Tatyana Velikanova | |
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Татьяна Михайловна Великанова | |
Born | Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union | 3 February 1932
Died | 19 September 2002 Moscow, Russia | (aged 70)
Alma mater | Moscow State University |
Occupations |
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Known for | Human rights activism |
Movement | Dissident movement in the Soviet Union |
Criminal charge | Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code) |
Criminal penalty | Four years in corrective-labour camps; five years internal exile |
Spouse | Konstantin Babitsky |
Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova (Russian: Татья́на Миха́йловна Велика́нова, 3 February 1932 in Moscow – 19 September 2002 in Moscow) was a mathematician and Soviet dissident. A veteran of the human rights movement in the Soviet Union, she was an editor of A Chronicle of Current Events for most of that underground periodical's existence (1968–1983), bravely exposing her involvement with the anonymously edited and distributed bulletin at a press conference in May 1974.[1]
She was also a founding member in 1969 of the Initiative Group on Human Rights in the USSR, the first human rights organization in the USSR since 1918. Arrested in November 1979, Velikanova was sentenced in August 1980[2] to four years in a prison camp and five years of internal exile. Turning down the offer of an amnesty from Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1987 as one of the last of two women convicted under Article 70 (the other was Elena Sannikova),[3] Velikanova voluntarily served her sentence of exile to the end.[4]