Andrei Sakharov

Andrei Sakharov English

Born May 21, 1921, Andrei Sakharov became a leading nuclear physicist in the Soviet Union. While helping develop a hydrogen bomb, he became increasingly concerned and vocal about the dangers of a nuclear world. In 1968, he published Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom, urging an end to the arms race.

Honored abroad with a Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, he was later exiled at home for several years. During Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev’s period of glasnost, Sakharov was released and appointed to the Soviet Congress. He died of a heart attack on December 14, 1989.