Yelena Bonner (born February 15, 1923) is a human rights activist in the former Soviet Union and late wife of Andrei Sakharov.

She was born in Mary, Turkmenistan to a family of Gevork Alikhanov, a prominent Armenian communist and a secretary of the Comintern, and Ruth Bonner, a Jewish communist activist.

Her parents were both arrested in 1937 during Stalin's Great Purge, her father was shot and her mother was deported to labor camps for eight years. Serving as a nurse during World War II, Bonner was wounded twice. After the war she earned a degree in pediatrics from the First Leningrad Medical Institute. In 1972 she married nuclear physicist and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov.

When Sakharov was denied collecting the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize, Bonner went to Oslo and represented her husband.

The couple were prominent dissidents and front figures of the Russian peace movement, and both Bonner and Sakharov were exiled to Gorky, Bonner in 1984. They were pardoned by the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986.

After Sakharov's death in 1989, Bonner has continued campaigning for democracy and human rights in Russia and worldwide. She defended Boris Yeltsin during the August Coup attempt in 1991. In recent years, she has been an outspoken opposer to the Russian armed involvement in Chechnya and a supporter of self-determination for the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. She has written two books, Alone Together, 1987, and Mothers and Daughters, 1992.

Yelena Bonner now lives in Moscow. She has two children, both living in the USA.

External links

• Biography of Elena Bonner, The Andrei Sakharov Archives at Brandeis University
• An appeal to the world regarding suicide terrorism (April 12, 2002)
• An Open Letter to President Bush By Vladimir Bukovsky and Elena Bonner (March 10, 2003)