious of the moral problems inherent in this work. In and after 1964 when I began to concern myself with the biological issues, and particularly from 1967 onwards, the extent of the problems over which I felt uneasy increased to such a point that in 1968 I felt a compelling urge to make my views public.
Thus it was that the article Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom came into being. In reality these are the same themes which seven and a half years later were to become the title of my Nobel Lecture ("Peace, Progress and Human Rights"). I consider these themes to be fundamentally important and closely interconnected. My public stand represented a turning point for me and my entire future. The article very quickly became known throughout the world. For a long time the Soviet press contained no mention of the Progress, and later references were either disapproving in the extreme or else ironic. A great many critics, even if sympathetically disposed towards me, regarded my reflections in this work as exceedingly naive and speculative. Today, however, after eight intervening years, it seems that much of what may be termed important both in Soviet politics and in international politics is connected in one way or another with these thoughts.
From 1970 onwards the defence of human rights and the defence of the victims of political trials became all-important to me. Together with (Valery) Chalidze and Tverdokhlebov, and later with (Igor) Shafarevich and Podyapolski I shared in running the Committee for Human Rights, thus making my position quite clear. I feel bound to recall the fate of two of them. In April 1976 Andrei Tverdokhlebov was sentenced to five years exile for his social work, and in March Grigori Podyapolski was lost to us through his tragic premature death.
As early as 1950, Tamm and I were the joint originators of a Soviet work on controlled thermonuclear reaction (the thermonuclear reaction of hydrogen isotopes either for the production of electrical energy or for the production of fuel for nuclear reactors). Great advances have now been made in this work. A year later, at my initiative, experiments were started on the construction of implosive magnetic generators (devices by which chemical or nuclear reactions are transformed into magnetic field energy). In 1964 we attained a record with a magnetic field of 25 million gauss.
From July 1968, when my article was published abroad, I was removed from top-secret work and "relieved" of my privileges in the Soviet "Nomenclatura" (the privileged class at the top of the system). Since the summer of 1969 I have again been working at the Lebedev Institute where I studied, as an assistant, for my doctorate from 1945 to 1947 and began my scientific work. My present work concerns the problems connected with the theory of elementary particles, the theory of gravitation and cosmology and I shall be glad if I can manage to make some contribution to these important branches of science.
Nevertheless, it is the social issues which unremittingly demand that I make a responsible personal effort and which also lay increasing claims on my physical and mental powers. For me, the moral difficulties lie in the continual pressure brought to bear on my friends and immediate family, pressure which is not directed against me personally but which at the same time is all around me. I have written about this on many occasions but, sad to report, all that I said before applies equally today. I am no professional politician - which is perhaps why I am continually obsessed by the question as to the purpose served by the work done by my friends and myself, as well as its final result. I tend to believe that only moral criteria, coupled with mental objectivity, can serve as a sort of compass in the cross-currents of these complex problems.
I have stated in writing many times already that I intend to refrain from making any concrete political prognoses. There is a large measure of tragedy in my life at present. The sentences lately passed on my close friends - Sergei Kovalev (who just exactly at the time of the Nobel Prize ceremony was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and three years' exile) and Andrei Tverdokhlebov - represent the clearest and most unequivocal evidence of this. Yet, even so, both now and for always, I intend to hold fast to my belief in the hidden strength of the human spirit.
After receiving the prize, Sakharov continued to work for human rights and to make statements to the West through Western correspondents in Moscow. Early in 1980, after he had denounced the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he was exiled to Gorky. In 1984, Elena Bonner joined him, also under sentence of exile. Isolated from family and friends, they continued to be persecuted by the KGB. Sakharov resorted to hunger strikes to secure medical treatment for Bonner, who was finally given permission to leave the Soviet Union for heart surgery in 1985. After Mikhail Gorbachev came to power with a policy of liberalisation, they were freed and allowed to return to Moscow in 1986. Despite the measure of freedom now possible, which enabled him to take up a political role as an elected member of the Congress of the People's Deputies, Sakharov was critical of Gorbachev, insisting that the reforms should go much further. He died in Moscow on December 14, 1989.
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