The dissident writer, playwright, poet, and historian Andrei Amalrik is best known for his 1969 essay Prosushchestvuet li Sovetskii Soiuz do 1984 goda" (translated as Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984" 1970), the first work to predict openly the dissolution of the Soviet empire. His other books include the memoir Nezhelannoe puteshestvie v Sibir' (1970; translated as Involuntary Journey to Siberia, 1970), which recounts his first term of exile from Moscow; P'esy (Plays, 1970; translated as Nose! Nose? No-se! and Other Plays, 1973), a volume of absurdist plays; a biography of Grigorii Rasputin (translated, 1982; Russian version, 1992); a memoir of his later life, Zapiski dissidenta (1982; translated as Notes of a Revolutionary, 1982); and a collection of traditional poetry. Most of his works were published only abroad.

Andrei Alekseevich Amalrik was born in Moscow on 12 May 1938 into a family of dissidents: one of his paternal uncles was executed in a Stalinist purge, and another was sent to a...