{{Short description|Human rights activist in the Soviet Union (1923–2011)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}} {{Infobox person | name = Yelena Bonner | native_name = {{nobold|Елена Боннэр}} | native_name_lang = ru | image = Jelena Bonner (1989).jpg | alt = | caption = Bonner in 1989 | birth_name = Lusik Georgiyevna Alikhanova | birth_date = {{birth date|1923|02|15|df=y}} | birth_place = Merv, Turkestan ASSR, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union | death_date = {{death date and age|2011|06|18|1923|02|15|df=y}} | death_place = Boston, Massachusetts, {{nowrap|United States}} | citizenship = {{nowrap|{{ubl|Soviet Union (1923–1991)|Russian Federation (1991–2011)}}}} | other_names = | alma_mater = Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, First Pavlov State Medical University of St. Peterburg | occupation = nurse during World War II, physician, human rights activist | years_active = | movement = Dissident movement in the Soviet Union | known_for = Human rights activism, participation in the Moscow Helsinki Group | awards = {{ubl|Rafto Prize|Robert Schuman Medal|Giuseppe Motta Medal|Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana|Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk|Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland|Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom}} | notable_works = | spouse = {{ubl|Ivan Semyonov (until 1965)|Andrei Sakharov (1972–1989; his death)}} | children = {{ubl|Tatyana Yankelevich (born 1950)|Alexey Semyonov (born 1956)}} }}
'''Yelena Georgiyevna Bonner''' ({{langx|ru|link=no|Елена Георгиевна Боннэр}}; 15 February 1923 – 18 June 2011)<ref name="nytimes.com">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/world/europe/20bonner.html|title=Yelena Bonner, Russian Rights Activist, Dies at 88 |author=Stanley, Alessandra |author2=Schwirtz, Michael |newspaper=The New York Times|date=19 June 2011|access-date=2 February 2012|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110625212338/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/world/europe/20bonner.html|archive-date=25 June 2011}}</ref><ref name=Sharansky>{{cite web |url = http://forward.com/articles/138955/ |title = Remembering Yelena Bonner – Natan Sharansky Reminisces About His Ally and Friend |author = Beckerman, Gal |publisher = The Jewish Daily Forward (issue of 1 July 2011) |date = 22 June 2011 |access-date = 24 June 2011 |archive-date = 23 June 2011 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110623134156/http://forward.com/articles/138955/ |quote = [...] Bonner suggested that, in addition to Sakharov's assessment of the Soviet Union and the state of the dissident movement, they provide the new president with a list of political prisoners. By memory, she then wrote out the names of the 16 most difficult cases. }}</ref> was a human rights activist in the former Soviet Union and wife of the physicist, activist and 1975 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov. During her decades as a dissident, Bonner was noted for her characteristic blunt honesty and courage.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/opinion/21tue4.html?ref=nobelprizes|author=Schmemann, Serge|title=Elena Georgievna Bonner, A True Human Rights Activist for 40 Years|publisher=The New York Times|date=2011-06-19|access-date=2 February 2012|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150404023229/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/opinion/21tue4.html?ref=nobelprizes|archive-date=4 April 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last = Bonner|first = Elena|author-link = Elena Bonner|title = ''Description of Bonner found in Antonina W. Bouis, 'Translator's Introduction' in Bonner's memoir ''Mothers and Daughters|publisher = Vintage|edition = 2nd|location = New York|year = 1992|isbn = 978-0-679-74335-4|title-link = Antonina W. Bouis}}</ref>
==Biography==
===Early life and education=== Lusik Georgiyevna Alikhanova<ref>[http://www.peoples.ru/state/statesmen/elena_bonner Yelena Bonner biography] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091006182838/http://www.peoples.ru/state/statesmen/elena_bonner/ |date=6 October 2009 }} (In Russian)</ref> was born in Merv, Turkestan ASSR, Soviet Union (now Mary, Turkmenistan). She was born to Ruf "Ruth" Bonner, a Jewish communist activist from Siberia, and Levon Kacharyan, an Armenian. Her father died a year after her birth, and her mother remarried to Gevorg Alikhanyan, founding First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia and a Comintern executive.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Elena Bonner |url=https://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=3782 |access-date=2023-08-11 |website=The Independent Institute}}</ref> She had a younger brother, Igor, who became a career naval officer. Her family had a summer dacha in Sestroretsk and Bonner had fond memories there.<ref>{{cite news |title=Yelena Bonner |url=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2011/06/23/yelena-bonner |newspaper=The Economist|date=23 June 2011 |access-date=30 August 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121104061635/http://www.economist.com/node/18863888 |archive-date=4 November 2012}}</ref>
