Sakharov Andrei Dmitrievich - biography. Russian Physicist Academician Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov. Curriculum vitae Academician Sugar Nationality

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov is one of the most famous Soviet public figures, a famous physicist.

Academician Sakharov deserved world recognition by becoming the Laureate Nobel Prize peace. But first things first.

Andrei Dmitrievich had a good heredity. His father was a physics teacher. He is the author of many problem books and scientific books.

Sakharov's grandfather was a priest. In addition to serving God, grandfather also served society, was a juror of the Moscow District Court and a member of the second State Duma, from the party of cadets.

Sakharov's mother's name was Ekaterina, she was an intelligent and educated woman, the daughter of Lieutenant General Sofiano.

After the birth of a child named Andrei, the family lived in an apartment rented by Sakharov's grandfather. Much has changed over the years, and a spacious apartment, after the revolution, became an ordinary communal apartment.

Andrei Sakharov's father gave his son a good primary education at home. In the seventh grade, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov finally began to study at regular school. After graduating from school, the future academician entered Faculty of Physics Moscow State University.

Soon began. Sakharov was not taken to the front for health reasons. Andrei Sakharov graduated from the university in evacuation, in the city of Ashgabat.

In 1944, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov entered the graduate school of the Lebedev Physical Institute. Four years later he defended his PhD thesis. After graduating from graduate school, Andrei Sakharov was assigned to a scientific group engaged in the study of thermonuclear weapons.

Since the beginning of the fifties, Sakharov, together with Tamm, worked on the creation of a controlled thermonuclear reaction. Six years later, he spoke at a conference in England, where in his report he spoke about Sakharov's discoveries.

Sakharov came up with the idea of ​​magnetic cumulation for obtaining superstrong magnetic fields. Later, Sakharov voiced the idea of ​​laser compression to obtain an impulsive controlled thermonuclear reaction. In 1953, Andrei Sakharov defended his doctoral dissertation and received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

At the end of the decade, Sakharov began to actively oppose the nuclear testing in the atmosphere. This is how it started social activity Andrew. In the mid-60s, he opposed the revival of the cult of personality, was indignant at the introduction of an article in the criminal code that provides for punishment for persuasion (dissent).

In 1969, Andrei Sakharov donated all his savings to the Red Cross for the construction of an oncological center in the city. A year later, together with Valery Chalidze and Andrei Tverdokhlebov, Sakharov founded the Moscow Committee for Human Rights. Since then, he has been active in human rights work.

In the summer of 1975 Andrei Dmitrievich was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Five years later, he was arrested and sent into exile in Gorky. The scientist was deprived of all state prizes and awards. Life in exile was hard. Sakharov was always accompanied by security, and in the apartment where he lived, there was no connection with the outside world.

In 1986, the academician was allowed to return to Moscow. In the spring of 1989 Andrei Dmitrievich was elected a people's deputy. In the fall, being a member of the Constitutional Commission, he proposed a new draft constitution for the state. On December 14 of the same year, Andrei Sakharov died.

A native of a Moscow intelligent family, Andrei Dmirievich was unusually gifted by nature. A genius from mathematics and physics, he became the main developer of the very powerful weapon on the planet - hydrogen bomb. Deserving many awards. becoming three times Hero of Socialist Labor, an order bearer. As a laureate of two major USSR-Lenin State Prizes, at the age of 32 he received the title of academician, Sakharov fully realized the danger posed by his development to humanity. And he tried to achieve a complete ban on nuclear tests throughout the world. A special page in Sakharov's biography is his human rights activities. Andrei Dmitrievich was the conscience of our people...

The life of the future Nobel laureate Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov began on May 21, 1921 at 5 o'clock in the morning in the maternity ward of the clinic on the girl's field in Moscow (today it is one of the buildings of the Sechenov Medical Academy on Bolshaya Pirogovskaya Street).

On June 3, 1921, a record was made in the Khamovniki department of the registry office, in which the father of the child, Sakharov Dmitry Ivanovich, and the mother, Sakharova Ekaterina Alekseevna, were indicated.

Andrei became the first child in the young Sakharov family, the second was his younger brother Georgy, who was born on November 6, 1925.

In May 1921 Andrei was baptized - godfather and the mother was Uncle Andre (non-native, just an old friend of the family) Alexander Borisovich Goldenweiser and grandmother (on the maternal side) Zinaida Evgrafovna Sofiano.

The times were hard. And the Sakharov family lived in the basement of a house on Merzlyakovsky Lane. Here Andrei spent the first year and a half of his life.

In 1922, the Sakharov family moved to an apartment on the second floor of a two-story house number 3 in Granatny Lane.

Andrei's father, Dmitry Ivanovich Sakharov, came from the family of a barrister Ivan Nikolaevich Sakharov. In 1912, Dmitry Ivanovich graduated from the mathematical department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Imperial Moscow University. And he devoted his whole life to teaching.

Mother Andrei Dmitrievich Ekaterina Alekseevna came from a noble family of Russified Greeks Sophianos, who in the 18th century accepted Russian citizenship. She studied at the Noble Institute, for some time she taught gymnastics. After Ekaterina Alekseevna became the wife of Dmitry Ivanovich in 1918, she left her job and devoted herself entirely to her family.

Mother Andrei was a pious woman. She, according to the memoirs of the future academician, taught her son to pray before going to bed and took him to church.

All Sakharovs, in each family, had their own library, made up of rare pre-revolutionary publications.

When the kids are a little older. Grandmother began to read aloud to them, introducing the children to world literature.

It is curious that Maria Petrovna (grandmother), at the age of 50, independently learned English language to read English novels in the original...

Andrey's home education, cousin Irina and their friend Oleg Kudryavtsev lasted five years.

