Memorial

13 May 2026

by Memorial

Source: Facebook

“We lived with this shared sense of compassion.” Nina Litvinova has died—an oceanographer and dissident activist who did an incredible amount to support political prisoners in the 1960s–1980s and the 2000s–2020s

She worked at the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, dedicating more than forty years of her scientific career to ophiuroids and other marine echinoderms. But she devoted even more years to helping people.

Nina Mikhailovna Litvinova was born on 9 August 1945, into a family with close connections to Soviet political history. She was the granddaughter of Maksim Litvinov, the Soviet People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the 1930s and ambassador to the United States during World War II, as well as sister of Pavel Litvinov, the well-known Soviet dissident who participated in the protest of 25 August 1968 against the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Nina Litvinova herself did not seek the limelight and said that the fame of her family name was more of a burden to her. At the same time, her family history, memories of repression, and social circle gradually drew her into the sphere of late-Soviet resistance. She read and distributed samizdat, reprinted the Chronicle of Current Events, attended trials, visited her brother and other dissidents in exile, and delivered letters, books, and care packages.

“It seems to me we lived with this shared sense of compassion. We all helped one another,” Litvinova recalled later.

From the 1960s until the end of her life, Nina Litvinova helped political prisoners; for the last eight years, together with activists from Memorial, she travelled to Petrozavodsk for the trials of historian Yuri Dmitriev, attended hearings in the cases of Oleg Orlov, Zhenya Berkovich, and provided significant assistance to Olga Bendas, but also helped numerous political prisoners who were not in the media spotlight or widely known.

Nina Mikhailovna always remained in the shadow of her brother, grandfather, and other relatives and well-known dissidents. But it was precisely this quiet and almost imperceptible support for the persecuted that was her consciously chosen strategy. For Nina Litvinova, refusing to participate in official lies and providing daily assistance to political prisoners were natural acts that did not require glorification. That is why she almost always declined interviews and public appearances.

Nina Litvinova embodied modest yet unyielding courage and kindness. She was always there where the pain was greatest. The best way to remember her is to carry on her work.

Translated by RiR