Pavel Mikhailovich Litvinov is a famous Soviet, and since the 1970s American physicist, teacher. During the Soviet period of his life, he took an active part in human rights and protest activities. Participated in the famous political protest "Demonstration of Seven".
Biography
The future scientist was born in July 1940 in the capital of the Soviet Union, Moscow. Pavel was born into a family of Soviet intelligentsia, his father Maxim Maksimovich Litvinov was an outstanding mathematician and engineer. Mother worked as a physiologist at the Botkin hospital. Pavel studied well and closer to the end of his schooling began to think about his future, he decided to follow the example of his father and connect his life with science.
At the age of sixteen, Paul, like most adolescents, awoke a spirit of rebellion. He categorically denied the correctness of Stalin's policy, as well as the policy of the Communist Party as a whole. He read a lot and understood that the path of Lenin and the path along which the modern Communist Party is going are seriously different. Pavel often discussed politics and the current situation in society with his comrade Slava Luchkov, they dreamed of one day creating an underground organization that would fight the actions of the regime.
Advocacy and career
After school, Litvinov entered the Faculty of Physics at Moscow State University, which he successfully graduated in 1966. Immediately after graduation, he got a job as a physics teacher at the Institute of Fine Chemical Technologies in the city of Moscow.
He also began to take an active part in various protests and human rights events. He was a signatory to all significant petitions. In 1967 he began to take part in the compilation of samizdat magazines. The first collection was published in the same year and was called "Justice and punishment". The following year, his second work was published about a trial known in the USSR, which was called "The Trial of Four".
At the end of the sixties, democratic processes began in Czechoslovakia, mitigating reforms were carried out, this largely undermined the authority of the local communist party. All this could not but affect the citizens of the USSR, many watched with hope the process in the fraternal republic and waited for changes in their homeland. The leaders of the Soviet Union also understood the inevitability of change, and in 1968 it was decided to send troops to Czechoslovakia in order to suppress the riots.
On August 25 of the same year, the famous rally "Demonstration of Seven" took place on Red Square in Moscow. A group of Soviet dissidents came out with placards and slogans, expressing their dissatisfaction with the introduction of troops into Czechoslovakia. At that moment, the action did not cause a wide response, and most of the protesters were simply imprisoned. Pavel Litvinov was one of those dissidents and received four years in labor camps.
In 1974 he emigrated to the United States, where he lives to this day in the town of Terrytown, continuing to engage in science and human rights work.
Personal life
The famous physicist was married to Maya Lvovna Rusakovskaya, they have two children: son Dmitry and daughter Larisa.