In 1929, seven years old, Andrei first encountered the drama of death. His grandfather Alexei Semenovich Sofiano died. He died suddenly without any pain. At the age of 84 years.

And in mid-November of the same year, Andrei's aunt Anna Alekseevna Goldenweiser died. Both General Sofiano and his daughter were buried on Vagankovsky cemetery next to other members of a famous family ...

In May 1930, another misfortune befell the Sakharov family - Andrei's uncle, Ivan Ivanovich Sakharov, was arrested.

At this time, Andrey began to study at school. After home lessons, it was very easy for Andrey to study at school.

From the new year, 1934, Andrei's parents took him out of school to arrange an accelerated course for the 5th and 6th grades of the school. Dmitry Ivanovich himself studied physics and mathematics with Andrey.

In the spring of 1934, Andrei successfully passed the exams for the 6th grade. And in September of the same year he entered the 7th grade of the 133rd school. His hobby was physical activities- based on my father's book "Experiments with an electric light bulb." In the 9th and 10th grades, Andrei enthusiastically read not only popular science books and science fiction, but also quite serious scientific works ...

In the spring of 1938, Andrei Sakharov graduated from school No. 113, having received five in all major subjects at the final exams.

The choice of the institute for Sakharov was obvious - only Moscow State University. The faculty is physical, although at school Andrei was thinking about the profession of a microbiologist.

As an excellent student, Sakharov was enrolled in the first year of the university without exams. Student years Sakharov divided into two periods - pre-war and military.

His favorite subject in his first years was mathematics, in which Andrey saw natural beauty, harmony, enjoyed the logic of the “world of numbers”. And the least favorite subject was Marxism-Leninism. And not at all for ideological reasons - he simply did not see a coherent science in the cumbersome natural-philosophical conclusions.

From January 1939, Andrei began to attend the physics circle at the Physics Department of Moscow State University.

In August 1939, while on vacation, Andrei saw the sea for the first time. It was a trip to the Black Sea with my father.

In 1939, in his second year at the university, Sakharov tried for the first time in his life to take up scientific work. The topic was determined by Professor Mikhail Alexandrovich Leontovich: weak non-linearity of water waves.

The work did not work out - the topic turned out to be difficult and too vague.

The first completed scientific work was carried out by Andrei only in 1943, after graduating from the university ...

In the late autumn of 1940, the Sakharov family suffered another blow. Grandmother, the mother of Andrei's father, had a stroke. On the morning of March 27, 1941, my grandmother died.

With her death, as Andrei Dmitrievich himself wrote, “the Sakharov house in Granatny Lane ceased to exist spiritually” ...

In the winter of 1940-1941, Andrey became interested in probability theory, calculus of variations, group theory and the basics of topology.

Andrei learned about the discovery of the phenomenon of uranium nuclei in 1940 from his father. who heard about it at some scientific report. At that time Sakharov did not fully appreciate the importance of this discovery.

On June 22, 1941, Andrei, together with the students of his group, came for a consultation before the last exam of the 3rd year. Here, in complete silence at noon, the guys heard Molotov's address on the radio about the German attack on the Soviet Union.

Since that moment, the life of every citizen of the USSR has changed.

Exams at Moscow University went on as usual. And then, a few days after the declaration of war, the students of the place of vacation were involved in defense work.

Sakharov was assigned to the university workshop for the repair of military radio equipment.

A few days later, all excellent students were called up for a medical examination - recruitment was made air force academy. Sakharov did not pass the selection.

In July 1941, air raids on Moscow began. And Andrei and his father began to be on duty on the roof of the house in order to drop an incendiary bomb down in time. “Almost every night I looked from the roofs at the disturbing Moscow sky with swaying beams of searchlights, tracer bullets, Junkers diving through smoke rings,” Andrei Dmitrievich recalled.

On October 13, 1941, fierce battles began for Moscow. On October 15, most of the USSR government, ministries and departments, as well as foreign embassies, were evacuated to Kuibyshev. On October 16, panic seized Moscow.

A week later, the university with teachers and students began to prepare for evacuation to Ashgabat. On October 23, Andrei was seen off at the Sakharov railway station - he was supposed to get by train to Murom in order to join the evacuation train there. A month later, Andrey found out that on the same day, a aerial bomb. The house was destroyed, but no family members were hurt.

I had to get to Murom “on the chaise longue”. There was a moment when Andrei was driving on an open platform, with broken tanks that were being taken to a repair plant.

For ten days, students and teachers of Moscow University, who had gathered in Murom, waited for the military echelon. And then for a whole month, university students traveled to Ashgabat in a wagon.

Each car was equipped with bunk beds for 40 people, with a stove in the middle.

On December 6, the train arrived in Ashgabat. Students unloaded university property and began to settle in a school in the city center.

They lived hungry - each student was entitled to 400 grams of bread a day. By the spring of 1942, the course began to prepare for the final exams. Student life was at stake. And ahead of everyone was ... a war.

In June 1942 Andrei fell ill. Weakened by hunger and unsettled life, the young body gave in to dysentery.

And then it was time for the exams. Sakharov passed all the exams with excellent marks. The overlay came out only with an exam in ... physics. He got a three.

The next day, Sakharov was summoned to the rector's office. And his unfortunate triple was immediately corrected for a five.

He received a referral to Kovrov. At the end of July 1942, Andrei again crossed the entire country from south to north. I slept on a suitcase between the benches, getting train tickets to get to the place. But he spent only 10 days in Kovrov. It turned out that the gun factory could not find Andrey a job in his specialty.

With a certificate from the management of the Kovrov plant, Andrei went to Moscow - to the People's Commissariat for Armaments, where he was to receive a new appointment. For the first time in 10 months, Sakharov had the opportunity to meet with his family.

On August 31, Andrey was appointed to the Ulyanovsk Cartridge Plant for a position “by agreement” with a salary of 700 rubles.

