Zoya Krakhmalnikova (1929–2008)

Zoya Krakhmalnikova was born in Kharkov, Ukraine. Her father was arrested in 1936 during one of Stalin's many purges. She graduated from the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow in 1954 and completed postgraduate work at the Gorky Institute of World Literature. By the 1960s, she was publishing articles in Soviet literary journals and became a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences' Institute of Sociology. She married fellow author Feliks Svetov. She was dismissal from her job and from the USSR Union of Writers after being baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church and writing samizdat articles on the revival of Orthodoxy. This meant she was no longer able to publish her work. She turned to writing articles on Christianity in the Soviet Union, many of which were sent outside of the country to be published.

In 1976, she began publishing Nadezhda (Hope), a Christian journal. She was arrested in 1982 and spent almost a year at the Lefortovo prison awaiting trial. She was convicted and sentenced to a five-year internal exile at a remote settlement in the Altai Republic. Her husband was also arrested and sent into internal exile in Siberia. Both were granted pardons in 1987. After her release, Krakhmalnikova became a pro-democracy activist and publicly called on the Russian Orthodox Church to apologize for its collaboration with Soviet authorities. She wrote her autobiography, which was published in the USA.