Yuri Orlov was born into a working-class family on 13 August 1924 and grew up in a village near Moscow.[16] His parents were Klavdiya Petrovna Lebedeva and Fyodor Pavlovich Orlov.[3] In March 1933, his father died.[3]
What is the meaning of life? That your soul may outlive your remains in something sacred and should escape decay ... I have again looked at, added up, corrected, and sized up what I have been doing during these last years and have seen that this is good ...(Yuri Orlov, 1980)[20]
In September 1973, whenPravdapublished a statement by a group of prominent academics denouncingAndrei Sakharov's anti-patriotic activity, Orlov decided to support him, while recollecting the well memorized spells of the 1930s, in which some academics demanded the death penalty for others already arrested; later some of these academics themselves were arrested, with some academics who were not arrested demanding the death penalty for them.[19][21]: 163 [22]: 161
Defending Sakharov, Orlov on 16 September 1973 wrote "Open Letter to L.I. Brezhnev about the Reasons for the Intellectual Backwardness in the USSR and Proposals to Overcome It"[23] which appeared in undergroundsamizdat circulation.[24] The Western press published the letter in 1974[25] but publication in the Russian press was only in 1991.[26] In the early 1970s, the article by Yuri Orlov "Is a Non-Totalitarian Type of Socialism Possible?" also appeared in underground samizdat circulation.[24]
In May 1976, he organized theMoscow Helsinki Group and became its chairman.[17] Andrei Sakharov praised Orlov for systematically documenting Soviet violations of the human rights provisions of theHelsinki Accords.[27] Orlov ignored orders to disband the Moscow Helsinki Group when theKGB told him the group was illegal.[28] The KGB headYuri Andropov determined, "The need has thus emerged to terminate the actions of Orlov, fellow Helsinki monitorGinzburg and others once and for all, on the basis of existing law."[29]
On 10 February 1977, Orlov was arrested.[30][31][32] In March 1977, Orlov published the article about his arrest "The road to my arrest."[33] In a closed trial, he was denied the right to examine evidence and to call witnesses.[34]
The courtroom was filled with some 50 individuals selected by the authorities, while supporters and friends of Orlov, including Andrei Sakharov, were barred from entering because there was no room.[7] Orlov's summation was interrupted many times by the judge and the prosecutor and by spectators who shouted "spy" and "traitor."[7] According to Orlov's wife Irina, hostile spectators in the courtroom applauded the sentence and shouted: "You should have given him more."[35]
Orlov at the trial argued that he has a right to criticize the government and a right to circulate such criticism under the freedom of information provisions of theHelsinki Accords.[7] Orlov also argued that he circulated such information for humanitarian, not subversive, reasons.[7] On 15 May 1978, Orlov was sentenced to seven years of a labor camp and five years internal exile for his work with the Moscow Helsinki Group.[36]
US PresidentJimmy Carter expressed his concern over the severity of the sentence and the secrecy of the trial.[37] Washington senatorHenry M. Jackson said, "The Orlov trial, and theGinzburg andShcharansky incarcerations, are dramatic cases in point" when discussing Soviet breaches of law.[38] TheUS National Academy of Sciences officially protested against the trial of Orlov.[39]
In the summer of 1978, 2,400 American scientists[40] including physicists at the University of California's Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory createdScientists for Sakharov, Orlov and Shcharansky (SOS), an international movement to promote and protect the human rights of scientists.[41]: 547 An initiator of SOS was American physicistAndrew Sessler,[42] its chairman was Prof. Morris Pripstein.[43] Scientists atCERN have spoken out against Orlov's imprisonment for "disseminatinganti-Soviet propaganda".[44] 43 physicists have called off Soviet trips to protest his jailing.[45]
For a year and a half, Orlov was imprisoned inLefortovo Prison, then Perm Camp 35 and 37.[20] In Perm Camp 37, he mounted three hunger strikes to make the prison authorities return his confiscated writings and notes.[46] Two articles written by him in the camp were smuggled and published abroad.[47] On 5 July 1983, Austrian ChancellorBruno Kreisky sent the Soviet leaderYuri Andropov a letter asking for his release toAustria, but it was intentionally not answered.[48]