On October 11, 1942, by order of the plant, Sakharov was transferred to the position of an engineer - researcher in a chemical laboratory.

He took up the creation of the ordered device and coped with the task brilliantly. This device was Sakharov's first invention.

Sakharov invented the device. which made it possible to determine the degree of hardening without physical impact on the bullet blank, which increased the accuracy of control.

On the first day of work in the chemical laboratory - October 11, 1942 (according to other sources - November 10) - Andrey saw Klava Vikhireva, a simple laboratory assistant. And ... fell in love.

It was his first and for many years, until the death of Claudia Alekseevna, his only love.

On July 10, 1943, Andrei and Claudia became husband and wife. After the wedding, Andrei moved from the hostel to the Vikhirevs. Here the couple lived until their departure to Moscow.

In Moscow, when Andrei entered graduate school, they had a very hard time.

The Sakharovs did not have that spiritual intimacy that many intellectuals aspire to.

They had three children. The first - February 7, 1945 - was born daughter Tatyana. Then on July 28, 1949, the youngest daughter Love. The last child was the son Dmitry, who was born on August 14, 1957.

A device for controlling the hardening of metal cores of armor-piercing bullets was introduced into production and turned out to be very effective - and in the second half of 1943, Andrei Dmirievich, a scientist and recognized specialist in the field of magnetic control methods, received a new task - to build a device to control the thickness of the brass shell of a pistol bullet used in automatic machines.

In 1944, Sakharov developed another important device for cartridge production - for the automatic detection of cracks in the shells of armor-piercing bullets of 14.5 mm caliber. The machine turned out to be very successful and greatly facilitated production.

For the workers of the cartridge factory, devices designed by Sakharov also became a salvation.

At the end of December 1944, a request came to Ulyanovsk from the Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Andrei Dmitrievich volunteered to go to Moscow to take the exams for graduate school.

On January 3, 1945, Sakharov resigned from the Ulyanovsk Cartridge Plant. And on January 14 I was already in Moscow.

Igor Tamm. The next day Andrey came to Tamm. And the first conversation began between the teacher and his brilliant student.

On February 7, three weeks after Andrei's departure, their first daughter was born in Ulyanovsk. In the same month, they left for Moscow. Andrei rented a room in Moscow for their arrival.

In the same February 1945, Sakharov came across the first mention in the press about atomic bomb. The British Ally magazine, published by the British Embassy for the Soviet reader, described an operation to destroy a German heavy water plant in Norway.

In June 1946, on the basis of ammunition in the village of Sarov, the construction of the secret facility "KB-11" began - a scientific and production base for the development of the Soviet atomic bomb.

About 100 square kilometers allocated for construction Mordovian reserve and 10 square kilometers of the territory of the Gorky region.

Thousands of prisoners were thrown into the construction of the facility - by the beginning of 1947 their number exceeded 10 thousand. Meanwhile, since 1945, Igor Evgenievich Tamm developed his own theory of nature nuclear forces. He was assisted by graduate students.

Sakharov calculated the process of meson production. But Tamm's theory in its original form was erroneous.

On January 9, 1947, Sakharov submitted the article “Generation of mesons” to the “Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics” - the first scientific publication young dissertation. Sakharov himself chose new topic- the theory of nuclear transitions. Tamm approved it. The work progressed very hard. The Sakharovs rented two rooms in Pushkino. Andrey went to FIAN twice a week by train.

In parallel with the preparation of his dissertation, Andrei passed qualifying exams, receiving only excellent marks. In April, life became a little easier - Andrei received a bonus of 700 rubles for his work “Selection Rules for Light Nuclei” and a thousand rubles from Tamm, who simply lent his student money “for life”.

At the beginning of the summer, Sakharov received another invitation from Kurchatov. The “father of the Soviet nuclear power industry”, having heard about Andrei's talents, decided to listen to his dissertation in person. And Sahara went to the Kurchatov Institute. He read his dissertation in the conference room. Then Igor Vasilyevich invited Andrey to his office. The meaning of the conversation was the same as with General Zverev. Kurchatov suggested that Sakharov, after defending his dissertation, go to his institute. Sakharov refused, saying that he could not leave Tamm's team.

Meanwhile, the dissertation defense was scheduled for July 24, 1947 - just a couple of weeks after Kurchatov's "informal defense". Sakharov felt absolutely ready.

It remained to pass one of the easiest, most frivolous exams - in Marxist-Leninist philosophy. He was asked if he had read the philosophical works of Chernyshevsky. And Sakharov, with his characteristic frankness, answered - no, he did not consider it. But knows what am in question. And ... got a deuce!

On June 24, the exam in Marxism-Leninism was retaken. But the defense was over. Andrei defended his dissertation only on November 3rd. Ahead of schedule - the deadline for completing graduate school expired on February 1, 1948.

November 4, 1947 Andrei Dmitrievich received a bonus of 700 rubles for successful work and in connection with the 30th anniversary of the October Revolution. And on November 5, he was enrolled as a junior researcher to the Physics Institute (FIAN) with a salary of 2,000 rubles a month.

In June 1948, the Academy of Sciences gave them their own room in the very center of Moscow. It was house number 4 on 25 October Street (now Nikolskaya).

At the end of August 1948, Sakharov, who had been working for about two months on the recalculation of the results of research by the Zel'dovich group, proposed a fundamentally new design of a nuclear charge, which received the conditional name "first idea". Tamm instantly understood the advantages of the new design and Andrei Dmitrievich supported.

On September 27, 1948, Andrei Dmitrievich passed the standard procedure for conferring the academic title of "junior researcher" for candidates of science.

In November, he received the position of senior researcher at FIAN. On July 28, 1948, Sakharov's second daughter was born. who was named Lyuba (the name was invented by four-year-old Tanya).