In 1937, Bonner's father was arrested by the NKVD and executed as part of Stalin's Great Purge; her mother was arrested a few days later as the wife of an enemy of the people, and served ten years in the Gulag<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/19/yelena-bonner-obituary|title=Yelena Bonner obituary|last=Montgomery|first=Isobel|date=2011-06-19|work=The Guardian|access-date=2019-12-17|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> near Karaganda, Kazakhstan, followed by nine years of internal exile.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Gulag Survivor: Beyond the Soviet System|last=Adler|first=Nanci|year=2002|location=New Brunswick |publisher=Routledge |page=212}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/27/obituaries/ruth-bonner-stalin-purge-victim.html|title=Ruth Bonner, Stalin Purge Victim|agency=Reuters|date=1987-12-27|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=2019-12-17|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Bonner's 41-year-old maternal uncle, Matvei Bonner, was also executed during the purge, and his wife internally exiled. All four were exonerated (rehabilitated) following Stalin's death in 1953. In 1941 she volunteered for the Red Army's Hospital when the Soviet Union was invaded, and she became head nurse.<ref name=":0" /> While serving during World War II, Bonner was wounded twice, and in 1946 was honorably discharged as a disabled veteran. In 1947 Bonner was accepted as student in the medical institute in Leningrad.<ref name=":0" /> After the war she earned a degree in pediatrics from the First Leningrad Medical Institute, presently First Pavlov State Medical University of St. Peterburg.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=http://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=3782|title=Elena Bonner|website=The Independent Institute|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref>
===Marriage and children=== In medical school she met her first husband, Ivan Semyonov. They had a daughter, Tatiana, in 1950,<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin´s Russia|last=Figes|first=Orlando}}</ref> and a son, Alexey, in 1956. Her children immigrated to the United States in 1977 and 1978, respectively. Bonner and Semyonov separated in 1965, and eventually divorced.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-04-27-mn-24106-story.html|title=Bonner a Human Rights 'Heroine,' but Soviets See a Modern Mata Hari|date=1986-04-27|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref>
In October 1970, while attending the trial of human rights activists Revol't (Ivanovich) Pimenov and Boris Vail in Kaluga, Bonner met Andrei Sakharov, a nuclear physicist and human rights activist; they married in 1972.<ref name="nytimes.com" /> The year before they met, 1969, Sakharov had been widowed from his wife, Klavdia Alekseyevna Vikhireva, with whom he had two daughters and a son.<ref name="drell">Drell, Sidney D., and Sergei P. Kapitsa (eds.), ''Sakharov Remembered'', pgs. 3, 92. New York: Springer, 1991.</ref>
===Activism=== Beginning as early as the 1940s, Bonner had helped political prisoners and their families. Although Bonner had joined the Soviet Communist Party in 1964 while she was working as a physician,<ref name="nytimes.com"/><ref name="books.google.com">{{cite book|author=Adler, Nanci|title=The Gulag survivor: beyond the Soviet system|date=2004|publisher=Transaction Publishers|page=212|isbn=978-0-7658-0585-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_gQpy7dyjGQC&pg=PA212}}</ref> only a few years later she was becoming active in the Soviet human rights movement. Her resolve towards dissidence was strengthened in August 1968 after Soviet bloc tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia in order to crush the Prague Spring movement. That event strengthened her belief that the system could not be reformed from within.<ref name="books.google.com"/> At the Kaluga trial in 1970, Bonner and Sakharov met Natan Sharansky and began working together to defend Jews sentenced to death for attempting an escape from the USSR in a hijacked plane.<ref name= Sharansky /> Under pressure from Sakharov, the Soviet regime permitted Yelena Bonner to travel to the West in 1975, 1977 and 1979 for treatment of her wartime eye injury. When Sakharov, awarded the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize, was barred from travel by the Soviet authorities, Bonner, in Italy for treatment, represented him at the ceremony in Oslo.<ref name="nytimes.com"/>
Bonner became a founding member of the Moscow Helsinki Group in 1976.<ref name=":1" /> When in January 1980 Sakharov was exiled to Gorky, a city closed to foreigners, the harassed and publicly denounced Bonner became his lifeline, traveling between Gorky and Moscow to bring out his writings. Her arrest in April 1984 for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" and sentence to five years of exile in Gorky disrupted their lives again.<ref name="nytimes.com"/> Sakharov's several long and painful hunger strikes forced the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev to let her travel to the U.S. in 1985 for sextuple bypass heart surgery. Prior to that, in 1981, Bonner and Sakharov went on a dangerous but ultimately successful hunger strike to get Soviet officials to allow their daughter-in-law, Yelizaveta Konstantinovna ("Lisa") Alexeyeva, an exit visa to join her husband, Bonner's son Alexei Semyonov, in the United States.<ref name="nytimes.com"/>
