Leonid Ivanovich Borodin (russian: Леони́д Ива́нович Бороди́н; 14 April 1938, in Irkutsk – 24 November 2011, in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

) was a

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

novelist and journalist.

Biography

Born in Irkutsk, Borodin was a Russian Orthodox Christian and a Soviet

dissident A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 20th ...

. In the 1960s he belonged to the anti-Communist All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People (VSHSON). He was arrested and imprisoned in the 'strict regime' Camp 17 in 1967, and went on hunger strike there with

Yuli Daniel Yuli Markovich Daniel ( rus, Ю́лий Ма́ркович Даниэ́ль, p=ˈjʉlʲɪj ˈmarkəvʲɪtɕ dənʲɪˈelʲ, a=Yuliy Markovich Daniel'.ru.vorb.oga; 15 November 1925 — 30 December 1988) was a Russian writer and Soviet dissident ...

and Aleksandr Ginzburg in 1969. After his release in 1973, Borodin’s works were smuggled out of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. The publication of an English translation of ''The Story of a Strange Time'' led to his arrest in 1982 on charges of ' anti-Soviet propaganda'. He was sentenced to 10 years of hard labour in Perm-36 Maximum Security Camp (ITK-6), as well as five years' internal exile. Released after four years, in the perestroika era, Borodin was allowed to visit the West with his wife. Borodin was the subject and first-person narrator of the 2001 film ''Leonid Borodin: Looking through the Years''. A winner of many literary prizes, including the 2002

Solzhenitsyn Prize The Solzhenitsyn Prize is a non-governmental Russian literary award established by the Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 1997. The $25,000 prize is awarded for "works in which troubles of the Russian life are shown with rare moral purity an ...

, Borodin was editor-in-chief of '' Moskva'', a popular literary magazine. In 2005 he was appointed to the first convocation of the

Public Chamber of Russia The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation (russian: Общественная палата Российской Федерации), sometimes shortened to Civic Chamber (russian: Общественная палата), is a consultative civil s ...

Works in English translation

*''Partings'', The Harvill Press, 1988. *''The Year of Miracle and Grief'', Quartet Books, 1988. *''The Third Truth'', Harpercollins, 1992. *''The Story of a Strange Time'', Harpercollins, 1993.

References

External links

2002 interview after receiving the Solzhenitsyn Prize

Moskva Journal

{{DEFAULTSORT:Borodin, Leonid 1938 births 2011 deaths Writers from Irkutsk Irkutsk State University alumni Buryat State University alumni Russian journalists Russian male novelists Soviet novelists Soviet male writers Soviet dissidents Soviet prisoners and detainees Members of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation Inmates of Vladimir Central Prison Solzhenitsyn Prize winners Moskva (magazine) editors