14 December 2024
by Lev Shlosberg
Source: Facebook
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov died in Moscow 35 years ago on the evening of the 14th December 1989, at the age of 68. His death left a huge moral void in society. Late Soviet (essentially already anti-Soviet) politics lost sight of the moral compass, capable of influencing the actions of those very political animals who, after Sakharov (and Gorbachev), reign supreme in Russian politics.
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Unfolding over a period equivalent to half his lifetime, changes in the country following Sakharov’s death contrasted so starkly with his thoughts and actions that his legacy in today’s Russia has become that of defiant dissent, intrinsically alien and hostile towards the authorities.
Andrei Sakharov was not able to become president, prime minister or a speaker of parliament. His virtues made him ill-suited to officialdom of any rank; indeed, imagining him holding such a high position in office is virtually impossible. Sakharov had an entirely different mission in politics. He was a humanist and, being a humanist, he identified human reference points for a society that was experiencing a rupturing of stereotypes and collapse of myths.
Sakharov was a sounding board for all who saw politics as honest work for society. Figuratively, he was the conscience of politics. It was precisely due to this that those in power didn’t at all like listening to what he had to say. He reminded them of crimes and malice, cowardice and betrayal. He wouldn’t allow the atrocities that had occurred and the state’s duty to its citizens to be forgotten.
Sakharov’s involvement in politics was not motivated by selfish goals. He didn’t strive for power in itself, but rather understood that society’s fate and the future of the country lay in the hands of politicians and politics.
Sakharov was one of the few who understood that the progress of humanity was not possible without freedom. He felt freedom and the lack thereof as a barometer of political pressure: all the excesses brought on by lack of freedom flowed through him.
Sakharov was an inconvenience to anyone in the uppermost ranks of power. He was toxic for the same aggressive-silent majority that rejected him as a daily reminder of its own betrayed soul and fall from grace.
In a period of growing and collapsing hopes, Sakharov remained one of the main —and undoubtedly the brightest— beacons of hope. His death came as a shock to everyone. Sakharov’s funeral, attended by hundreds of thousands, was a farewell to the ideal politician who did not shy even one step away from his conscience, and who right up until his last days was ready to lead society through the Russian wilderness, along a path which he himself had laid.
No one could take away his mission or his cross.
In spite of everything, Sakharov’s written and spoken words remain. The word is immortal, and thus fosters hope for transformation in generations of descendants.
Translated by Nathalie Wilson