The New York-basedHelsinki Watch issued a statement about Orlov's health deterioration, "He has frequent headaches and dizzy spells, resulting from an old skull injury. He suffers from kidney and prostate inflammation, low blood pressure, rheumatic pains, toothaches, insomnia and vitamin deficiency. Medical care in the labor camp is extremely inadequate."[27] Orlov suffered fromtuberculosis.[49] He lost a good deal of weight and most of his teeth.[50] Orlov's wife said he looked emaciated and that she was "very fearful for my husband's health. The authorities are gradually killing him."[51]
In 1984, Orlov was exiled toKobyay inSiberia and was allowed to buy a house with a garden.[32] On 14 November 1985, ProfessorGeorge Wald raised the case of Orlov in a talk with the Soviet leaderMikhail Gorbachev who answered he had not heard of Orlov.[52]
On 30 September 1986, the KGB proposed to expel Orlov from the Soviet Union after depriving him of his Soviet citizenship and met with approval from theCentral Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[53] Orlov's discharge from Siberian exile was part of the U.S.–Soviet deal to release journalistNicholas Daniloff.[54] Orlov's release from exile and expulsion from the USSR lifted hopes among Westerners that the Helsinki process might finally start yielding progress.[55] Former US PresidentJimmy Carter said, "As for Orlov, we're very delighted with this happy occurrence. We would like to meet with him if he comes to this country, but I don't know that he will. I have no way of knowing his plans."[56]
In 1990, Gorbachev restored Soviet citizenship to Orlov and other 23 prominent exiles and emigres who lost the right in the period from 1966 to 1988.[63][64][65] Orlov told Gorbachev, "I would say you have a very great power in your hands, the K.G.B., and you should therefore carry out your reforms without fearing anyone at all. Afterward, you should liquidate the K.G.B., because it is a cancer."[66] On 18 July 1991, Orlov andElena Bonner wrote an open letter about the fact that theSoviet Army and special troops have been systematically deporting thousands of Armenians fromAzerbaijan toArmenia.[67]
In 1995, theAmerican Physical Society awarded him the Nicholson Medal for Humanitarian Service.[68] In 2005, he was named the first recipient of the Andrei Sakharov Prize, awarded biennially by theAmerican Physical Society to honor scientists for exceptional work in promoting human rights.[68][69] In 2020, a few days before Orlov died, theAmerican Physical Society awarded him the 2021 Robert R. Wilson Prize for Achievement in the Physics of Particle Accelerators for his scientific work and for "embodying the spirit of scientific freedom."
In 2004, Orlov expressed his opinion about Russia and Vladimir Putin by saying, "Russia is flying backwards in time. Putin is like Stalin, and he speaks in the language of the thug, the mafia."[70] On 24 March 2005, Orlov wrote a letter to Putin to express disquiet over the criminal prosecution ofAnna Mikhalchuk, Yuri Samodurov, and Ludmila Vasilovskaya in the case concerning theSakharov Museumexhibition on religion.[71]
^Potok, Chaim; Slepak, Leonid; Slepak, Vladimir; Slepak, Alexander; Slepak, Maria (2010).The gates of November. Random House Publishing Group. p. 175.ISBN978-0-307-57551-7.
^Hochman, Steven (2009)."Carter center". In Forsythe, David (ed.).Encyclopedia of human rights. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. pp. 252–256.ISBN978-0-19-533402-9.
Orlov, Yuri (1997).Возможен ли социализм не тоталитарного типа? [Is a non-totalitarian type of socialism possible?]. In Akhmetiev I.; Kulakov V. (eds.).Самиздат века [Samizdat of the century] (in Russian). Minsk: Полифакт.ISBN978-5-89356-004-6.
Orlov, Yuri (2005).Возможен ли социализм не тоталитарного типа? [Is a non-totalitarian type of socialism possible?]. In Igrunov, Vyacheslav (ed.).Антология самиздата. Неподцензурная литература в СССР. 1950–1980-е.: В 3-х томах: т. 3: после 1973 [Anthology of samizdat. Uncensored literature in the USSR. The 1950s–1980s. In 3 volumes. Volume 3. After 1973](PDF) (in Russian). Moscow: Международный институт гуманитарно-политических исследований. pp. 191–205.ISBN978-5-89793-034-0.Archived(PDF) from the original on 8 March 2013.
"Biography of Yuri Fyodorovich Orlov"(PDF).Basket III: implementation of the Helsinki Accords. Hearings before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Ninety-fifth congress. First session on implementation of the Helsinki Accords. Vol. IV. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1977. pp. 67–69.Archived(PDF) from the original on 23 November 2015.
De Boer, S. P.; Driessen, Evert; Verhaar, Hendrik (1982)."Orlov, Jurij Fedorovič".Biographical dictionary of dissidents in the Soviet Union: 1956–1975. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. pp. 405–406.ISBN978-9024725380.
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