Igor Rostislavovich Shafarevich (Russian: Игорь Ростиславович Шафаревич, born June 3, 1923 in Zhytomyr) is an outstanding Soviet and Russian mathematician, founder of a school of algebraic number theory and algebraic geometry in the USSR, and a political writer. He was also an important dissident figure under the Soviet regime, a public supporter of Andrei Sakharov's Human Rights Committee from 1970. He supported the criticisms of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn of both Soviet communism and liberal proposals for the future of Russia.