The International Non-Govermental foundation for socio-economic and p... http://www.gorby.

ru/en/gorbacheva/biography/

Print Back

Raisa Maksomovna Gorbachev was born in a West-

Siberian (now the Altai Krai) town of Rubtsovsk on
January 5th, 1932 into a family of railway construction
engineer Maksim Andreevich Titarenko (1907- 1986)
and Aleksandra Petrovna Parada.
Raisa Gorbachev’s father, a native of the Chernigov Oblast in
the Ukraine, moved to the Altai Krai in 1929 to build railways,
where he met his future wife. Aleksandra Parada’s parents –
Pyotr Stepanovich Parada and his wife Anastasia Vasilyevna–
were peasants in many generations. Like millions of peasant
families in Russia, they suffered hardship of peasant life before
the Bolshevik Revolution and during Stalin’s collectivization. In
early 1930s, Pyotr Parada’s family was disposed of their
property as kulaks (wealthy peasants); Pyotr was charged of
Trotskyism and executed. Raisa’s grandmother, the wife of a
‘people’s enemy,’ died of sorrow and hunger; her four children
were left to the mercy of fate.
As a railway construction engineer, Maxim Titarenko had to
travel extensively around the country along with his family,
moving from one place to another. It was only forty years later
that he, with great difficulties, got a permanent home. Raisa
changed many schools but always did very well in school –
and in 1949 she left secondary school with a gold medal in
Sterlitamak, Barshkiria. This award entitled her to enter any
higher educational institution in the Soviet Union without
entrance examination. Raisa Titarenko chose to enter the
Philosophy Department of Moscow State University. Years later
she would recall her student years: “We were happy. Happy
with our youth and with our hopes for the future. Even just
with being alive. That we were studying at the university. That
was what we valued.”
As a university student, Raisa Titarenko received not only the
fundamental knowledge, but also met new and bright people.
Among her fellow-students were Merab Mamardashvili, a
future renowned philosopher, and Yury Levada, who would
later become a prominent Soviet sociologist. But the turning
point in Raisa’s life was the acquaintance with Mikhail
Gorbachev, a student of the law department of Moscow State
University. On September 25, 1953 the couple got married and
celebrated this student wedding in the university hostel at
Stromynka Street.
After the graduation of Moscow University in 1955, Mikhail
Gorbachev was sent to Stavropol as a lawyer.
In January 1957 Raisa Gorbachev gave birth to daughter Irina.
In the first four years of her residence in Stavropol Raisa
Gorbachev could not find job in accordance with her diploma.
She lectured at the Stavropol branch of the All-
Russian “Znanie” ('knowledge' in Russian), taught at the
Philosophy Department of Stavropol Medical Institute and
Stavropol Agricultural Institute. She also did sociological
research, which, as she would admit later, played an important
role in her academic career. The findings of her sociological
studies provided the basis for her thesis The Development of
New Features in the Life of the Peasantry in the Collective
Farms (based on the findings of sociological research
conducted in the Stavropol Krai). She defended her
dissertation in sociology in 1967 in the Lenin Moscow State
Pedagogial Institute. "The sociological researches in which I
took part for many years, recalled Raisa Gorbachev, availed
me of meetings with people, gave me bright pictures and
realities of life filled with such a tremendous psychological
depth which I shall never forget. Hundreds of people whom I
have questioned on a whole variety of subjects, their
recollections, stories and opinions of current events, remain in

1 of 4 5/25/2018, 15:35
The International Non-Govermental foundation for socio-economic and p... http://www.gorby.ru/en/gorbacheva/biography/

my memory and are the part of my life. I know what their

daily life is like and what their problems are. I have traveled
hundreds of kilometers along country roads, in a passing car,
on a motorcycle or a cart, and sometimes I just walked in my
rubber boots... My “practical sociology” is sociology with a
human face, with the faces and the lives that have become
part of my destiny. It has deepened very sharply my
conception of “real life” and my understanding of life and
people. And it was in the course of such meetings with real
people, and not from books or newspapers, not from plays or
films, that I came to understand many of our misfortunes and
the questionable nature of many undisputed assertions and
established concepts”.
In Stavropol the Gorbachevs obtained a room in a communal
apartment – an apartment shared by two or more families.
They would get an official flat years later after the election of
Mikhail Gorbachev as first secretary of the Stavropol Krai party
committee. Asked about how she felt in the role of a highly-
placed party leader’s wife, Raisa Gorbachev said: “The
‘temptation’with power meant for me primarily new and added
alarms and worries connected with my husband’s work in
addition to my regular professional and family cares. First
came our joint concern, of course, for the affairs of the region.
But our new situation changed our lives to a certain extent
from another point of view: it improved the family’s financial
position, provided better opportunities for medical treatment,
and it extended our circle of contacts and acquaintances.”
Owing to the election of Mikhail Gorbachev as secretary of the
Central Committee of the Soviet Union Communist Party, the
Gorbachevs moved to Moscow. In Moscow Raisa Gorbachev
continued her professional career as a lecturer at Moscow
State University and All-Russian ‘Znanie’ Society.
With the election of Mikhail Gorbachev as the General
Secretary of the Soviet Union Communist Party in April 1985,
Raisa's life radically changed. As the wife of the head of state,
she accompanied her husband in all his domestic and foreign
trips – first time in the Soviet history appearing in public as
“First Lady.” Raisa Gorbachev was the first to break the image
of “shadow” wives of Soviet leaders. However, her public
appearances beside her husband as the First Lady were
considered controversially by ordinary people, who primarily
paid attention to the apparel she wore in public. ‘There are
people, I know, who are interested in the external side of my
life, admitted Raisa Gorbachev in an interview. They even
envy me - for the clothes I wear and my ‘apparel’ on formal
occasions… But I value something quite different – my
participation in the tremendous undertakings that have fallen
to the lot of someone close to me – my husband.’
In foreign countries Raisa Gorbachev’s personality aroused
great interest and admiration. In 1987 the British magazine
Woman’s Own named Raisa Gorbachev Woman of the Year;
the International Foundation “Together for Peace” awarded
Raisa Gorbachev the Women For Peace prize; in 1991 she won
the Lady of the Year award. In the eyes of the world
community Raisa Gorbachev was always an associate of the
Soviet President and “the envoy of peace.”

