Leonid Ivanovich Borodin (russian: Леони́д Ива́нович Бороди́н; 14 April 1938, in

Irkutsk Irkutsk ( ; rus, Иркутск, p=ɪrˈkutsk; Buryat language, Buryat and mn, Эрхүү, ''Erhüü'', ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 617,473 as of the 2010 Census, Irkutsk is ...

– 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 million ...

) 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

, Borodin was a

Russian Orthodox Christian , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...

and a Soviet

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

. 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 k ...

and

Aleksandr Ginzburg Alexander "Alik" Ilyich Ginzburg ( rus, Алекса́ндр Ильи́ч Ги́нзбург, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr ɨˈlʲjidʑ ˈɡʲinzbʊrk, a=Alyeksandr Il'yich Ginzburg.ru.vorb.oga; 21 November 1936 – 19 July 2002), was a Russian journalist ...

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 transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. 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 Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (ASA) (russian: антисове́тская агита́ция и пропага́нда (АСА)) was a criminal offence in the Soviet Union. To begin with the term was interchangeably used with counter-revolu ...

'. 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 ''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...

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 and ...

, 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