The biography of Yuri Fedorovich Orlov at a certain stage of his life can serve as a model for an ideal representative of the USSR. He comes from a simple family. Legacy worker. WWII participant. With fighting reached Prague. Entered and graduated from Moscow State University. Renowned physicist. Member of the CPSU. However, the physicist Yuri Fedorovich Orlov is one of the most famous and persecuted dissidents in the Soviet Union. In 1986, he was stripped of his citizenship and expelled from the country.
Beginning of biography, childhood, youth
Yuri Orlov was born on August 13, 1924 in the village of Khrapunovo near Moscow. Father, Fedor Pavlovich, worked as a simple engineer, mother, Klavdia Petrovna, worked as a typist. Yura was born a frail and sick child. To provide constant care for him, his parents sent him to live in the village of Gniloye (Smolensk region) with his grandmother. The departure of grandmother Pelageya had a beneficial effect, and for 3 years the baby's he alth improved,illnesses are gone. He lived in the countryside until 1931.
In 1931, Yuri Orlov moved to Moscow with his family. A year later, he entered first grade. At the same time, a deadly disease, tuberculosis, was discovered in his father. From which he died in March 1933.
Before the start of the war, Yuri Fedorovich Orlov was seriously fond of literature. He became a frequent visitor to the largest libraries in Moscow.
In 1936, his mother remarried the artist Pyotr Baragin. At the same time, Yura Orlov joined the Komsomol.
Years of the Second World War, evacuation, participation in battles, demobilization
The beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Yuri found with his grandmother in the village, to which he came for school holidays. Returned to Moscow with troops retreating under the onslaught of German troops.
To help the front, Yuri went to work as a turner at the Ordzhonikidze plant. He worked at night and went to school during the day. In October 1941, together with the plant, he left for Nizhny Tagil, where the enterprise was evacuated. He worked in Nizhny Tagil until 1943, was directly involved in the production of T-34 tanks.
In this Ural city, sad news caught him: his stepfather, to whom Yuri became attached, died at the front.
In April 1944, Yuri Fedorovich Orlov was finally drafted into the army. A promising young man was sent to study at the Smolensk Artillery School. There he applied for membership in the CPSU (b), and he was accepted as a candidate member of the party.
After graduating from college in 1945, Yuri was sent tofront. Participated in the battles for the liberation of Czechoslovakia. Showed courage. In one of the battles, he personally destroyed 3 machine-gun points of the enemy. For merits he was awarded an award - the Order of the Patriotic War II degree.
Found the end of the war in Prague. He was not demobilized immediately, but continued his service in the North Caucasus, in the city of Mozdok. He left the army in 1946 and was discharged with the rank of lieutenant.
Beginning of scientific activity
After his dismissal from the armed forces in November 1944, he went to work at a factory located in the buildings of the former Donskoy Monastery. He worked as a stoker. At the same time, he graduated from high school as an external student. And immediately enters the Moscow Industrial Institute, the correspondence department.
A year later, in the summer of 1947, he was transferred to the Faculty of Physics and Technology of Moscow State University. He was captured by the scientific horizons that opened before him. Moreover, among his teachers were outstanding scientists - P. Kapitsa, L. Landau, A. Alikhanov and others.
In 1951, the physicist married Galina Papkevich.
Moscow State University Yuri Fedorovich Orlov graduated in 1952. The following year, he was invited to work in a closed laboratory of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was a structural unit of the so-called atomic project. In the laboratory, he was directly involved in the development of an elementary particle accelerator. At the same time, he began to write his Ph. D. thesis, which he did not manage to defend.
Beginning of human rights activities
Being a member of the CPSU, in 1956, at one of the partyAt the meeting, he issued a statement, the meaning of which was that Stalin and Beria, who had been in power in the USSR for a long time, were murderers. He spoke in favor of taking measures to establish true democracy in the country on the basis of socialism.
For these statements he was expelled from the party, deprived of access to secrets. Orlov was fired from the institute. Difficult times came, which he was helped to survive by material assistance from his physicist friends. In the same year, in the summer, he was overtaken by sad news - his mother died.
Moving to Armenia
Serious assistance to Orlov was provided by the director of the Yerevan Physics Institute A. Alikhanyan, who offered to move Yuri Fyodorovich to Yerevan, to continue his research at his educational institution. He accepted this offer. He began to work as the head of the laboratory. It was in Armenia that the physicist Yury Fedorovich Orlov substantiated the theory of the behavior of electron beams in a ring accelerator, and also participated in the design of a proton accelerator as part of a group of researchers.
In 1963 he defended his doctoral dissertation. In 1968 he became a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the ArmSSR.
However, his family relationship did not develop easily, ending in divorce in 1961. In the same year, Orlov married Irina Lagunova. In marriage, they had a son - Leo.