On October 31, 1949, by decision of the Academic Council of the FIAN, Andrey was awarded the title of Senior Researcher. Soon the Sakharov family moved into their first apartment. It was awesome. in Andrey's opinion, a three-room apartment on the outskirts of Moscow. I have lived in the new apartment for only a few months. On March 17, 1950, Sakharov received an order from the FIAN leadership to immediately leave for Arzamas-16 for permanent work.

The reason why Sakharov was urgently summoned to the secret KB-11 was that he was already actively working on the idea of ​​a new thermonuclear weapon.

This was Andrey's third visit to the secret city. In the documents of the personnel department of the FIAN, the departure of physicists to the secret object was formalized as a “long business trip”. Meanwhile, for some scientists, it was not so much a business trip as fate - many of them remained in this secret city until the end of their days. Here the physicists were given a fantastically large, downright huge salary - Sakharov received 20,000 rubles a month.

In the first half of the summer of 1950, the brightest, most talented physicists of the country, the whole color of Soviet science, gathered at the facility.

At the end of October, Andrei Dmitrievich was allowed to bring his family - his wife and children - to the facility.

In mid-April 1951, work around the MTR (calculations of a magnetic thermonuclear reactor) intensified. The initiative came from Kurchatov. In those days, Kurchatov came across an article in the American scientific journal. in which it was stated that in Argentina, the German physicist Richter carried out an experiment on a thermonuclear controlled reaction.

In 1951, Andrei Dmitrievich amazed his colleagues with an unusual invention that made it possible to take a different look at the problem of a controlled thermonuclear reaction. At the same time, Andrei Dmitrievich not only put forward a mathematical model of his idea. but also developed real designs. He, in particular, designed two devices, named Sakharov MK-1, MK-2 - from the abbreviation of the term "magnetic cumulation". The first was a generator of superstrong magnetic fields, the second was an energy generator for magnetic compression of substances.

Work on the creation of explosive magnetic generators continued throughout 1952.

In the summer of 1953, the plan for the main product - an explosive thermonuclear device - was ready. Scholars have begun to compile final report describing the expected characteristics and details of the future bomb ...

On June 6, Tamm presented to the Scientific Council of the Laboratory measuring instruments USSR Academy of Sciences review about scientific activity Sakharov. It was a document. which was worth any medals and prizes. In it, Igor Evgenievich expressed absolute confidence that Andrei Dmitrievich was worthy not only of the degree of Doctor of Science, but also of being elected to the Academy.

On June 8, the Scientific Council, which met right at the secret facility, awarded Sakharov the degree of Doctor of Science.

In the same July, Sakharov and his colleagues got ready for the journey. It was necessary to go to Semipalatinsk to the nuclear test site. Ahead was the test of the hydrogen bomb.

On August 5, 1953, at the opening of the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Malenkov declared. what Soviet Union has ... a hydrogen bomb.

And here is August 12, 1953. Members of the government, scientists, including Sakharov, hid in a special shelter - a concrete dugout. They gave a countdown. At the sixtieth second, at the count of "one", the bomb was detonated.

It was a success - unconditional and triumphant. Years of work have brought real results - the Soviet Union received at its disposal the most destructive weapon in the history of mankind.

On August 19, 1953, Sakharov was nominated as a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. On October 23, 1953, Andrei Dmitrievich was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, having passed the stage of a corresponding member. Four days later, Saarov became a member of the Academic Council of the Academy for the award degrees. He was only 32 years old.

In mid-September, the Sakharovs received new apartment- in the 2nd Shchukinsky passage, in Moscow.

At this time, Sakharov was summoned to Malyshev. Andrei remembered this conversation with the minister for a long time. Malyshev asked me to write a memorandum with the characteristics of a product (bomb) of a new generation. And Sakharov sketched his own ideas on paper, which he later called arrogant. Sketched and forgot.

On November 20, 1953, the non-party Andrei Dmitrievich was invited ... to a meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Minister Malyshev reported, Sakharov only gave short explanations, answering questions from Molotov. The meeting resulted in two resolutions. The first obligated the Ministry of Medium Machine Building to develop a compact single-stage hydrogen bomb during 1954-1955, and the second ordered Korolev's rocket engineers to create a rocket for this charge ... Sakharov was horrified.

The end of 1953 was marked by two events. December 23 (according to official documents) by sentence Supreme Court The USSR shot Lavrenty Beria, the former curator of the program to create atomic and hydrogen bombs.

And on December 31, on the eve of the new year, Andrei Dmitrievich found out that he had been awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree - "For the fulfillment of a special task of the Government." The decree was secret.

A few days later. January 4, 1954 Sakharov was awarded the Gold Medal "Hammer and Sickle" and the Order of Lenin with the title of Hero of Socialist Labor - "for exceptional services to the state."

At the end of January 1955, the "third idea" came to Sakharov - the creation of a full-scale hydrogen super-bomb, the most powerful and most destructive.

On February 12, 1955, awards were presented to academicians in the Sverdlovsk Hall of the Kremlin. Sakharov received the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star.

On November 22, 1955, a huge “mushroom” rose again over the Semipalatinsk test site. The military and scientists observed the progress of the tests, including Andrey Dmitrievich. After the test, everyone felt great relief.

In 1955, articles about Sakharov appeared in the Bolshoi Soviet encyclopedia and encyclopedic dictionary.

At the age of 35, Andrey was already an academician, twice a Hero and twice a laureate of the country's main prizes. The Sakharovs have not needed anything for a long time. A nice mansion in Arzamas-16, a private car, a luxurious apartment in Moscow by Soviet standards, a lot of money that there was nothing to spend on.

August 14, 1957 in Arzamas-16 was born last child Claudia and Andrei - the son of Dmitry, named after his grandfather.