After 1985 Raisa Gorbachev dedicated herself to the public

and charity activities. Along with Academician Dmitry
Likhachev, Georgy Myasnikov and other prominent cultural
figures, she established the Soviet (later renamed Russian)
Cultural Foundation which she co-chaired. She saw its major
mission in humanizing relations between people, developing
cultural dialogue between the peoples of her country and
other nations, and protection of what is known as the cultural
layer of civilization. During her presidency of the Russian
Cultural Foundation the Soviet Union received more than 50
thousand items of Russian emigre archives and periodical
editions, priceless objects and works of arts that had been
taken out of Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution.

2 of 4 5/25/2018, 15:35
The International Non-Govermental foundation for socio-economic and p... http://www.gorby.ru/en/gorbacheva/biography/

From 1981 to 1991 the Soviet Cultural Foundation raised and

contributed to the development of the national culture the
funds amounting to one hundred million US dollars. Raisa
Gorbacheva provided financial support to the Andrei Rublyov
Museum of Ancient Russian Art, the Marina Tsvetaeva
Museum, the Pushkin Museum of Personal Collections,
Peterhof’s Benois Museum, the Roerich Museum and many
other provincial museums and libraries.
Under Mikhail Gorbachev’s presidency, Raisa Gorbachev co-
chaired the Aid for the Children of Chernobyl Fund,
patronized the association Hematologists of the World – For
the Children and Moscow’s Central Children’s Hospital.
In memory of Raisa Gorbachev, who committed herself to
combating children’s lieukemia, Raisa Gorbacheva Memorial
Institute of Children’s Hematology and Transplantation was set
up in Saint Petersburg; its opening ceremony took place on
September 20, 2007. Within one year only since its foundation
the hospital saved over 500 children from the fatal illness.
The heaviest experience Raisa Gorbachev had to go through
was the August 1991 coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev.
Held under arrest along with her family in the President’s
dacha in Foros - a resort townlet in the Crimea - Raisa took
hard the treason of Gorbachev’s close associates and really
feared for the lives of her immediate relatives. As a result of
psychological stress, Raisa Gorbachev had a microinsult which
seriously affected her health, causing darkening of vision and
speech disturbances.
Following the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev as President of
the USSR in December 1991, Raisa Gorbachev took an active
part in the establishment and work of the Gorbachev
Foundation. She also did a great job verifying facts and figures
for the books that Mikhail Gorbachev wrote after his
resignation.
In March 1997 Raisa Gorbachev set up and led The Raisa
Maksimovna Club. The Club, whose members are prominent
cultural and academic persons, public figures and journalists,
meant to promote participation of women in the country’s
public life, discussion and development of plans to combat
children’s homelessness, growing violence in society and
families, gender inequality and other acute social problems.
The Raisa Maksimovna Club, now chaired by Irina M.
Virganskaya, daughter of Raisa and Mikhail Gorbachev,
continues its activity by holding conferences, organizing
charity events and providing support to practical social
projects.
July 22, 1999 doctors of the Hematology Institute of the
Russian Academy of Medical Sciences diagnosed Raisa
Gorbachev with lieukemia. She underwent treatment in
Munster University clinic, Germany, that was carried out by
best European hematologists and oncologists. However,
despite tremendous efforts to save her life, Raisa Gorbachev
died on September 20, 1999 without gaining conscious.
The sudden illness and tragic death of Raisa Gorbachev shook
the world and especially Russian people. While staying in the
Muster hospital Raisa Gorbachev received thousands of letters
and telegrams from around the world containing wishes of
rapid recovery. Reading those letters, shortly before her
death, Raisa said: “I had to get sick with such a fatal illness
and die to make people understand me”.
Raisa Gorbacheva was buried at Novodevichye cemetery in
Moscow. Thousands of people came to say the last farewell to
her.
Looking back on her life journey with Mikhail Gorbachev, Raisa
Gorbachev wrote in her autobiographic book I hope: "We have
had everything in our life – joy and sorrow, tremendously hard
work and colossal nervous strain, successes and failures,
poverty, hunger and material well-being. He and I have gone
through it all while still preserving the original basis of our
relationship and our devotion to our ideas and ideals. I believe

3 of 4 5/25/2018, 15:35
The International Non-Govermental foundation for socio-economic and p... http://www.gorby.ru/en/gorbacheva/biography/

that strength of spirit, courage and firmness will help my

husband today to withstand the unprecedented ordeals of the
most difficult stage of our life. I hope.”

URL of the current page: http://www.gorby.ru/en/gorbacheva/biography/

© 2010 The Gorbachev Foundation www.gorby.media5.com

The International Foundation
for Socio-economic
and Political Studies

4 of 4 5/25/2018, 15:35