Irina Ratushinskaya, the Soviet poet and dissident who, in 1983, was sentenced to seven years' forced labor for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda"; was among the last political prisoners of the Brezhnev era; and was among the first to be released under Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986, died July 5, the Washington Post reported. She was 63.
Ratushinskaya's imprisonment "nearly killed her, but resulted in an acclaimed memoir, Grey Is the Color of Hope (1988), and more than 250 poems that bore witness to an undiminished optimism," the Post noted, adding that she "wrote her poems on bars of soap, using the burned ends of matchsticks. When the poem was finished and Ms. Ratushinskaya had memorized its text, she hid her creation by washing it away." Her other books include In the Beginning; Dance with a Shadow; Fictions and Lies; and Wind of the Journey.