In December 1986, Gorbachev allowed Sakharov and Bonner to return to Moscow.<ref name=":1" /> Following Sakharov's death on 14 December 1989, she established the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, and the Sakharov Archives in Moscow. In 1993, she donated Sakharov papers in the West to Brandeis University in the U.S.; in 2004 they were turned over to Harvard University. Bonner remained outspoken on democracy and human rights in Russia and worldwide. She joined the defenders of the Russian parliament during the August Coup and supported Boris Yeltsin during the constitutional crisis in early 1993.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2011/6/27/main-feature/1/one-woman-army|title=Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features » One Woman Army|website=www.jewishideasdaily.com|access-date=26 April 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120618060551/http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2011/6/27/main-feature/1/one-woman-army|archive-date=18 June 2012}}</ref>
In 1994, outraged by what she called "genocide of the Chechen people", Bonner resigned from Yeltsin's Human Rights Commission and was an outspoken opponent to Russian armed involvement in Chechnya and critical of the Kremlin for allegedly returning to KGB-style authoritarianism under Vladimir Putin. She was also critical of the international "quartet" two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict and expressed fears about the rise of antisemitism in Europe.<ref>[http://www.grani.ru/opinion/bonner/m.151256.html "On Israel and The World"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090524010056/http://grani.ru/opinion/bonner/m.151256.html |date=24 May 2009 }}, Address by Bonner at the Freedom Forum in Oslo.</ref> In 1999, Yelena Bonner received the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom.
Bonner was among the 34 first signatories of the online anti-Putin manifesto "Putin must go", published 10 March 2010. Her signature was the first.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.rferl.org/a/russia_dissident_yelena_bonner_dies/24239480.html|title=Russian Dissident Yelena Bonner Dies|website=RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty|language=en|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref>
===Last years and death=== From 2006, Bonner divided her time between Moscow and the United States, home to her two children, five grandchildren, one great-granddaughter, and one great-grandson.<ref name="nytimes.com" /> She died on 18 June 2011 of heart failure in Boston, Massachusetts, aged 88, according to her daughter, Tatiana Yankelevich.<ref name="nytimes.com" /> She had been hospitalized since 21 February.<ref name="nytimes.com" />
==Works and awards== Bonner was the author of ''Alone Together'' (Knopf 1987),<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.biblio.com/book/alone-together-story-elena-bonner-andrei/d/154076638|title=ALONE TOGETHER Story of Elena Bonner and Andrei Sakharov's Internal Exile in the Soviet Union|last=Bonner|first=Elena|date=1987|publisher=Vintage Books|isbn=978-0-394-75538-0|edition=First Paperback|location=New York}}</ref> and ''Mothers and Daughters'' (Knopf 1992),<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-02-11-vw-1569-story.html|title=A Personal Take on Soviet History: MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS, by Elena Bonner, translated by Antonina W. Bouis, Alfred A. Knopf, $23; 349 pages|date=1992-02-11|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref> and wrote frequently on Russia and human rights. She was a recipient of many international human rights awards, including the Rafto Prize in 1991,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rafto.no/the-rafto-prize/elena-bonner|title=Yelena Bonner|website=The Rafto Foundation|access-date=2019-12-17|archive-date=17 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190817110049/https://www.rafto.no/the-rafto-prize/elena-bonner|url-status=dead}}</ref> the European Parliament's Robert Schuman Medal in 2001,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/de/elena-bonner-sakharov-receives-robert-schuman-medal_20010403_Elena_Bonner-Sakharov_p|title=Elena Bonner-Sakharov receives the Robert Schuman Medal|website=Multimedia Centre|language=de-DE|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref> the awards of International Humanist and Ethical Union,<ref name=":1"/> the World Women's Alliance, the Adelaida Ristori Foundation, the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/5940/|title=News and Notes|website=Journal of Democracy|language=en-US|access-date=2019-12-17|archive-date=17 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191217105321/https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/5940/|url-status=dead}}</ref> the Lithuanian Commemorative Medal of 13 January,<ref name=":1" /> the Czech Republic Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, and others.
