19 Facts About Yuri Orlov

Yuri Fyodorovich Orlov was a particle accelerator physicist, human rights activist, Soviet dissident, founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a founding member of the Soviet Amnesty International group.

Yuri Orlov was declared a prisoner of conscience while serving nine years in prison and internal exile for monitoring the Helsinki human rights accords, he was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International as a founder of the human rights movement in the Soviet Union.

Yuri Orlov was born into a working-class family on 13 August 1924 and grew up in a village near Moscow.

Yuri Orlov's parents were Klavdiya Petrovna Lebedeva and Fyodor Pavlovich Orlov.

From 1944 to 1946, Yuri Orlov served as an officer in the Soviet army.

In 1956, Yuri Orlov nearly lost his scientist career due to his speech at the party meeting about discussion of the report "On the Personality Cult and its Consequences" by Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the CPSU.

Yuri Orlov obtained the Candidate of Sciences degree in 1958 and the Doctor of Sciences degree in 1963.

In September 1973, when Pravda published a statement by a group of prominent academics denouncing Andrei Sakharov's anti-patriotic activity, Yuri Orlov decided to support him, while recollecting the well memorized spells of the 1930s, in which some academics demanded the death penalty for others already arrested; later some of these academics themselves were arrested, with some academics who were not arrested demanding the death penalty for them.

Yuri Orlov ignored orders to disband the Moscow Helsinki Group when the KGB told him the group was illegal.

The courtroom was filled with some 50 individuals selected by the authorities, while supporters and friends of Yuri Orlov, including Andrei Sakharov, were barred from entering because there was no room.

Yuri Orlov argued that he circulated such information for humanitarian, not subversive, reasons.

On 15 May 1978, Yuri Orlov was sentenced to seven years of a labor camp and five years internal exile for his work with the Moscow Helsinki Group.

Yuri Orlov suffers from kidney and prostate inflammation, low blood pressure, rheumatic pains, toothaches, insomnia and vitamin deficiency.

Yuri Orlov lost a good deal of weight and most of his teeth.

In 1984, Yuri Orlov was exiled to Kobyay in Siberia and was allowed to buy a house with a garden.

In 1987, Yuri Orlov began work at Cornell University as a scientist and professor.

Yuri Orlov authored and co-authored numerous research papers, articles on human rights, and an autobiography, Dangerous Thoughts.

Yuri Orlov participated in two documentaries about the Soviet dissident movement, They Chose Freedom in 2005, and Parallels, Events, People in 2014.

Yuri Orlov was a member of the Human Rights Watch Asia Advisory and Academic Freedom Committees, and member of the Honorary 25th Anniversary Committee, Global Rights.