My friend Edward Lozansky died on April 30, 2025. He is survived by his wife Tatiana, their daughter, four grandchildren, two sisters, extended family, and friends from around the world.
He was born in Kyiv in February 1941. Later that same year, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union.
Edward’s grandfather was murdered at Babi Yar, one of the Holocaust’s worst massacres. Over two days in September 1941, 33,771 Jews were murdered.
As Nazi forces advanced, Edward fled with his mother, grandmother, and sister to the Urals. His father served in the Red Army.
After the war, the family returned to a cramped kommunalka — a Soviet communal apartment — where six people lived in one room. They shared a kitchen and bathroom with five other families.
Edward earned his undergraduate degree from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Engineering and later received a Ph.D. in theoretical and mathematical physics from the Moscow Institute of Atomic Energy.
He went on to conduct nuclear research at the Kurchatov Institute and taught at the Moscow Military Academy. The Kurchatov Institute served as the central hub of Soviet nuclear research and played a crucial role in the development of the Soviet atomic bomb.
During this time, he tutored several students in math, including his future wife, Tatiana. She was the daughter of General Ivan Yershov, Chief of Staff of the Kiev Military District and a close associate of KGB chief Vitaly Fedorchuk.
Though well-connected and comfortable by Soviet standards, Lozansky hated communism. Influenced by Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, he began distributing samizdat, hand-copied forbidden literature.
In 1974, the KGB warned him to stop. Edward knew he could no longer live in the Soviet Union — he refused to live by their rules.
Even if he never read Prometheus Bound, Edward lived as if he believed Aeschylus’s words: “All spirits are enslaved that serve things evil.”
In 1976, Edward applied to emigrate. At the time, Soviet citizens needed parental permission to emigrate.
General Yershov knew his career would be ruined if his daughter emigrated. Edward and Tatiana agreed to a sham divorce, planning to reunite in the West after the general received a promotion.
Shortly after Edward left, the general reneged on the deal. Edward’s wife and daughter were barred from leaving the Soviet Union.
For the next six years, Edward campaigned tirelessly for their release. When he met Mother Teresa, she told him, “The Soviet rulers are governed by fear. … Even granting people a little freedom terrifies them.”
Edward took Mother Teresa’s words to heart and skillfully used the media to embarrass the Soviet regime.
In 1982, Tatiana staged a 35-day hunger strike. General Yershov ultimately relented, knowing she was willing to die rather than remain separated from her husband.
In 1988, Edward returned to Moscow at the invitation of Dr. Yuri Ossipyan, Gorbachev’s science adviser and vice president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. There, he met Alexander Yakovlev, who was then one of Gorbachev’s top advisers and the architect of Glasnost.
Yakovlev delivered a stunning message: The Soviet Union was prepared to embrace core Western values, including a multi-party system, press freedom and freedom of emigration.
Yakovlev also floated the idea of a new Marshall Plan in exchange for an alliance between the U.S. and USSR. Lozansky could hardly believe it.
During that same visit, Edward persuaded his father-in-law to publicly apologize to Alexander Dubček for his role in the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
For the remaining 37 years of his life, Edward traveled frequently between the U.S. and Russia, organizing academic exchanges, cultural forums, and high-level conferences. In Washington, he built relationships with members of Congress, think tank leaders, and journalists.
He remained active in Russian civic life, advocating for democratic and market reforms.
Sadly, Edward’s vision of a U.S.–Russia alliance remains far from realization, but the potential benefits of such a partnership cannot be dismissed.
Having belonged to the elite of both the Soviet Union in the 1970s and Washington in the 1980s and 1990s, Edward saw a disturbing parallel: Both systems rewarded cowardice and opportunism over truth.
In each country, few dared to challenge their respective foreign policy establishments that profited from decades of unrelenting hostility.
Edward Lozansky loved America. Having lived through communism, he remained forever grateful to this country for giving him and his family the chance to live in freedom.
He embodied the finest Russian qualities: an iron will, a relentless commitment to learning, and the courage to overcome repression and endure the pain of antisemitism.
From extreme poverty, he rose to become a distinguished nuclear physicist and a principled dissident.
In a life filled with many accomplishments, he valued above all his wife and their family.
I learned so much from him.
I will miss him.
Robert Zapesochny is a researcher and writer. His work focuses on foreign affairs, national security, and presidential history. He's been published in numerous outlets, including The American Spectator, The Washington Times, and The American Conservative. When he's not writing, Robert works for a medical research company in New York. Read Robert Zapesochny's Reports — More Here.
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