In 1959, Sakharov sent a letter to Khrushchev with a number of proposals on the problem of ending nuclear tests.

March 7, 1962 Andrei Dmitrievich received his last highest Soviet award. becoming three times Hero of Socialist Labor.

Persistently and unsuccessfully, Sakharov fought for the abolition of nuclear tests and lost on all counts.

The turning point in Sakharov's life was the publication of a long article Reflections on Progress. peaceful coexistence and intellectual freedom”, in which Andrey Dmitrievich reflected on the role of the intelligentsia in modern world. Sakharov went to this article for many years.

There was no chance for Sakharov's article to be published in the domestic press. On July 10, the BBC broadcast a message about the publication. On the same day, Sakharov was suspended from work at a secret facility. On this day, his long stay at Arzamas-16 ended.

March 8, 1969 Claudia Alekseevna Vikhireva, Sakharov's wife. died ... The cause of her death was oncological disease. The disease has been developing since September 1964.

After the funeral of his wife, Sakharov fell into a severe depression. For a few months he ceased all activities.

In fact, he was unemployed. I sat at home and shed tears ... On April 15, 1969, Tamm received an offer to return to FIAN. Andrei Dmitrievich immediately agreed.

On September 21, 1969, Sakharov came to Arzamas-16 for the last time. He visited the central city savings bank and left a written statement asking him to donate 130,000 rubles from his personal account.

In 1969, 130 thousand rubles was a very large amount.

On October 20, 1970, Andrei Sakharov met a woman in Kaluga. It was Elena Georgievna Bonner.

On August 24, 1971, Sakharov wrote in his diary "Lyusya and I are together." Thus began his new family life. On December 2, 1971, Sakharov and Bonner applied to the registry office for marriage registration. On January 7, 1972, the marriage was registered.

On June 26, after Sakharov's appeal to the Supreme Soviet on the abolition of the death penalty and amnesty for political prisoners, Andropov came to the conclusion that there was a need for "a public response to Sakharov's actions."

On October 9, 1975, the Nobel Committee of the Storting (Parliament) of Norway decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Andrei Sakharov.

On January 8, 1980, a whole “bouquet” of decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued. Namely, about the administrative eviction of Sakharov from Moscow to Gorky. About depriving him of all awards. On the deprivation of his titles of the laureate of the Lenin and State Prizes of the USSR.

On January 22, 1980, Sakharov and Bonner were taken by plane to Gorky. He spent six years in Gorky's exile. By 1986, Andrei Sakharov was the most famous human rights activist on the planet.

Sakharov turned to Gorbachev with a request to reconsider his case. I did not receive an answer ... But on December 15, 1986, in the evening, they brought and installed a telephone in his apartment and said that Gorbachev himself would call tomorrow.

Mikhail Sergeevich called and said that Andrei Dmitrievich and Elena Georgievna could return to Moscow.

On December 23, 1986, many people gathered at the Yaroslavsky railway station and met the train on which Sakharov arrived in Moscow.

In January 1987, Gorbachev asked Shevardnadze. member of the Politburo. prepare information materials on political views Sakharov. And general secretary The Central Committee of the CPSU finally understood. who was kept in Gorky.

In 1988, Sakharov was elected a member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In October 1988, the ban on traveling abroad was lifted. On November 6, 1988, Sakharov went abroad for the first time in his life - to the United States. It was a triumphant journey through America and Europe.

In March 1989, Andrei Dmitrievich was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR - from the Academy of Sciences. Elena Georgievna took Sakharov to meetings of the Supreme Soviet. On December 14, 1989, after work, Elena Georgievna took Sakharov home. Andrei Dmitrievich had dinner. Then he said. that he slept for a couple of hours - he was very tired. And lay down in his office.

When Bonner entered the office. to wake her husband, Saarov lay on the floor. He didn't breathe...

Source - Nikola Nadezhdin "Informal Biographies". Our friendly team advises everyone to read the books of this author.

Andrey Sakharov - the great Soviet theoretical physicist - biography, facts and a lot of interesting things updated: March 14, 2018 by: website

HELL. Sakharov“... armed our country with the most powerful weapon in history, which made the Soviet Union one of the two superpowers. Academician Sakharov alone did more for the country than the whole army of Chekists and Tsekists who persecuted him for many years and shortened his life.

For many years there has been a debate: to whom do we owe the hydrogen bomb? Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov? Or still Soviet intelligence who has been stealing American atomic secrets for years?

The first to speak about the possibility of creating thermonuclear weapons back in 1942 was the Nobel laureate who fled from fascist Italy to America. Enrico Fermi. He shared his idea with the person who was destined to bring it to life, an American Edward Teller. And the German communist physicist Klaus Fuchs, who was an agent of Soviet intelligence, worked in Teller's scientific group.

Information about Teller's work also came to Moscow. The study of these materials was entrusted Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich, future academician and three times Hero of Socialist Labor.

What is the principle of operation of thermonuclear weapons?

Atomic energy is released during the decay of the constituent parts of the atomic nucleus. To do this, plutonium was given the shape of a ball and surrounded by chemical explosives, which were detonated simultaneously at thirty-two points. The synchronized explosion instantly squeezed nuclear materials, and a chain reaction of decay began atomic nuclei. The basis of a thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb is the reverse process - fusion, the formation of nuclei of heavy elements by fusion of nuclei of lighter elements. In this case, an incomparably large amount of energy is released. Such synthesis occurs on the Sun - however, at temperatures of tens of millions of degrees. the main problem was how to replicate such conditions on Earth. Edward Teller first came to the idea that energy can be used as a fuse for a hydrogen bomb atomic explosion. The gigantic temperatures that occur during thermonuclear reactions excluded the possibility of an experiment. It was a job for mathematicians. In the United States, the first computers were already in full use. In Soviet Union cybernetics was recognized as a bourgeois pseudoscience Therefore, all calculations were made on paper. Almost all Soviet mathematicians were occupied with this work.

