According to relatives and colleagues of the public figure, Sergey Adamovich Kovalev died in his sleep at dawn at five o'clock in the morning at the age of 91.
Alexei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of the Ekho Moskvy radio station, said that the death of the human rights defender is not related to the coronavirus. Venediktov recalled that during the terrorist attack in Budennovsk, Kovalev voluntarily became a hostage in, offering himself instead of the captured civilians. The human rights activist spent more than a day in a bus among Basayev's terrorists.
Sergey Kovalev was born in Ukraine in the city of Seredina-Buda in the family of a railway employee. In childhood and adolescence, he lived in the working village of Podlipki near Moscow, was a champion in boxing in the Moscow region in the youth category. He graduated from the biology department of Moscow State University and was engaged in biophysics, was the author of more than 60 scientific papers. He stood up for genetics, and in 1966 organized a collection of signatures under an appeal to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in defense of Andrei Sinyavsky and Julius Daniel.
Kovalev began active human rights activities in 1968, participated in the publication of the samizdat edition of the Chronicle of Current Events. A year after the start of public work, he became a member of the initiative group for the protection of human rights in the USSR. This group was the first independent human rights NGO in the country.
“For the release of samizdat in 1975, he was sentenced to seven years in prison and three years in exile under an article on anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. After serving his sentence, he settled in Kalinin, and returned to Moscow in 1987", - Interfax notes.
After his release, Kovalev was elected to the Supreme Council of the RSFSR. Then he was elected to the State Duma of the I, II and III convocations, was the first ombudsman for human rights in Russia in 1994-1995 and the first chairman of the Human Rights Commission under the President in 1993-1996, since 1990 he became co-chairman of the human rights society "Memorial" , which is now recognized in the Russian Federation as a foreign agent.
Since 2006, Kovalev has been a member of the Yabloko party, a member of its “human rights faction” and the federal political committee.
In connection with the death of Kovalev, the famous historian, publicist and public figure Tamara Eidelman published an obituary "In Memory of the Righteous".
Tamara Eidelman recalled that Sergey Kovalev caused strong irritation to his opponents.
“A human rights activist with a huge experience, he was no stranger to the streams of hatred and slander, to the slops of“ people's anger ”. The collection of signatures in defense of Sinyavsky and Daniel, the publication of the Chronicle of Current Events - all this already in the 60s and 70s turned him from a respected scientist, candidate of biological sciences, head of a department at a scientific institute - into an outcast, unemployed, renegade, and then in the political prisoner.
What should happen in the soul of a biologist, accustomed to view the world as a system in which certain forces operate, which cannot be changed, so that he leaves his desk, abandons his experiments, and goes to fight against the state, whose power seemed to be superior it multiple times? Probably, a clear and clear conviction that one cannot calmly look at the injustices that are being done. What strength should this conviction be? And the point, I suppose, is not only in her.
All those who, in Soviet times, dared to oppose the system, were courageous and firm - otherwise, how to decide to resist Leviathan? But in Kovalev, it is not so much courage that is striking, which, of course, he had a lot, as - pardon the pretentiousness - love for people. That feeling, which is very difficult to keep in yourself, when you go against the tide for many years, constantly feel tension from the fact that you are being persecuted, slandered, insulted. How many examples do we know when people in such a situation either break down, or themselves turn into clones of their opponents, only with the opposite sign.
And Sergey Adamovich calmly, with some incredible dignity, for many years continued to do what he considered necessary - to defend the rights of prisoners - any, because whoever you were at liberty, you should not be tortured and humiliated in the zone.
Defend human rights - where they needed protection - at the post of the Commissioner or in the fires of Grozny. To defend the Russians and Chechens, to defend the hostages in the hospital in Budennovsk - no matter what abominations the warriors thought up about him, he defended EVERYONE, and how clearly it is clear from today that he was right when, in those terrible December days of 1994, he tried to do the doomed deed - to stop the war, understanding, anticipating what kind of unhealed ulcer it will develop over the years. And he said what he thought, without thinking about the consequences, although there were immediately those who perverted and misinterpreted his words and actions.
But no matter what happened around him, no matter what new horrors befall our unfortunate country, he continued to preach love. Unlike Nekrasov's hero, he did not want to "preach love with the hostile word of denial", he simply preached love, no - he defended love with all his actions and performances.
And he died in a dream - the death of the righteous. May the earth rest in peace to you, Sergey Adamovich”, - wrote Tamara Eidelman.