Born: 30 December 1942 · Died: 27 October 2019 · Age: 76
Quick facts
Date of birth30 December 1942
Date of death27 October 2019
Age at death76
NationalityRussian-British
BirthplaceBelebey, Russia
Editor's Take:
Vladimir Bukovsky treated the Soviet state as something to be resisted openly. He was locked in psychiatric hospitals for his views. He smuggled out evidence that shocked psychiatrists abroad. His expulsion in 1976 in a prisoner swap showed how embarrassing he had become to Moscow. In exile he kept campaigning, later copying secret Soviet files to show what the system had done. He lived in Cambridge for many years. Few dissidents fought the Soviet system so long or so stubbornly.
Key Milestones
1963: First arrested by the Soviet authorities
1971: Sends evidence of psychiatric abuse to the West
1976: Freed in a prisoner exchange
1992: Copies secret Soviet archives
Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (Russian: Владимир Константинович Буковский; 30 December 1942 – 27 October 2019) was a Soviet and Russian human rights activist and writer. From the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, he was a prominent figure in the Soviet dissident movement, well known at home and abroad.
