Alexander Shatravka
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Alexander Shatravka | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1950 (age 75–76) |
| Known for | Soviet dissident and peace activist |
| Notable work | Escape from Paradise |
Alexander "Sasha" Ivanovich Shatravka (Russian: Александр Иванович Шатравка; born 6 October 1950) is a Russian-born former Soviet dissident and peace activist who is known for his memoir Escape from Paradise about his experiences as a political prisoner and his escape from the Soviet Union. He now lives in the United States and is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
He is known for his 1974 escape attempt from the Soviet Union as a 24-year-old sailor and for spending nine years as a political prisoner in Soviet psychiatric hospitals[1] and Gulag concentration camps between 1974 to 1979 and 1982 to 1986.[2] In 1983 he was sentenced to three years in prison for circulating a petition calling for the universal abolition of nuclear weapons, following his release in 1979.[3] He was released in 1986, in time for the changes of glasnost and perestroika.[4][5] He finally made it to the West, and testified before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe on political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.[6][7]
He has lived in the United States since 1986 and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1992. His memoir Escape from Paradise was published in Russian in 2010 and in English in 2019.[8]
