Opinion: Mikhail Gorbachev’s love affair changed his country and the world

But Gorbachev was the first and last person to hold the title of Soviet president, unlike any other. After him, the Cold War and the Soviet Union no longer existed. And unlike the hardened men who were buried in his own grave or in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Gorbachev will be buried next to his wife Raisa Gorbacheva at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Like Gorbachev’s “Glasnost” and “Perestroika”, left the window open Raisa Gorbachev transformed the Soviet Union into a “new way of thinking” that brought freedom and hope to her fellow citizens, changing the image of Soviet women with her intelligence, social engagement, beauty and style. But what was most revolutionary was their enduring love affair in the gray, oppressive twilight of the Soviet Union.
Who knew that the Soviet leader was passionately in love? And he didn’t hide it. In the 2012 documentary, Gorbachev remembered About Raisa passed away in 1999: “We spent a lifetime holding hands. She had something wonderful…she was like a princess.”

Until Raisa stepped onto the world stage, most of the wives of Soviet leaders were uncouth women, trapped in the shadows of public life. Suddenly she becomes her self-confident, well-educated woman, participating in her husband’s mission to transform Soviet society, a heroine to some citizens and an object of contempt by others. became.

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa Gorbachev meet with former opposition leader Kim Dae-jung on February 6, 1995 in Seoul.
“I know there are people out there who are interested in the exterior of my life,” she said. once admitted in an interview. “They even envy me — for the clothes I wear to formal occasions and my ‘apparel’. My participation in a tremendous undertaking – my husband. ”
Raisa’s own upbringing in the political and social turmoil of Stalin’s Soviet Union gave her valuable insight into the challenges her husband faced trying to reform the country. She met him at the prestigious Moscow State University, where she studied philosophy and he studied law.they Married September 1953the same year Joseph Stalin died.
Raisa I got a PhD in sociology And to interview people, she said, she wrote papers about farmers on collective farms, walking around in boots. Her research, she said, gave her a vivid picture of the realities of life in the Soviet countryside. She called it “sociology with a human face.”
“It was a process of meeting real people, not from books or newspapers, plays or movies.” she said“I have come to understand much of our misfortune and the dubious nature of many uncontroversial claims and established concepts.”
Opinion: Mikhail Gorbachev's haunting words on what the world really needs

As Gorbachev rose to the position of Soviet leader, he always put Raisa first and spoke with her on the phone several times a day, he said. The most traumatic moment in their public and personal lives came in August 1991, when hardliners staged a coup against Gorbachev and his reformers and sequestered the couple in a residence in Crimea. did. They were released three days after her, but Raisa suffered a stroke. In July 1999, she was diagnosed with leukemia and flew to Germany for her treatment.Two months later, a few days before her 46th wedding anniversary, she died at the age of 67.

I reported on Raisa’s memorial service held at the Russian Cultural Foundation, just one of the many civic groups she supported.Her husband and her only child Irina, Raisa’s sister Tatiana, sat sadly by her coffin.

That day I spoke with some of the people who came to pay their respects to Raisa… Thank God there are women like her!”

Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa Gorbachev on their first visit to London, England, December 18, 1984.
In the fall of 2020, a play called “Gorbachev”, which humanized the Soviet president and his wife, was staged in Moscow. Raisa is played by Russian actress Chulpan Khamatova. who fled Moscow after Russia invaded UkraineUpon breaking the news of Gorbachev’s death, Kamartova spoke from Riga, Latvia, to Russian independent television station TV Rain about Gorbachev’s “eternal love” for Raisa.

She was asked how she would describe the former president. “Romantic, very human, naive, good sense of humor, pacifist, modesty, all these traits are not needed in politics.”

“Thanks to him” she said“There is immunity for inconvenience.”

One of the greatest gifts Mikhail Gorbachev gave his fellow Russians was to free them from the stereotypes of the Soviet Union and inspire them to live their lives on the basis of their individual freedom. Discuss what you want to talk about.

He himself was a real person, a “Cherovek”, as the Russians say, and so was his life partner Raisa.

after she died He said: “I’ve never felt so lonely in my life… I hope to see you again.”

Source: www.cnn.com

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