Irina ( forword) Keston College, Ratushinskaya

Irina Ratushinskaya was a Ukrainian-born Soviet dissident poet and physicist, born in Odessa in 1954, who graduated from Odessa University with a Master's degree in physics and became a teacher.[1][2][4] Arrested in 1982 for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda, she was sentenced to seven years of hard labor in a strict regime labor camp, where she composed and memorized poems on soap bars and cigarette papers, which were smuggled out by her husband.[1][2][4] Released in 1986 for medical treatment, she lived in the US and UK before returning to Moscow, where she died of cancer on July 5, 2017, at age 63.[2][4][5]