Calculations showed Zeldovich that the proposed Edward Teller H-bomb design doesn't work: not it was possible to create such a temperature and compress hydrogen isotopes in such a way that a spontaneous fusion reaction began. On this work could well stop. Moreover, Klaus Fuchs has already been arrested for espionage, and Moscow has lost information about what is happening with the Americans. But then a young physicist Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was sent to Arzamas-16. He solved this problem. Such insights happen only with geniuses and only in young age. Moreover, Sakharov did not want to engage in nuclear weapons. He was only interested in theoretical physics. Andrey Sakharov with the help of the future academician Vitaly Ginzburg came up with a different design of the hydrogen bomb, which went down in the history of science as a "spherical puff". For Sakharov, the hydrogen isotope was located not separately, but in layers inside the plutonium charge. Therefore, a nuclear explosion made it possible to reach both the temperature and pressure necessary for a thermonuclear reaction to begin.

The hydrogen bomb was tested in August 1953.

The explosion turned out to be much stronger than an atomic one. The impression was terrible, the destruction monstrous. But Sakharov's puff was limited in power. Therefore, soon Sakharov and Zeldovich came up with a new bomb. It was built on the same principle that, having made sure of his initial mistake, the American Edward Teller went.

Andrey Sakharov armed our country with the most destructive human history weapons. The Soviet Union became a superpower, and a balance of fear was established in the world that saved us from World War III.

For his services, Sakharov was elected to the Academy of Sciences. He received three stars of the Hero of Socialist Labor, the Stalin and Lenin Prizes - according to a closed list, of course. Twice the hero was supposed to erect a monument in his homeland, three times the hero was also in Moscow, but his very name was big secret. He worked on the creation of hydrogen weapons as long as there were tasks in this area for a physicist of his level. But when these tasks were solved and the work of the technological level remained, it genius brain dealt with other issues.

After the creation of hydrogen weapons, Academician Sakharov found himself in a narrow circle of the most valuable scientists for the state. These names were very few - Kurchatov, Khariton, Keldysh, Korolev... For these people, the state provided a fabulous life for those times, creating all the conditions for fruitful work. The highest officials of the state were polite, kind and helpful with them. They could easily call Khrushchev, and then Brezhnev and knew that they would be listened to attentively, that they would be heeded.

(1921-1989) Russian scientist, public figure

There were many unexpected turns in the fate of this man. He was awarded the Stalin Prize for the development of the hydrogen bomb, and twenty years later received the Nobel Peace Prize. “Hater of mankind”, “lost honor and conscience”, “the greatest humanist”, “honor and conscience of our era” - this is how the same people sometimes called him for just some ten years.

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was born in Moscow into the family of a physicist. After graduating from school with a gold medal, he entered the Physics Department of Moscow University, from which he graduated in 1942. During the war years, he worked at a military plant, and after its completion he entered the graduate school of the P. N. Lebedev Physics Institute.

After graduating from graduate school and brilliantly defending his Ph.D. thesis, Sakharov was included in the group on the creation of thermonuclear weapons. Just five years later, on August 12, 1953, the first thermonuclear bomb. After that, a real waterfall of awards fell on Andrei Sakharov. At the age of only 32, he was elected an academician, became a laureate of the Stalin Prize and a Hero of Socialist Labor. He was awarded the last title three times, also receiving it in 1956 and 1962.

However, while working on the most destructive weapon in the history of mankind, Sakharov understood and great danger that it represented for civilization. Therefore, starting in 1961, he began to advocate a ban on nuclear weapons tests. Naturally, this caused a sharply negative reaction from the authorities. Nevertheless, a year after his speech, an international treaty was signed to ban nuclear weapons tests in three areas (in the atmosphere, in water and in space).

In the spring of 1968, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov wrote an article "Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom." In it, he defended the idea of ​​glasnost, called for Stalin's personality cult to be completely exposed, and noted the moral advantages of socialism. In addition, Sakharov put forward the idea of ​​a gradual convergence of capitalism and socialism.

The article was a huge success in the world. As Sakharov himself later wrote, its circulation exceeded the circulation of books by Georges Simenon and Agatha Christie. However, in the USSR, it caused a completely different reaction. Sakharov was removed from scientific work and harassed in the press. But this did not break the scientist.

Since 1970, his human rights activities began. He becomes one of the founders of the Human Rights Committee, which helped many people who suffered for their civic beliefs.

October 9, 1975 Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This event caused a new wave of slander and attacks on the outstanding scientist. He was not even allowed to travel abroad to receive the award because he was a bearer of state secrets. Instead, his second wife, Elena Bonner, received the award. Subsequently, she will continue the work of her husband and also become prominent public figure, human rights advocate.

The persecution of the scientist continued. At a meeting of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences, the question of expelling Sakharov from its membership was raised. When discussing this issue, Academician P. Kapitsa noted: “A similar precedent already took place when Einstein was expelled from the German Academy of Sciences. Is it worth repeating? »

After that, Sakharov was left among the academicians. However, contrary to the opinion of P. L. Kapitsa, as well as other prominent scientists of the country and the world, who called for him to be left alone, the persecution of the scientist continued. And after the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was detained on the street in Moscow and sent into exile in the city of Gorky. His political exile continued until 1986, when perestroika processes began in society. After a telephone conversation with M. Gorbachev, Sakharov was allowed to return to Moscow and resume his scientific work. Soon he was elected a people's deputy of the USSR.

