On October 22 would have been the 80th birthday of the legendary Latvian dissident Gunars Astra, hero of the Latvian national independence movement, thus the Occupation Museum of Latvia organized a special exhibition in his honor, as well as a memorial event by his grave at Meza Cemetary, LETA was informed by the museum's public relations specialist Liga Strazda.

The Occupation Museum has also been given letters written by Astra when he was serving his first prison sentence from 1961 to 1976.

Astra is one of the most famous anti-Soviet activists, who carried out peaceful acts of protest against the Soviet authorities between the 1960s and 1980s.

One of Astra's most famous quotations came when he was given his final words after being once again convicted for anti-Soviet activities by the Latvian Soviet Republic's Supreme Court – "I believe that this time will disappear like a nightmare. This gives me the strength to stand and breathe here."

It is possible that this quotation is one of the most important political statements in Latvia's history, as it showed that the Latvian independence idea was alive after the many years of occupations.

Astra was charged twice by Soviet authorities. In 1961 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for espionage for the United States. In 1983, during a search of his flat, the KGB seized books by George Orwell and Alexander Solzhenitzin, as well as recordings of foreign radio broadcasts. Astra was pronounced an extremely dangerous recidivist and sentenced to 7 years in prison camp and five years of deportation. He was pardoned in February 1988 and died several months later.