She was also awarded the Giuseppe Motta Medal in 2004 for protection of human rights.<ref>http://motta.gidd.eu.org/#!medal-winners-2004/cqa4 {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140222040927/http://motta.gidd.eu.org/ |date=22 February 2014 }} Giuseppe Motta Medal Website</ref>
In 2005 Bonner participated in "They Chose Freedom", a four-part television documentary on the history of the Soviet dissident movement. Bonner was on the Board of Advancing Human Rights (NGO).<ref name="BernsteinWhy">Robert Bernstein [http://advancinghumanrights.org/news/human_wrongs_why_we_need_a_new_human_rights_organization "Why We Need A New Human Rights Organization]", 24 February 2011. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110307004710/http://advancinghumanrights.org/news/human_wrongs_why_we_need_a_new_human_rights_organization |date=7 March 2011 }}</ref>
==Depiction in media== Bonner was portrayed by Glenda Jackson in the 1984 film ''Sakharov''.
==References== {{reflist}}
==Works== * {{cite book|author=Bonner, Elena|title=Alone together|date=1988|orig-date=1986|publisher=Vintage Books|location=New York|isbn=978-0-394-75538-0|edition=3}} * {{cite book|author=Bonner, Elena|title=Un exil partagé|trans-title=A shared exile|date=1986|publisher=Seuil|location=Paris|isbn=978-2-02-009394-1|language=fr}} * {{cite book|author=Bonner, Elena|title=Soli insieme in esilio con Andrej Sacharov|trans-title=Alone together in exile with Andrei Sakharov|date=1986|publisher=Garzanti-Vallardi|location=Alessandria|language=it}} * {{cite book|author=Bonnėr, Elena|title=לבד ביחד|trans-title=Alone together|date=1987|publisher=מסדה|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sTKpnQEACAAJ|language=he}} * {{cite book|author=Bonner, Jelena|title=In Einsamkeit vereint. Meine Jahre mit Andrej Sacharow in der Verbannung|trans-title=Alone together. My years with Andrei Sakharov in exile|date=1998|orig-date=1991|publisher=Piper|location=München, Zürich|isbn=978-3-492-11522-3|edition=2|language=de}} * {{cite book|author=Bonner, Jelena|title=Mütter und Töchter – Erinnerungen an meine Jugend 1923 bis 1945|trans-title=Mothers and daughters – memories of my youth 1923–1945|date=1993|orig-date=1992|publisher=Piper|location=München, Zürich|isbn=978-3-492-03440-1|edition=2|language=de}} * {{cite book|author=Боннэр, Елена|title=Постскриптум. Книга о горьковской ссылке|trans-title=Postscript: A book about the Gorky exile|date=1990|publisher=Интербрук|location=Moscow|url=http://www.sakharov-center.ru/asfcd/auth/?t=book&num=5|language=ru}} * {{cite book|author=Bonner, Elena|title=Звонит колокол… Год без Андрея Сахарова|trans-title=The bell tolls… A year without Andrei Sakharov|date=1991|publisher=ПИК|location=Moscow|language=ru}} * {{cite book|author=Bonner, Elena|title=Mothers and daughters|date=1992|publisher=Hutchinson|isbn=978-0-09-174911-8}} * {{cite book|author=Bonner, Elena|title=Дочки-матери|trans-title=Mothers and daughters|date=1994|publisher=Прогресс, Литера|location=Moscow|url=http://www.sakharov-center.ru/asfcd/auth/?t=page&num=12786|language=ru|archive-date=15 May 2013|access-date=8 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130515012157/http://www.sakharov-center.ru/asfcd/auth/?t=page&num=12786|url-status=dead}} * {{cite book|author=Bonner, Elena|title=Вольные заметки к родословной Андрея Сахарова|trans-title=Free notes to the ancestry of Andrei Sakharov|date=1996|publisher=Права человека|location=Moscow|isbn=978-5-7712-0017-0|language=ru}} * {{cite book|author1=Cox, Caroline |author2=Eibner, John |author3=Bonnėr, Elena |title=Ethnic cleansing in progress: war in Nagorno Karabakh|date=1993|publisher=Institute for Religious Minorities in the Islamic World|isbn=978-3-9520345-2-1}} * {{cite book|author=Bonner, Elena|title=Madri e figlie|trans-title=Mothers and daughters|date=2003|publisher=Spirali|isbn=978-88-7770-633-1|language=it}} * {{cite book|author1=Glucksmann, André |author2=Bonner, Elena |title=На захисті свободи. Діалоги Андре Ґлюксмана з Оленою Боннер|trans-title=Protecting freedom. Dialogues by André Glucksmann to Elena Bonner|date=2013|publisher=Дух і Літера|location=Kyiv|isbn=978-966-378-313-0|language=uk}}
