Soviet dissident and poet Alexander Esenin-Volpin dies

Alexander Esenin-Volpin — poet, philosopher, mathematician and leader of the Soviet human rights movement — died yesterday at the age of 92.

Born in 1924 in Leningrad to celebrated Russian poet Sergei Esenin and translator Nadezhda Volpin, Esenin-Volpin began writing poetry for which he was detained in a psychiatric hospital on grounds of anti-Soviet agitation. He later moved on to the study of sciences, specialising in mathematics.

A notable dissident, he is best known for organising the 1965 “glasnost meeting”, the first public demonstration in the Soviet Union after the Second World War in response to the trial of writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel.

In 1968 he was again hospitalised, and emigrated to the United States following his release.

Source: Interfax (in Russian)