I'm looking for the name of a Russian dissident from the 80's who died from a food strike in '89.?

Question

I read a wonderful book written by this man. It was published in 1984 or so, and the preface indicated that he'd died in prison, from refusing to eat, several years after writing the book. I can't remember his name of the name of the book. Please help.

Answer 1

I think you might be thinking of Russian dissident Anatoly T. Marchenko, who died in the prison Chistopol of heart failure. His book, ''My Testimony,'' describing his experiences while serving a six-year sentence in labor camps during the 1960's, was published in the United States by E. P. Dutton in 1970.

I also found this info on him:

Unfortunately during this short visit to Washington we have received very sad news. Two days ago, Anatoly Marchenko, an outstanding dissident- and member of the same Helsinki gro@p which Yuri Orlov and others founded in 1976, died in the Soviet prison. There is a parallel between Marchenko's fate and mine. He was in the same prison as I. His unco mpromising position, a refusal to talk to the KGB, a refusal to give up, was practically identical with my position. He was on a hunger strike which continued for some three months, approximately the same as my hunger strike of 110 days in 1982.

I know tha t I was very close to death; nevertheless, at the last moment the authorities gave up and met my demands, which were very modest: simply the right to write letters to my family. For more than a year I could not write even one letter. And I recovered and I could write letters. In Marchenko's case, however, the outcome was tragic. Why did this happen? In my case there was tremendous pressure on the Soviet Union and the campaign of protest all over the world, to a great extent due to the efforts of my wife, a nd also to the efforts of many other people who were actively involved.

Answer 2

The only major Soviet dissident who died in 1989 (at least that I could find) was Andrei Sakharov, the physicist who opposed the Soviet state. But he died at home of a heart attack. Sorry I can't be more help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Sakharov