Valeria Novodvorskaya (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Valeriya Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya is a liberal Russian politician, Soviet dissident, the founder and the chairwoman of the "Democratic Union" party, and a member of the editorial board of The New Times. Many of her remarks have provoked controversy.Novodvorskaya has been active in the Soviet dissidents movement since her youth, and first imprisoned by the Soviet authorities in 1969 for distributing leaflets that criticized the Soviet invasion in Czechoslovakia (Prague Spring). The leaflets included her poetry: "Thank you, the Communist Party for our bitterness and despair, for our shameful silence, thank you the Party!." Novodvorskaya was only 19 at this time. She was arrested, imprisoned at Soviet psychiatric hospital. She described her experiences there in her book Beyond Despair.