It would seem that fate was again favorable to him. However, the possibilities of democracy turned out to be limited, and Sakharov was never able to speak out loud about the problems that worried him. He again had to fight for the right to express his views from the podium National Assembly. This struggle undermined the strength of the scientist, and on December 14, 1989, returning home after another debate, Sakharov died of a heart attack. In memory of the scientist, a square in Washington and an avenue in Moscow are named.

Andrei Sakharov is hailed as a cult figure by his supporters. Creator of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. The measure of morality. Freedom fighter. And many others. A symbol of something bright and good. Even selfless. But who was he really?

An avenue in Moscow bears his name, on which he never lived. And a nearby museum, where people who receive grants from Russia's geopolitical rivals usually gather for their events.

In the late 1980s, when Gorbachev brought him back from Gorky to Moscow, there were people who expected either political or moral revelations from Sakharov.

Andrei Sakharov. RIA Novosti / Igor Zarembo

True, after he took the rostrum of the Congress people's deputies USSR, many were clearly disappointed: poor diction, slurred speech, empty thoughts.

And there was also a clear unethicalness of the statements: many then, under the influence of “perestroika propaganda”, were negatively disposed against the participation of Soviet troops in the war in Afghanistan and were traumatized by rumors about people who came from there closed coffins, but they were also jarred by the words of this man, who called the Soviet soldiers who fought there "occupiers".

Was he the creator of the hydrogen bomb in fact - to judge the physicists. Officially, he was a member of the group that worked on it. True, his colleagues in the specialty are somehow evasive about his contribution, vaguely asserting that "he, of course, was a competent physicist." And it was sometimes let slip that his part of the contribution to the development of the bomb echoed too much with the contents of a letter from some obscure provincial colleague.

Others also say that Igor Kurchatov signed his submission for election to the Academy of Sciences in order to solve his housing problem.

Some, in response to a question about his role in creating the bomb, suggest thinking about why the person proclaimed to be its creator did not create anything in science equal to this invention. Not even in military affairs, but in peaceful nuclear physics.

But these are matters of corporate recognition. And here to understand the physicists. He himself became more interested in politics. And appeals to morality.

For example, when he was once told that in the struggle for the happiness of people and the future of mankind, there are no sacrifices, he was indignant and said: “I am convinced that such arithmetic is fundamentally wrong. We, each of us, in every deed, both "small" and "large", must proceed from concrete moral criteria, and not from the abstract arithmetic of history. Moral criteria categorically dictate to us - do not kill.

And in the draft Constitution he composed, he pathetically wrote: "All people have the right to life, freedom and happiness." Whether the people of the country, in whose destruction he took part, have become freer and happier - everyone can judge this for themselves.

In 1953 he was made an academician - at the age of 32.

By the end of the 1950s, he would propose to stop new developments in the field of weapons and simply place heavy-duty explosive devices of 100 megatons each along the US coast. And if necessary, blow up the entire American continent.

What would happen to the people living there and to all the other continents, he did not particularly care: the idea was bold and beautiful.

Roy Medvedev would later write: “He lived too long in some extremely isolated world, where they knew little about the events in the country, about the lives of people from other strata of society, and about the history of the country in which and for which they worked.”

Even the extravagant Khrushchev was not inspired by Sakharov's idea to blow everyone up. And their relationship began to deteriorate.

The last meeting of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, attended by Andrei Sakharov. RIA News"

And when the question of new tests arose, they dispersed. Khrushchev believed that it was necessary to study the possibilities and consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. Sakharov believed that this was unnecessary: ​​and so with the available ones, everything can be blown up, without really thinking about the consequences. And when the first one suggested that he not put forward his exotic ideas, but take up science, albeit not a military one, the academician decided to fight for "human rights."

Once he began to deal with the problems of the peaceful use of thermonuclear energy, but rather quickly moved away from the topic: it took a long time to work, and no quick result was expected.

Yes, he will win the Nobel Prize. But not for scientific discoveries- Peace Prize. Like Gorbachev, for the fight against his country. And after Keldysh and Khariton, Simonov and Sholokhov and dozens of other iconic figures, scientists and writers come out with a public condemnation of Sakharov.

Sakharov will often swear in the name of morality and appeal to the commandment: "Thou shalt not kill." But in 1973 he would write a welcome letter to General Pinochet, calling his coup and execution the beginning of an era of happiness and prosperity in Chile. The academician has always believed that people have the right to life, freedom and happiness.

His human rights followers don't like to talk about it. Just as they deny in every possible way that at the end of the 70s he wrote a letter to the President of the United States with a call to inflict - in order to force the observance of "human rights" in the USSR - a preventive intimidating nuclear strike.

In 1979, he published a letter condemning the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan on the pages of leading Western publications. Prior to that, he had not published such letters nor with condemnation american war in Vietnam, nor Israel's Middle East wars. And he will not condemn either the war between England and Argentina over the Falkland Islands, or the American invasion of Granada or Panama.

As a true intellectual and humanist, he could only condemn his own country. Obviously, believing that the condemnation of other countries is the business of their intellectuals and humanists.

In general, as those who knew him in school years mathematician Yaglom, even while solving the problem, Sakharov "could not explain how he came to the solution, he explained it in a very abstruse way, and it was difficult to understand him."

And academician Khariton, giving a posthumous interview after Sakharov's funeral, in which, of course, the rule “either good or nothing” was in effect, was nevertheless forced to say that Sakharov “could not even imagine that someone would understand something better than him. Somehow one of our colleagues found a solution to a gas-dynamic problem that Andrei Dmitrievich could not find. For him, this was so unexpected and unusual that he began to look with exceptional energy for flaws in the proposed solution. And only after some time, not finding them, I was forced to admit that the decision was correct.

