Lily Golden

Liya Oliverovna Golden (; 18 July 1934 – 6 December 2010) was a Soviet and Russian historian and civil rights advocate. A national tennis player and pianist during her youth, she worked at the and did research on Black studies. After moving to the United States after Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika reforms, she became a scholar-in-residence at Chicago State University and an advocate for racial equality.

Biography Liya Oliverovna Golden was born on 18 July 1934, in Tashkent, Uzbek SSR. After being unable to return to their native United States alongside her mother due to anti-Black racism and World War II, She was educated at the , winning a music competition at one point. Following the encouragement of actor , she went to Moscow State University, where she majored in African-American history and became their first Black student.

Golden began working at the African studies department of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, before becoming part of the newly-inaugurated in 1958 and eventually serving as acting director. and released an autobiography, My Long Journey Home (2002). She moved to the country the next year, and she also had her birthright to United States citizenship upheld as the daughter of American parents. In 2024, Kester Kenn Klomegah said that Golden "has a special place in history of the relations between Russia and Africa" and that her works are "still considered as foundations to multifaceted relations from the Soviet times until today".