Tatjana Ždanoka

After the restoration of the independence of Latvia, Ždanoka applied for Latvian citizenship through naturalisation but was denied since her paternal grandmother had moved to St. Peterburg before World War I and not returned to Latvia before 1940.

Much of Ždanoka's paternal family was killed by the Latvian Auxiliary Police in 1941 during the Holocaust.

Tatjana Ždanoka (Татья́на Арка́дьевна Ждано́к, Tatyana Arkadyevna Zhdanok; born 8 May 1950) is a Latvian politician and a Member of the European Parliament.

Tatyana Khesin was born in 1950 in Riga in the family of Soviet navy officer Arkady Khesin and mathematics teacher Tamara Ivanovna, and is of mixed Latvian Jewish-Russian origin.

From 1971 to 1991 Ždanoka was also a member of the Communist Party of Latvia, but maintains she was "not part of the party hierarchy."

In 1972, Ždanoka graduated from the Latvian State University with a degree in mathematics and started teaching mathematics at the university until 1990.

In 1975, she married Aleksandr Zhdanok, whom she divorced in the late 1980s.

In 1980, she gained the Candidate of Sciences degree in physics and mathematics and in 1992 a Doctor of Sciences degree in mathematics, both from the Latvian State University.

Ždanoka became politically active in the late 1980s during the perestroika, first as a member of the Popular Front, then as one of the leaders of the Interfront, a political organization opposing Latvia's independence from the Soviet Union.

From 1988 to 1989 she was one of the leaders of the Interfront, a political front organization opposing Latvia's independence from the Soviet Union and rapid market reforms.

In 1989, she was elected to the Riga City Council, and in 1990, to the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR.

She remained active in the Communist Party of Latvia after January 1991, when the party leadership called for a coup against the government of the Latvian SSR (in opposition to a restoration of independence).

Ždanoka argued that the Communist Party was still legal until September 1991 and she had remained because she believed the Communist Party would be part of the democratic, multi-party system and "considered it dishonest to leave one's party because of hard times."

She is co-chairwoman of the Latvian Russian Union and its predecessor parties (Equal Rights and For Human Rights in a United Latvia) since 1993.

In 2024 she was accused of being a Russian intelligence agent.

She has also been one of the leaders of Equal Rights since it foundation in 1993 and of the For Human Rights in United Latvia alliance.

From 1995 till 2004 Ždanoka was co-chairwoman of the Latvian Human Rights Committee (a member of FIDH).

In 1996, after a lengthy legal battle Ždanoka finally acquired Latvian citizenship, blaming her difficulties on alleged anti-Semitism.

In 1997, Ždanoka was elected to Riga municipal council, but was deprived of the mandate in the Council in 1999 and is prohibited from further nomination for election to the Latvian Parliament or local councils under Latvian law due to her former allegiance with the Communist Party after January 1991.

Together with Alfrēds Rubiks, she is in the peculiar position of being restricted to European Parliament elections only.

Government documents from

2024 linked her to the Russian FSB.

In 1999, Ždanoka was banned from running for the Latvian parliament Saeima and deprived of her seat on Riga City Council, because she had participated in two seats of the Communist Party's Audit Committee after the party leadership called for a coup against the elected government of the Latvian SSR in January 1991.

Subsequently, she sued Latvia in the European Court of Human Rights.

She was named Latvian Russian Union's number 1 candidate for Vidzeme Region, but was removed from the list of candidates by the Latvia's Central Election Commission on the same basis that barred her from running in 1999.

With the court case pending, the Latvian parliament decided not to impose restrictions on former members of the Communist Party in the 2004 European Parliament election.

Ždanoka was elected to the European Parliament in June 2004 and won the court case a few days later with a margin of 5-2.

In 2004, she ran successfully for MEP as a candidate of the largest Russian political bloc in Latvia becoming a member of the Greens–European Free Alliance fraction in the European Parliament.

In 2005, Ždanoka became one of the founders of the EU Russian-Speakers' Alliance.

Latvia appealed the decision to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that Latvia's emergence from totalitarian rule brought about by the occupation of Latvia had not been sufficiently taken into account, and on March 16, 2006, the court ruled 13-4 that Ždanoka's rights had not been violated.

She also won a seat in 2009.

On 11 March 2014, Ždanoka and her party organized a rally at the European Commission Representation in Riga in support of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, participated by about 200 people.

In May, Ždanoka proposed European Council to classify Ukrainian political bloc Right Sector as a terrorist organization.

In response, Ukrainian Congress of Latvia petitioned Ministry of Justice of Latvia to declare the political activities of Ždanoka and her party as anti-constitutional.

A submission was made by another Latvian MEP, Kārlis Šadurskis, to the Latvian state prosecutor to investigate Ždanoka for undermining the Latvian state in her support for Russia.

In his submission, Šadurskis pointed to her participation at events organised by "Essence of Time" that advocates the restoration of the USSR.

The application of Šadurskis was rejected by Security Police who did not find a crime in Ždanoka's actions.

In 2016, Ždanoka voted against the European Parliament resolution of 23 November that condemned the use of disinformation and propaganda by Russia and Islamist terrorist organisations and called for strengthening EU's "strategic communication" task force, as well as investing more in awareness raising, education, online and local media, investigative journalism and information literacy.

Prior to the vote she distributed a letter to other MEPs, saying that the resolution crosses "all red lines" and that Russia's state-sponsored news and information channels are no different to Western media that exhibit "double standards", recommending them to watch Russia Today and form their own opinion of the channel.

In January 2018 Ždanoka left European Parliament and returned to Latvian politics with the intention of running for 2018 Latvian parliamentary election in October.