In physics, the exclusion principle holds that an electron within an atom, once in orbit, excludes any other particle from occupying exactly the same orbit. That may be as apt a metaphor as any for the unique odyssey of the collection of atoms that was Andrei Sakharov. The life of the dissident Russian physicist — acclaimed as both the creator of the Soviet H-bomb and the conscience of his country — spanned the years from Lenin to Gorbachev, the rise and fall of Soviet communism and the triumph of physics. Who but Sakharov could so personify such an age?
Now, more than 12 years after his death at 68, the remarkable Russian is the subject of an authoritative, entertaining and compelling new book, Sakharov: A Biography (Brandeis University Press; 465 pages). Written by Richard Lourie, a U.S. author and filmmaker who translated Sakharov’s Memoirs into English, it is the first full biography of this multifaceted 20th century giant. Along with the facts of Sakharov’s life, Lourie provides vivid historical and social details — some drawn from KGB files — that flesh out the story of an independent thinker in science and politics alike.
Descended from a long line of Russian Orthodox priests, Sakharov was born, writes Lourie, into a family that valued “Russian and European culture, Christianity, patriotism, hard work, high ideals, modesty, courtesy, a quiet but implacable independence.” At 12, he was taken by his teacher-scientist father to a laboratory and shown, in Sakharov’s words, “dazzling miracles, but miracles I could understand.”
Sakharov loved what classical physics taught him: observation, logic, experimentation and doubt. But Hiroshima changed everything for the young physicist. Learning of the U.S. atomic bomb attack on Japan in 1945, Sakharov related: “I was so stunned that my legs practically gave way. There could be no doubt that my fate and the fate of many others, perhaps of the entire world, had changed overnight. Something new and awesome had entered our lives, a product of the greatest of the sciences, of the discipline I revered.” Before long, he found himself seconded to work with an lite group ordered to provide the Soviet Union with an identical weapon. Ever a patriot, he had no political doubts or moral qualms about the weapon he would help to design. Those would come later, as he calculated the number of deaths and genetic mutations that could be expected over generations. Sakharov pleaded with Khrushchev to discontinue bomb testing, and wept in “unbearable bitterness, shame and humiliation” when his urgings to the leaders of the country he had helped to make a superpower were rebuffed.
By the 1960s, Sakharov was both an oft-decorated Hero of the Soviet Union and an increasingly astute figure politically, moving “toward purer science and toward the highly impure world of social activism.” He became an outspoken critic of repression, an intervener on behalf of dissidents and a force within the nascent Soviet human- rights movement. Years were marked by highs and lows: in 1968, Sakharov was barred from all military research; in 1972, he married his soulmate and second wife, the activist Elena Bonner; in 1975, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Kremlin finally lost patience, and Sakharov was exiled to the closed city of Gorky in 1980 after he condemned the invasion of Afghanistan. There he remained until 1986, when Mikhail Gorbachev — then in power about a year — told the Politburo that Sakharov “appears to have a good head and seems to use it for the good of the country.” The exile could return to Moscow. At the time of his death from a heart attack in 1989, he was a member of the Congress of People’s Deputies, intent on reforming the Soviet constitution.
What Sakharov might have conceived and discovered “if not for his work on thermonuclear weapons and human rights” is a reasonable but fundamentally meaningless question, concludes Lourie. “He created himself through his choices,” he writes, and “like everyone else, was formed by a fate he did not get to choose.” Sakharov, Lourie says, is “as elusive in death as he was in life,” something that is reflected in the stars. An asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter is named for him. It streaks through space, only .1% off perfect orbit.
More Must-Reads from TIME
- L.A. Fires Show Reality of 1.5°C of Warming
- Home Losses From L.A. Fires Hasten ‘An Uninsurable Future’
- The Women Refusing to Participate in Trump’s Economy
- Bad Bunny On Heartbreak and New Album
- How to Dress Warmly for Cold Weather
- We’re Lucky to Have Been Alive in the Age of David Lynch
- The Motivational Trick That Makes You Exercise Harder
- Column: No One Won The War in Gaza
Contact us at letters@time.com