Alexander Lavut was born on 4 July 1929, the son of entrepreneur Pavel Ilyich Lavut, an ebullient figure on the cultural scene of the Soviet 1920s, mentioned in the works of Vladimir Mayakovsky.
13 Facts About Alexander Lavut
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In May 1969 Alexander Lavut joined the Action Group for the Defense of Human Rights, the first such organization in Soviet history.
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Alexander Lavut worked for the samizdat periodical A Chronicle of Current Events.
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Alexander Lavut was particularly active in campaigning on behalf of the Crimean Tatars, an ethnic group forcibly exiled to Central Asia under Stalin in 1944 and not permitted to return once the Soviet dictator was dead.
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Alexander Lavut had already dedicated one entire issue of the Chronicle to their cause.
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In 1986 Alexander Lavut refused to sign a statement agreeing to cease all political activity.
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On completion of his term of exile Alexander Lavut was able to return to Moscow but not allowed to travel abroad.
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Alexander Lavut resumed work as a programmer, this time at the Central Geophysical Expedition.
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In 1988, Andrei Sakharov succeeded in obtaining official permission for Alexander Lavut to join a Soviet-American commission on civil and political rights and go to Washington.
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Alexander Lavut became involved in a variety of initiatives that were now possible under Gorbachev's regime, although keeping always in the background.
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Alexander Lavut helped Sergei Kovalyov in his successful bid to enter the Soviet parliament.
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An opponent of Yeltsin's First Chechen War, Alexander Lavut was briefly detained in December 1994 during an unsanctioned picket of the presidential administration in Moscow's Old Square.
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Alexander Lavut is survived by his wife Sima Mostinskaya and their daughter in the USA.