Yury Afanasyev

[1] Born in a village in the Volga region, Yury Afanasyev graduated from the history department of the Moscow State University (1957) and defended his kandidat and doktor (doctoral and post-doctoral) dissertations in French historiography, specializing in the Annales school.

During Gorbachev's perestroika, Afanasyev gained prominence as a major critic of the officially accepted narrative of Soviet history, especially of the Stalin era.

In June 1989, along with Boris Yeltsin, Andrei Sakharov, and other members of Congress, he launched an opposition faction within it, called The Inter-Regional Group of Deputies, and was elected one of its five co-chairs.

In August–September 1991, in the wake of the victory over the coup, Afanasyev launched the Independent Civic Initiative, a political club of prominent academics and human rights figures which included Yelena Bonner, Leonid Batkin, Lev Timofeyev and others.

[7] In 2005, he openly attacked Vladimir Putin in Novaya gazeta, accusing him of "destroying politics in the country" and "concentrating all the administrative power and financial flows in a narrow circle".