18 Facts About Leonid Plyushch

Leonid Plyushch was put on trial in secret, closed to public scrutiny, by the Soviet authorities.

Leonid Plyushch was born into a working-class family in 1938 in Naryn, Kirghizia.

Leonid Plyushch's father worked as railway foreman, and died on the front in 1941.

Leonid Plyushch graduated from Kyiv University in 1962 with a degree in mathematics.

Leonid Plyushch was eventually hired by the Institute of Cybernetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was often tasked with solving various problems for the Soviet space program.

Leonid Plyushch became a dissident by taking a public stance on political hot topics of the time.

When Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, Leonid Plyushch jointly signed with 16 other Soviet dissidents a declaration of solidarity with the democratic movement in Czechoslovakia.

Leonid Plyushch was one of the fifteen signatories to An Appeal to The UN Committee for Human Rights.

Leonid Plyushch was arrested in January 1972 on charges of anti-Soviet activity, and was jailed for a year before his trial began.

Plyushch's letters to her later formed the basis of the book The Case of Leonid Plyushch, first published in Russian in 1974 by an Amsterdam publisher, and translated into English two years later, which received attention in medical ethics journals.

Leonid Plyushch's imprisonment triggered international protests, including a letter by 650 American mathematicians addressed to the Soviet embassy.

At a press conference in Paris, Leonid Plyushch gave a memorable account of the effects of his detention and medications:.

Leonid Plyushch became a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group in 1977, promoting human rights in his native Ukraine.

On 23 July 1978, Leonid Plyushch visited Ukrainians in Australia and addressed the Australian Parliament.

In 1979, with the contribution of his wife, Leonid Plyushch published his book History's Carnival: A Dissident's Autobiography in which he described how he and other dissidents were committed to psychiatric hospitals.

Leonid Plyushch refused to do so, and instead resigned his Fellowship.

Later in life, although he retained communist convictions, Leonid Plyushch supported anti-totalitarian publications in other communist countries, including Vietnam.

Leonid Plyushch's death was reported by a friend and fellow ex-Soviet dissident, Arina Ginzburg.