Vladimir Bukovsky  

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Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (30 December 1942 – 27 October 2019) was a Russian-born British human rights activist and writer. From the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, he was a prominent figure in the Soviet dissident movement, well known at home and abroad. He spent a total of twelve years in the psychiatric prison-hospitals, labour camps, and prisons of the Soviet Union.

After being expelled from the Soviet Union in late 1976, Bukovsky remained in vocal opposition to the Soviet system and the shortcomings of its successor regimes in Russia. An activist, a writer, and a neurophysiologist, he is celebrated for his part in the campaign to expose and halt the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.

While in prison Vladimir Bukovsky and his fellow inmate, the psychiatrist Semyon Gluzman, wrote a brief 20-page Manual on Psychiatry for Dissidents, which was widely published abroad, in Russian (1975) and in many other languages: English, French, Italian, German, Danish. It instructed potential victims of political psychiatry how to behave during interrogation to avoid being diagnosed as mentally ill.

Documentaries

• Bukovsky (1977) - documentary by Alan Clarke.
• They Chose Freedom (2005) (4 parts) – documentary by Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr.
• Russia/Chechnya: Voices of Dissent (2005) – with Bukovsky, Yelena Bonner, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Anna Politkovskaya, Akhmed Zakayev and others.
• The Soviet Story (2008) – documentary by Edvīns Šnore
• Parallels, Events, People (2014) (36 parts) – documentary series by Natella Boltyanskaya

See also

• Political abuse of psychiatry
• Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union
• Psikhushka
• The Soviet Story (2008)- documentary