However, this marriage was not long, in I967 they broke up. By that time Orlov Yuri Fedorovich was infatuated with Irina Valitova, who worked at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. They got married.
Return to Moscow,continuation of human rights activities
In the summer of 1972, Orlov returned to Moscow. Enters the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism. Works as a senior researcher. However, he did not work in this institution for long, he was fired in 1974, as he was actively involved in the movement to support Academician Sakharov. He finally joined the dissident movement in 1972. Then he wrote and published articles under the general title "13 Questions to Brezhnev", in which Orlov drew attention to the inhumane treatment of Sakharov.
In 1973, Yuri Fedorovich Orlov, among other human rights activists, began to travel around the country, participating in the so-called political courts. Composes protests, appeals, collects and publishes human rights news, which is published through "samizdat".
In the spring of 1975, Yuri Fedorovich Orlov was arrested for the first time. He was placed under house arrest. The authorities feared that he would take any protest actions during the visit of the US President to Moscow.
After a while, he establishes contacts with representatives of the human rights organization Amnesty International. In 1975, Yuri Fedorovich wrote articles that did not go unnoticed: “Is non-totalitarian socialism possible?”, “Appeal to the regime.”
In May 1976, under the leadership of Yuri Fedorovich Orlov, the human rights "Helsinki Group of the USSR" was created. He becomes its first leader. He is summoned to the KGB of the USSR. They issue a warning about the inadmissibility of creating anti-Soviet groups. Otherwise, its materials will be transferred toprosecutor's office.
However, Yuri Mikhailovich ignores this warning. He continues his advocacy work. In the winter of 1976, he signed a letter in defense of V. Bukovsky, who was "reviled" by the Soviet press. He continued to actively participate in the activities of the Moscow Helsinki Group.
All this led to the beginning of persecution by the authorities. Some activists were arrested, among whom in 1977 was Yu. F. Orlov.
Arrest, court, penal colony, link
Orlov spent the period of pre-trial detention in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center. For anti-Soviet activities by the court in May 1978 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, of which 5 years in the penitentiary, 5 years in exile.
In July 1978 he was transferred to the Perm-35 camp. Passing through the stage for Orlov was not entirely successful, he fell ill, ended up in the hospital. After recovery, he worked in the colony as a turner, while he did not stop his human rights activities. Prepared and sent outside the places of detention the Helsinki document, which reflected the situation of the prisoners.
In 1978, on the initiative of A. Sakharov, Yuri Orlov was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1980 he was expelled from the Armenian Academy of Sciences. The containment regime is being tightened. Periodically, Orlov is placed in a punishment cell and a separate cell.
At the same time, Yuri Fedorovich finds opportunities to correspond with friends, like-minded people, family.
In 1983, in the summer, during another political hunger strike, where he demanded a general political amnesty, Yuri Fedorovich Orlov was transferred toforce-feeding by hospitalization.
In the winter of 1984, Orlov was released from the penitentiary. They are being transferred to the place of exile, to the village of Kobyay, Yakutia.
Retired in August 1984. However, he does not give up his scientific activity. Engaged in writing articles. Actively participates in the improvement of the life of local residents. However, this leads to certain conflicts. So, in April 1985, he was beaten by settlers who were dissatisfied with his vigorous activity.
Deprivation of citizenship, deportation, living and working in the USA, visiting home country
In the early autumn of 1986, Yuri Fedorovich Orlov was transferred to a prison in Moscow. Been intensively interrogated for several days.
In October 1986, Orlov was deprived of citizenship by the Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces. They are expelled from the country in exchange for Gennady Zakharov, an intelligence officer convicted in the USA. Orlov moved to the United States with his wife. After going abroad, he begins to actively participate in the release of political prisoners in the USSR. He often gives interviews, speaks at press conferences, symposiums. Meets with leaders of the foreign world, including Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Willy Brand and others.
Since February 1987, Orlov has been working at Yale University in the USA, in the laboratory of nuclear physics.
He breaks up with his wife again, who returns to Russia. From this marriage, Yuri Fedorovich Orlov has a son, Dmitry. However, he does not stay single for long - he marries again.
His scientific and human rights activities, despiteon age, does not stop until now. Since 1989, he has been allowed to visit the USSR, where he regularly visits. Participates in the work of the Russian Soviet Russian human rights structures. Meets friends. The children of Yuri Fedorovich Orlov live in Russia.
The citizenship of the USSR was returned to him in the summer of 1990.
He is also known for the fact that in 1996, through the world media, he proposed to become a mediator in resolving the Chechen-Russian conflict.
For services to the United States of America awarded membership in the American Academy of Sciences. In 1995, he was awarded the Nicholson Medal in the United States for his contribution to humanitarian work.
The American Physical Society established the Andrei Sakharov Prize in 2006, Orlov was the first to be awarded.
Despite his advancing years, in the photo Yuri Fedorovich Orlov looks like an energetic and cheerful person.
