Defending Human Rights in Russia: Sergei Kovalyov, Dissident and Human Rights Commissioner, 1969-2003

by Emma Gilligan

Overview

Sergei Kovalyov is a central figure in the struggle for human rights in Russia. He was a leading Soviet biology academic and, in the 1970s after becoming active in dissident circles, was arrested by the KGB, tried, imprisoned and subjected to internal exile. After his release, he continued to work for human rights, eventually becoming chairman of the Soviet Human Rights Committee and chairman of the Presidential Human Rights Commission, in which positions he was extremely influential in framing human rights provisions in post-Communist Russia. He subsequently took President Yeltsin to task for human rights failings, eventually resigning in protest. This book, by tracing Kovalyov's political career, shows how human rights developed in Russia in late Soviet and post Soviet times.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415323697
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/24/2004
Series:	BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Emma Gilligan received a Ph.D from the University of Melbourne, Australia in 2002. She spent five years in Moscow, researching for this book and working for The Andrei Sakharov Foundation. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow with the History Department at the University of Chicago working on a book on human rights and Chechnya.

Table of Contents

Part I: Dissidentstvo Part II: The Dissident Nomenklatura Part III: The Supreme Soviet Human Rights Committee Part IV: The Presidential Human Rights Commission Part V: The Chechen War 1994 - 1996 Part VI: Troubling Times

Editorial Reviews

'Emma Gilligan, an Australian historian who spent five years in Moscow working for the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, has now published a gracefully written and carefully researched biography of Sergei Kovalev.' - The New York Review

From the Publisher