Yelena Bonner

Profession: Dissident and Wife of Andre Sakharov

Nationality:

Biography: Yelena Bonner was a Soviet dissident and the wife of nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov. She became particularly involved in dissident activity after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, at which she gave up on internal reform.

Bonner's husband, Andrei Sakharov, was a nuclear physicist who turned to activism in the 1950s after becoming concerned with the moral implications of his work. She worked to assist him, especially in couriering his writings after he was sentenced to internal exile.

Bonner was herself eventually exiled with Sakharov to Gorky, and the two were only allowed back to Moscow in 1986 by the order of Mikhail Gorbachev.

Born: February 15, 1923
Birthplace: Merv, Turkmenistan, Soviet Union

Generation: Greatest Generation
Chinese Zodiac: Dog
Star Sign: Aquarius

Died: June 18, 2011 (aged 88)
Cause of Death: Heart failure