Centennial of Andrei Sakharov, the 'thirteenth apostle'
He was the leader of dissent in the years of Brezhnev and Gorbachev. As a nuclear physicist, he gave the USSR enormous military power, and as a dissident he taught that there are rights beyond power. On a smaller scale, Alexei Naval'nyj seems to repeat history: one man alone against the almighty state. Valeria Novodvorskaja: Sakharov fought for the same cause as Jesus Christ, the first defender of human rights.
Moscow (AsiaNews) - Even with some reticence, commemorations for the centenary of the birth of Andrei Sakharov, leader of dissent in the Brezhnevian years and prophet of the new post-communist Russia, are being marked in Russia. Nuclear physicist and participant in the preparation of atomic missiles, he gave the USSR unprecedented military power , and then taught everyone that there are rights superior to that same power.
The confrontation with Sakharov's memory appears to be divided between the nostalgics of the great Soviet power and the defenders of human rights, of which the great dissident was a universal champion. Freed from confinement in 1986, after the disaster at the Chernobyl power plant, Sakharov sat in the Gorbachevian parliament until his death on December 14, 1989. An endless procession of people of all kinds paraded in front of his coffin, waiting at minus 20 degrees for hours for the possibility to bid farewell to the one who had been able to instill new hope in everyone.
After having conquered an unassailable position in the 1970s, for his merits in the development of thermonuclear weapons, Sakharov began to write open letters in defense of prisoners in concentration camps, whether they were dissidents or simply people whose basic rights were not recognized. He organized pickets and processions, gave interviews to foreign media, went alone or in company to the palaces of power, confusing the police, who did not dare to touch him, until he was forced to the border in the city of Gorky, which today bears the ancient name of Nizhny Novgorod.
Sakharov kept Soviet power in check for about 20 years, together with his companion and opponent Solzhenitsyn (advocate of a return to Russia of the past) and many other heroes of dissent. Their memory today seems to gradually fade in the wind of the restoration of a country that is refractory to any criticism, which again sends dissidents to rot in concentration camps, such as Naval'nyj. Putin's current opponent does not have the stature of the great academic and Nobel laureate, propagator of the values of freedom in Soviet totalitarianism, but in one thing he seems to repeat that story: the scenario of one man against an omnipotent state.
More than 30 years after Sakharov's death, Russia has taken on a new constitution, which grants all power to the president. The dissident scientist had instead presented his own constitutional project, in which all powers were entrusted to parliamentary democracy, reserving to the president only the supreme duty of military defense of the homeland and of international agreements. We can recall a phrase from that project: "The Soviet Union ... seeks to protect the external and internal conditions for a worthy existence of all humanity and the life of the whole Earth", with a capital E.
Valeria Novodvorskaja, another great representative of Soviet dissent (and also Russian in recent years), called Sakharov "the thirteenth apostle" to add to the official ones. In her opinion, "if he had not been a rationalist atheist, a follower of the old Immanuel Kant, he would have to be canonized according to all the rules of the Roman papacy (the Orthodox would prefer to canonize Stalin) ... He was constantly enlightened by grace, and even at the last minute of his life he fought for the same cause as Jesus Christ, the first defender of human rights ”.
Sakharov could not hold his heart in the face of the disappointments over the unfortunate Gorbachevian reforms, already evident even before the end of the USSR. To this day, the activists of the Center named after him remain (see photo), a memory of the struggle for freedom of those years, hoping that even today it can inspire Russia not to give in to the temptation of dreams of power, forgetting the fragility of the rights of every man.
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