Raisa Maximovna Gorbacheva (Russian: Раи́са Макси́мовна Горбачёва), maiden name Raisa Maximovna Titarenko (Раи́са Макси́мовна Титаре́нко) (January 5, 1932 - September 20, 1999) was the wife of the last leader of the Soviet Union. She is known overwhelmingly (though erroneously) throughout the English-speaking world as Raisa Gorbachev.

She met her future husband, Mikhail Gorbachev while a sociology student at Moscow State University. They were married in September 1953 and upon graduation moved to Mr Gorbachev's home region of Stavropol in southern Russia. There, Mrs Gorbachev taught Marxist-Leninist philosophy and in 1956 gave birth to their only child, daughter Irina Mihailovna Virganskaya (Ири́на Миха́йловна Вирганская).

When her husband returned to Moscow as a rising Communist Party official, Raisa Gorbacheva took a job as a lecturer at her alma mater, Moscow State University. On the death of Premier Konstantin Chernenko in 1985, her husband became the leader of the Soviet Union. She gave up her job and would, behind the scenes, become her husband's principal adviser.

Gorbacheva's behaviour would profoundly affect the Soviet citizenry, in particular the women. Previous Soviet leaders wives were never seen publicly but Gorbacheva, appearing repeatedly with her husband at public functions wearing designer clothes and jewelry, shocked the country. Her "bold" behaviour was much criticized at home but went a long way to humanizing Russia and the USSR, dispelling the "evil empire" perception of the West. Through it all, her husband stood behind her saying that they both preached the principle of equality.

In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, her husband lost his position and Raisa Gorbacheva retreated from the headlines until being diagnosed with leukemia. By then, public attitudes in Russia had changed dramatically towards her and she received much support in raising money for children's leukemia hospitals.

Raisa Gorbacheva died on September 20, 1999 at Münster University Hospital in Germany. Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, dispatched a government jet to bring her body back to Moscow where after a public funeral, she was interred in the Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, Russia.

External Link

• BBC - Raisa's life in pictures (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/452302.stm)