Human rights activist Nina Litvinova dies by suicide at 80, leaving note blaming Putin
Nina Litvinova, who dedicated her life to supporting political prisoners in the USSR and Russia, died by suicide in Moscow on May 12. Her suicide note, made public by her cousin, accuses Putin of killing innocent people in Ukraine and jailing thousands at home.
A Life Devoted to Prisoners
On May 12, dissident and human rights activist Nina Litvinova died by suicide in Moscow. From the late 1960s onward, she dedicated her entire life to helping political prisoners, first under the Soviet regime and later in Russia. Her cousin, journalist Masha Slonim, released the note Litvinova left behind.
“Putin has attacked Ukraine and is killing innocent people, and here at home he endlessly jails thousands of people who suffer and die there because, like me, they are against the war and against killing... I tried to help them, but my strength gave out, and day and night I am tormented by my own helplessness,” the letter read. “Putin killed her!” Slonim said.
A Family Marked by Fear and Freedom
Litvinova’s family history reflects the fears and hopes of generations of the Russian intelligentsia. Her grandmother, Ivy Low, an Englishwoman of Jewish heritage, wrote a farewell letter in 1938, hoping it would reach her family if she were arrested. She was married to Maxim Litvinov, a Bolshevik and Soviet foreign commissar who was dismissed in 1939 as Stalin sought rapprochement with Hitler.
After Maxim Litvinov’s death in 1951, the family lived in constant fear. Nina’s mother, Flora Litvinova, a biologist, endured Lysenkoism and knew composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who was forced to repent publicly. Her diaries reflected the pervasive fear and its conquest.
Nina grew up shaped by two very different grandmothers: Ivy, who embodied a spirit of freedom, and Perla, a Jewish grandmother who taught caution. “I completely understand all those frightened Jews,” Nina later admitted. “I, too, belong to the generation of the frightened.”
Her cousin Masha Slonim saw their generation as the first to stop being afraid. This contrast may have set apart the fates of the two cousins, so alike in appearance.