== Further reading == * {{cite news |last1=Bayles |first1=Fred |title=Growing up absurd: The case of Alexei Semyonov |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_boston-phoenix_1981-12-22_10_51/page/n11/mode/1up |access-date=23 June 2024 |work=The Boston Phoenix |date=22 December 1981}} - article on Yelena Bonner's son * {{cite book|author1=De Boer, S. P. |author2=Driessen, Evert |author3=Verhaar, Hendrik |chapter=Bonner, Elena Georgievna|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1IQzecjGQX0C&pg=PA62|title=Biographical dictionary of dissidents in the Soviet Union: 1956–1975|date=1982|page=62|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|location=The Hague|isbn=978-90-247-2538-0}} * {{cite journal|author=Hermann, Anton|title=Elena Bonner and Andrei Sakharov|journal=Quadrant|date=November 1987|volume=33|issue=11|pages=78–79|url=https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=256751953171748;res=IELLCC}} * {{cite book|author=Klose, Kevin|title=Russia and the Russians – inside the closed society|date=1986|publisher=W.W. Norton Incorporated|isbn=978-0-393-30312-4|pages=161–198}} * {{cite journal|author=Lichterman, Boleslav|title=Elena Georgievna Bonner: Soviet paediatrician, dissident, and human rights activist|journal=BMJ|date=2011|volume=343|issue=6085|page=695|doi=10.1136/bmj.d6085|s2cid=71082264|doi-access=free}} * {{cite journal|author=Simone, Alexandre|title=Elena Bonner. Un exil partagé|trans-title=Elena Bonner. A shared exile|journal=Politique étrangère|date=1987|volume=52|issue=1|pages=220–221|url=http://www.persee.fr/doc/polit_0032-342x_1987_num_52_1_3658_t1_0220_0000_1|language=fr}} * {{cite journal|title=Elena Bonner: heroic figure for Karabagh|journal=The Armenian Weekly|date=29 June 2011|url=http://armenianweekly.com/2011/06/29/yelena-bonner-heroic-figure-for-karabagh/}}
{{Soviet dissidents}} {{Moscow Helsinki Group}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonner, Yelena}} Category:1923 births Category:2011 deaths Category:Burials at Vostryakovskoye Cemetery Category:People from Mary, Turkmenistan Category:Soviet Jews Category:Russian secular Jews Category:Turkmenistan Jews Category:Turkmenistan people of Armenian descent Category:Russian people of Armenian descent Category:Soviet pediatricians Category:Soviet people of World War II Category:Resigned Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Category:Moscow Helsinki Group Category:Jewish human rights activists Category:Russian women human rights activists Category:Russian activists Category:Russian dissidents Category:Soviet dissidents Category:Soviet human rights activists Category:Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 3rd Class Category:Recipients of the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk Category:Commanders of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland Category:Soviet non-fiction writers Category:Russian non-fiction writers Category:20th-century Russian writers Category:Russian memoirists Category:20th-century Russian women writers Category:Jewish women non-fiction writers Category:Women memoirists Category:Soviet women writers Category:Jewish women activists