Irina Borisovna Ratushinskaya is a prominent Russian dissident, poet and writer
Background
Irina Ratushinskaya was born in Odessa, Ukraine. Her father was Boris Leonidovich, an engineer, and her mother was Irina Valentinovna Ratushinsky, a teacher of Russian literature. Her mother"s family originated from Poland, and her grandfather was deported to Siberia shortly after the January Uprising, a Polish uprising against forced conscription in the Russian Army in 1863.
Education
Irina was educated at Odessa University and was graduated with a master"s degree in physics in 1976.
Career
She has one sister. Before her graduation she taught at a primary school in Odessa from 1975-1978. She was poet in residence at Northwestern University. On September 17, 1982, Irina was arrested for anti-Soviet agitation.
In April 1983, she was convicted of "agitation carried on for the purpose of subverting or weakening the Soviet regime", sentenced to seven years in a labor camp followed by five years of internal exile.
She was released on October 9, 1986, on the eve of the summit in Reykjavík, Iceland between President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. While imprisoned, Irina continued to write poetry.
Her previous works usually centered on love, Christian theology, and artistic creation, not on politics or policies as her accusers stated. Her new works that were written in prison, which were written on soap until memorized and then washed away, number some 250.
They expressed an appreciation for human rights.
Liberty, freedom, and the beauty of life. Her memoir, Grey is the Colour of Hope, chronicles her prison experience. Her later poems recount her struggles to endure the hardships and horrors of prison life.
In the same year she was deprived of Soviet citizenship by Political Bureau.
She also was the Poet in Residence at Northwestern University from 1987-1989. Sally Beamish has set some of her poems into music (Number, I"m not afraid, 1998).
Achievements
Membership
Irina is a member of International Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association, who monitored her situation during her incarceration.