Valeriya Novodvorskaya

Valeria Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya (Russian: Валерия Ильинична Новодворская) (born May 17, 1950, Baranavichy, Belarus) is a Russian politician, dissident, the founder and the chairwoman of the "Democratic Union" party.

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). She was locked in a Soviet psychiatric hospital, where she was tortured and humiliated. She described her experiences there in her book Beyond Despair.

Novodvorskaya is openly critical of Russian government policies.

Her books

 * Valeriya Novodvorskaya. Beyond despair. .Moscow, Novosti. 1993 Валерия Новодворская. По ту сторону отчаяния.