
Lyudmila Alexeyeva, who died on December 8, 2018 at the age of 91, was widely considered the “matriarch” of the Russian human rights movement. Recipient of the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Award in 2015, at the time of her death Alexeyeva was one of the last Soviet dissidents still active in the Russian Federation. She was one of the founders in 1976 of the Moscow Helsinki Group, which exposed human rights abuses in the Soviet Union and inspired the creation of similar human rights watchdog organizations around the world. In 1977, Alexeyeva was forced to flee the Soviet Union for the US, where she continued to advocate for the improvement of human rights in the USSR. She returned to Russia in 1993 and was named Chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) in 1996, a role she maintained until the end of her life.
See the RSW blog for reflections on this symposium: https://blogs.iu.edu/russianstudiesworkshop1/
See this slideshow of highlights in Lyudmila's life, presented at the symposium reception.
This event is open to the public.
Thursday, November 14—IMU Georgian Room, 7pm-9pm (reception)
Friday, November 15—IMU Dogwood Room, 9am-4:30pm
Saturday, November 16—IMU Oak Room, 9am-12:30pm