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Zhores Aleksandrovich Medvedev (Russian: Жорес Медведев) (born in Tbilisi, Georgia on November 14, 1925) is a Russian biologist, historian and dissident. His first name is properly spelled Jaurès, as he was named for the French socialist leader.

He is famous for exposing the nuclear disaster which occurred at Mayak near Kyshtym, Ozyorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast in the Urals in 1957. He was one of the earliest victims of official attempts to stifle opposition by detaining dissidents in mental institutions. He was diagnosed as suffering from "sluggishly progressing schizophrenia" and was placed by force to psikhushka in 1970. Academicians Pyotr Kapitsa and Andrei Sakharov defended him. According to Sakharov, "Medvedev's work in two disparate fields - biology and political science - was regarded as evidence of a split personality...In fact, his detention was the Lysenkovites' revenge for his book attacking them." ^[1]

He was exiled in 1973 from the Soviet Union and now lives with his wife in London where he is a senior research scientist for the National Institute for Medical Research and now a specialist in gerontology.

He is the author of "The Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko" (1969), "The Medvedev Papers" (1971), "Soviet Science" (1978), and "The Nuclear Disaster in the Urals" (1979).

His twin brother Roy Medvedev is a historian, they coauthored Khrushchev: The Years in Power released in 1978. The brothers also wrote several other books. He had two sons, one of whom is deceased. The other, Dimitri, ran The Blue Bridge café in Camden, London, before moving to the West Country.

• Unknown Stalin: His Life, Death, and Legacy (with Roy Medvedev, Ellen Dahrendorf - Translator) (Overlook Press, 2005) ISBN 1-58567-644-6
• Legacy of Chernobyl (W W Norton & Co Inc, 1992) ISBN 0-393-30814-6
• Soviet Agriculture (W W Norton & Co Inc, 1988) ISBN 0-393-02472-5
• Gorbachev (W W Norton & Co Inc, 1987) ISBN 0-393-30408-6
• Andropov (W W Norton & Co Inc, 1983) ISBN 0-393-01791-5
• Nuclear Disaster in the Urals (1980) ISBN 0-394-74445-4
• Gorbachev (1986) ISBN 0-631-14782-9
• Molecular-Genetic Mechanisms of Development (1970) ISBN 0-306-30403-1
• Medvedev Papers: Fruitful Meetings between Scientists of the World (1971) ISBN 0-333-12520-7
• Ten Years after Ivan Denisovich (1974) ISBN 0-394-71112-2
• Hazards of Nuclear Power (with Alan Roberts) (1977) ISBN 0-85124-211-1
• Secrecy of Correspondence Is Guaranteed by Law (1975) ISBN 0-85124-128-X
• Stalin and the Jewish Question: New Analysis (2003, in Russian) ISBN 5-7712-0251-7
• Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov: Two Prophets (with Roy Medvedev) (2004, in Russian) ISBN 5-94117-065-3
• Rise & Fall Of Trofim D. Lysenko ISBN 0-231-03183-1
• Medvedev Papers: The Plight Of Soviet Science ISBN 3-331-25207-7
• A Question Of Madness (with Roy Medvedev) ISBN 0-14-003783-7
• Nuclear Disaster In The Urals (Trans George Saunders) ISBN 0-207-95896-3
• Khrushchev: The Years In Power (with Roy Medvedev) ISBN 0-8357-0154-9
• National Frontiers & International Scientific Cooperation (Medvedev Papers) ISBN 0-85124-127-1

• A series of articles on Alexander Litvinenko poisoning in Gazeta 2000 and Krasnoyarsky Rabochy, March-April 2007, in Russian:
  • A sickness without the diagnosis. Machine translation.
  • Polonium in London. Machine translation.
  • Scotland Yard detectives follow the radioactive trace. Machine translation.
  • Litvinenko in London. A fateful business consutation. Machine translation.
  • Litvinenko in London. From consultations to blackmailing. Machine translation.
  • Why Scotland Yard ceased the investigation. Machine translation.

1. ^ Vadim J. Birstein. The Perversion Of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science. Westview Press (2004) ISBN 0813342805