And even then, in 1989, in conditions of hysteria, when it was simply dangerous to say anything in condemnation of Sakharov or in defense of Soviet society, Khariton will say, appreciating him political activity: “I have great respect for that part of this activity of his, when he fought against obvious injustice. My skepticism relates to his ideas concerning economic issues. The fact is that I did not agree with some of the provisions that Andrei Dmitrievich developed, in particular, concerning the characteristics of socialism and capitalism.

Gorbachev brought him back from Gorky, and Sakharov became a deputy of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR from the Academy of Sciences. However, at the first vote voters will fail it. The media supervised by Alexander Yakovlev will throw a tantrum, and Gorbachev will cancel the results of the elections, instructing him to conduct a second vote - with an expansion of the circle of voters and a tough installation: "We must elect."

Sakharov will be made a deputy in violation of the electoral norm: Gorbachev recruited supporters for the congress. But having become a deputy, Sakharov will immediately turn away from his patron and become one of the leaders of the opposition to him, the “Interregional Deputy Group”, co-chaired by Boris Yeltsin, Gavriil Popov, Yuri Afanasiev.

But, what the last two do not admit today, and Sakharov began to burden them more and more with his unintelligible speeches from the podium, discrediting their manner of speaking and claiming to be absolutely right.

It is difficult to say what happened there, on December 14, 1989, at a meeting of this “group”, but in the evening of the same day Sakharov died of a heart attack. And it's strange - he became much more useful and profitable for his dead comrades-in-arms than for the living.

And a month before that, Sakharov would present his draft of a new Constitution, where he would proclaim the right of all peoples to statehood, that is, to proclaim their own states and to destroy the Soviet Union.

Andrey Sakharov with Elena Bonner. RIA News"

It is generally accepted that his new wife, Elena Bonner, had the main influence on his departure from scientific work and the transition to the struggle against his country. This is not entirely true: Sakharov met her in 1970 at the trial of a group of "dissidents" in Kaluga. He already then wrote "Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom", the main idea of ​​which contained a call for the country's rejection of its socio-economic structure and the transition to Western-style development. And then he regularly went to such trials.

But the truth is that it was after this acquaintance (they officially married two years later) that he almost completely focused on "dissident activities."

As he himself writes in his diary about the role new wife: “Lucy told me (the academician) a lot that I otherwise would not have understood and would not have done. She is a great organizer, she is my think tank.” She prompted so much and so strongly that he not only adopted her children, but also almost forgot about his own. How bitterly he will joke later native son Dmitry: “Do you need the son of Academician Sakharov? He lives in the USA, in Boston. And his name is Alexei Semyonov. For almost 30 years, Aleksey Semyonov gave interviews as “the son of Academician Sakharov,” foreign radio stations voiced in every way in his defense. And when my father was alive, I felt like an orphan and dreamed that dad would spend with me at least a tenth of the time that he devoted to the offspring of my stepmother.

The son recalled that once he felt especially embarrassed for his father. He, already living in Gorky, once again went on a hunger strike, demanding that the bride of his son Bonner, who had already remained in the United States without any permission, be allowed to go there. Dmitry came to his father. He tried to persuade him not to risk his health on this matter: “It is clear that if he thus sought to stop nuclear weapons testing or would demand democratic reforms ... But he just wanted Lisa to be allowed into America to Alexei Semyonov. But Bonner's son might not have draped abroad if he really loved the girl so much. ”After marrying Bonner, Sakharov would move in with her, leaving fifteen year old son to live with a 22-year-old sister, he considered that they were already adults, and they could do without his attention. Until the age of 18, he helped his son with money, after that he stopped. Everything is according to the law.

The father was indeed self-tortured. Sakharov had a severe heart ache, and there was a huge risk that his body would not withstand the nervous and physical activity. But the bride of his stepson, because of which he was starving ... “By the way, I found Lisa at dinner! As I remember now, she ate pancakes with black caviar, ”recalls her son. But the emigration of Dmitry Sakharov and Bonner strongly opposed: “The stepmother was afraid that I could become a competitor to her son and daughter, and - most importantly - she was afraid that the truth about Sakharov's real children would be revealed. Indeed, in this case, her offspring could get less benefits from foreign human rights organizations.”

In 1982, a young artist Sergei Bocharov, fascinated by the legend of the "freedom fighter", came to Sakharov in Gorky - he wanted to paint a portrait of the "people's defender". Only he will see something completely different from the legend: “Andrei Dmitrievich sometimes even praised the government of the USSR for some successes. Now I don't remember why. But for each such remark, he immediately received a slap in the face on his bald head from his wife. While I was writing the sketch, Sakharov got at least seven times. At the same time, the world luminary meekly endured cracks, and it was clear that he was used to them.

And the artist, realizing who really makes the decisions and dictates to the "celebrity", what to say and what to do, instead of his portrait painted a portrait of Bonner. She became furious and rushed to destroy the sketch: “I told Bonner that I don’t want to draw a “stump”, which repeats the thoughts of an evil wife and even suffers beatings from her. And Bonner immediately kicked me out on the street.

Those who made and are making him their banner - declare him a "great humanist."

Andrei Sakharov with Elena Bonner, her daughter and grandchildren. Photo ITAR-TASS

Him, who first called on the USSR to blow up the American continent, then called on the United States to launch a nuclear strike on the USSR in the name of "human rights".

Him, who greeted Pinochet and declared the soldiers of his country to be occupiers.

Him, in fact, who abandoned his own children and was ruled by their stepmother, who dutifully took down slaps from her when trying to praise his country. Who did not know his country, nor its people, nor its history, and who endured everything from his wife who turned him into her political instrument.

Of course, anyone who wants to can read it further. But at least you need to tell the truth about him to the end. Who is he. Who was he. What destroyed. And what actually has to do with humanism and morality. And at least admit that the citizens of the country he hates have no obligation, no need to talk about him with reverence.

Sergei CHERNYAKHOVSKY