MOSCOW —
Mikhail Gorbachev, 91, died on Wednesday
in a Central Moscow hospital “after a serious and long illness”, Russian news
agency reports said. His funeral would be held in the capital on Saturday, the
reports added.
اضافة اعلان
Gorbachev, who changed the course of history
by triggering the demise of the Soviet Union, is hailed as one of the great
figures of the 20th century.
His death triggered an outpouring of tributes
from Western leaders but reaction was muted in
Russia, where many blame the
last Soviet leader for the loss of the country’s status as a global superpower.
His life was one of the most influential of
his times, and his reforms as Soviet leader transformed his country and allowed
Eastern Europe to free itself from Soviet rule, according to AFP.
While the changes he set in motion saw him
lionized in the West, they earned him the scorn of many Russians after the
country was plunged into economic chaos and saw its international influence
decline.
President Vladimir Putin, who called the
Soviet collapse the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, has
spent much of his more than 20-year rule reversing parts of Gorbachev’s legacy.
Funeral
on Saturday
In a
letter of condolences published by the
Kremlin, Putin said Gorbachev “was a
politician and statesman who had a huge impact on the course of world history”.
Other senior Russian officials also described
Gorbachev as an important figure, but said little of his political
accomplishments.
In an hour-long televised meeting of Putin
and his cabinet on Wednesday, Gorbachev’s name did not come up.
His daughter Irina and his foundation told
news agencies a public memorial service would be held on September 3 in the
Moscow Hall of Columns, historically used for funerals of high officials,
including Joseph Stalin in 1953.
Gorbachev will then be buried at the
prestigious Novodevichy cemetery alongside his wife Raisa, who died in 1999.
Russian officials had yet to say whether
Gorbachev would have a state funeral like previous Soviet leaders or if Putin
would be in attendance.
On the streets of Moscow many refused to
comment on Gorbachev’s death, one young Russian even asking who he was.
Those willing to discuss his legacy, mainly
pensioners who fondly remembered the Soviet era, were overwhelmingly negative.
“He was some kind of illiterate politician,
who let such a great country fall apart. And anything good he may have done is
crossed out by that,” said 70-year-old Vladimir Zavkov, as he walked near Red
Square.
“So to me he is just a traitor.”
‘Man
of peace’
But in
the West, where Gorbachev was regarded fondly and affectionately referred to as
Gorby, he was hailed as an iconic figure.
US President Joe Biden credited Gorbachev
with creating “a safer world and greater freedom for millions of people.”
British Prime Minister
Boris Johnson said
Gorbachev’s “tireless commitment to opening up Soviet society remains an
example to us all”, while UN chief Antonio Guterres called him “a one-of-a-kind
statesman”.
French President
Emmanuel Macron praised
Gorbachev as a “man of peace whose choices opened up a path of liberty for
Russians”, and former German chancellor Angela Merkel said he demonstrated how
“one single statesman can change the world for the better”.
Gorbachev was best known for defusing
US-Soviet nuclear tensions in the 1980s as well as bringing Eastern Europe out
from behind the Iron Curtain.
He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for negotiating
a historic nuclear arms pact with US leader Ronald Reagan, and his decision to
withhold the Soviet army when the Berlin Wall fell a year earlier was seen as
key to preserving Cold War peace.
He was also championed in the West for
spearheading reforms to achieve transparency and greater public discussion that
hastened the breakup of the Soviet Union.
He spent much of the past two decades on the
political periphery, intermittently calling for the Kremlin and the White House
to mend ties as tensions soared after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and
launched the offensive in Ukraine earlier this year.
Backed
Crimea annexation
Gorbachev
had supported the Crimea annexation, saying that most people in the peninsula
“wanted to be reunited with Russia”.
He made no public statements on Russia’s
military action in Ukraine, though his foundation called for “an early
cessation (to) hostilities and immediate start of peace negotiations”.
He spent the twilight years of his life in
and out of hospital with increasingly fragile health.
He remained a controversial figure and had a
difficult relationship with Putin.
Many Russians still look back fondly on the
Soviet period, and Putin leans on its achievements to buttress Russia’s claim
to greatness and his own prestige.
As the USSR collapsed, Gorbachev was
superseded by Boris Yeltsin, who became post-Soviet Russia’s first president.
From then on, Gorbachev was relegated to the
sidelines, devoting himself to educational and humanitarian projects.
Supporter
of free press
Russia’s
leading opposition figure — jailed Kremlin critic
Alexei Navalny — praised
Gorbachev in a series of tweets, highlighting his willingness to give up power.
“He stepped down peacefully and voluntarily,
respecting the will of his constituents. This alone is a great feat by the
standards of the former USSR,” Navalny said.
An early supporter of Russia’s leading
independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, founded in 1993, Gorbachev donated part of
his Nobel winnings to help it buy its first computers.
But the newspaper came under increasing
pressure under Putin and suspended publication in late March.
In a tribute published after Gorbachev’s
death, its chief editor Dmitry Muratov, who last year won the
Nobel Peace Prize, hailed him as a man who “put human rights above the state, and valued a
peaceful sky more than personal power”.
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