Limonov, Eduard

(1943– )

   Given name: Eduard Veniaminovich Savenko. Writer, dissident, and political party leader. Born on 22 February 1943 in Dzerzhinsk to a career NKVD officer and an educated homemaker, he grew up in Kharkiv, Ukraine, before moving to Moscow in 1967 where he became a poet. Due to the graphic nature of his writings and his counterculture leanings, he was stripped of his citizenship and expelled from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Limonov lived in New York City and Paris before gaining French citizenship. Returning to Russia after having his Soviet citizenship restored by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989, he soon became active in politics, establishing the ultranationalist, antigovernment National Bolshevik Party in 1993. Limonov gained international notoriety for his unabashed support of the Bosnian Serbs, even being filmed with indicted war criminal Radovan Karadžić and firing a machine gun at Muslim-held Sarajevo. Limonov was jailed on terrorism and weapons charges in 2001 stemming from an article in his newspaper, Limonka, stating his intention to form an army, invade Kazakhstan, and create a “second Russia.” He was paroled after two years for good behavior. He was arrested again in 2007 for participating in an antigovernment rally in Moscow.

   See also Serbia.