How it was 05.05.2000 (2000)

The program topic is the Gorky exile of Academician Sakharov. 1980. On January 22, 1980, on his way to work, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was detained and then, together with his wife Elena Bonner, exiled to Gorky without trial - a city that was closed to foreign citizens at the time.

Sakharov himself linked the exile with his speeches against the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan.

On January 8, 1980, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he was deprived of the titles of three-time Hero of Socialist Labor and all state awards; also, by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, he was deprived of the title of laureate of the Stalin and Lenin Prizes, but was not deprived of the title of member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Academician Kapitsa, who objected to depriving Sakharov of the title of academician, told the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences Alexandrov in a personal conversation: "In 1933, Hitler expelled Einstein from the Prussian Academy of Sciences ...".

In Gorky, Sakharov went on three long hunger strikes.

In 1981, he and Elena Bonner went on the first, seventeen-day hunger strike for the right of Liza Alekseyeva (the Sakharovs’ daughter-in-law) to travel abroad to join her husband.

In the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (published in 1975) and then in encyclopedic reference books published until 1986, the article about Sakharov ended with the phrase “In recent years, he withdrew from scientific activity.” In July 1983, four academicians (Prokhorov, Skryabin, Tikhonov, Dorodnitsyn) published a letter in the newspaper Pravda, “When Honor and Conscience Are Lost,” criticizing Sakharov in connection with the publication of his article “The Danger of Thermonuclear War” in the West.

In May 1984, he went on a second hunger strike (26 days) in protest against the criminal prosecution of E. Bonner.

In April–October 1985, he went on a third (178 days) for E. Bonner's right to travel abroad for heart surgery.

During this time, Sakharov was hospitalized several times (the first time by force, on the sixth day of the hunger strike; after his announcement to end the hunger strike (July 11), he was discharged from the hospital; after its resumption (July 25), he was again forcibly hospitalized two days later) and subjected to force-feeding.

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was released from his Gorky exile with the beginning of perestroika, at the end of 1986, after almost seven years of imprisonment.

On October 22, 1986, Sakharov asked to stop his deportation and the exile of his wife, again (earlier he had addressed M. S. Gorbachev with a promise to concentrate on scientific work and stop public appearances, with the proviso: "except in exceptional cases", if his wife's trip for treatment was allowed) promising to end his public activity (with the same proviso).

On December 15, 1986, a telephone was unexpectedly installed in his apartment (he had not had a telephone during his entire exile), before leaving, a KGB officer said: "They will call you tomorrow." The next day (December 16), a call from the President of the USSR M. S. Gorbachev actually rang, allowing Sakharov and Bonner to return to Moscow.

In the studio: Boris Mikhailovich Bolotovsky - Soviet and Russian physicist, Bella Koval - head of the Sakharov Archive, Elena Georgievna Bonner - human rights activist, Maria Gavrilova - daughter of Yuri Khainovsky, Chronicle: Everyday footage of Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner in Gorky, Andrei Smirnov, Natalya Mikhailovna Evdakimova - Andrei Sakharov's attending physician, examination of Andrei Sakharov by doctors, Meeting of the work collective of the Semashko Hospital in Gorky in 1990, regarding the health of Andrei Sakharov, a fragment of the film "

A Man for All Seasons"

from 1990, Andrei Sakhovorov speaks about a call from M.S. Gorbachev.

Video: A train arrives at the platform of the Yaroslavsky Station in Moscow, Andrei Sakharov surrounded by journalists.