Tatyana Velikanova

Tatyana Velikanova
Татьяна Михайловна Великанова
Born(1932-02-03)3 February 1932
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Died19 September 2002(2002-09-19) (aged 70)
Moscow, Russia
Alma materMoscow State University
Occupations
  • Mathematician
  • teacher
Known forHuman rights activism
MovementDissident movement in the Soviet Union
Criminal chargeAnti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code)
Criminal penaltyFour years in corrective-labour camps; five years internal exile
SpouseKonstantin 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]

  1. ^ "To readers of the Chronicle", A Chronicle of Current Events (28.0), 31 December 1972 (May 1974).
  2. ^ "The trial of Tatyana Velikanova", A Chronicle of Current Events (58.1), November 1980.
  3. ^ "The release of political prisoners and the application of amnesties", USSR News Update (23-1), 15 December 1987 (in Russian).
  4. ^ Kishkovsky, Sophia (17 October 2002). "Tatyana M. Velikanova, 70, Soviet Human Rights Activist". New York Times., 17 October 2002.(Retrieved 14 August 2015.)