Semen Hluzman

Semyon Gluzman (Kyiv, 1946 – 2026) was a Ukrainian psychiatrist and human rights activist, one of the central figures of dissent in the Soviet Union. His case shows how psychiatry was used for political ends in the Soviet bloc, and how some members of the medical profession pushed back against it.

Born in Kyiv into a close-knit Jewish family, he qualified in medicine in 1968 and worked in Ukrainian psychiatric hospitals. In 1971 he wrote a report, without examining him in person, on General Petro Grigorenko, concluding that Grigorenko was sane and had been confined for political reasons. For defending him, Gluzman served seven years in a labor camp and three years in Siberian exile. Amnesty International listed him in 1977 among imprisoned members of the medical profession, and while in prison he co-wrote with Vladimir Bukovsky a manual on psychiatry for dissidents.

After the Soviet collapse he founded in 1991 the independent Ukrainian Psychiatric Association, along with a commission to handle complaints about civil rights violations in mental health care. In 2008 he received the Geneva Prize for Human Rights in Psychiatry. His research covered psychiatry in Ukraine and the health consequences of the Chernobyl accident.