03 Nov 22 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine
Unlike English, the Russian language has no use for articles, definite or indefinite. Instead, there is a mutual understanding applied to a particular conversation: the interlocutors simply understand whether they talk about a dog or a house in general, or this exact dog and this exact house. This certainty appears to be just hanging in the air.
The same goes for the war. In the past, the word ‘war’ would inevitably entail the certainty of the 1941–45 war. ‘The war’ always meant the Great Patriotic War. This is no longer the case. Now, if you mention ‘war’ in a conversation, your interlocutor will immediately think of the war in Ukraine or the war with Ukraine. The war that is happening right now.
In 2015 Samokat published my book The Raven’s Children, marking – as it turned out – the beginning of The Leningrad’s Tales series. Set in the period from 1938 to 1946, these books describe what it’s like to grow up in a world that has fallen apart. Shortly after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, one of the readers reached out to me saying what I was already fearing myself: we are now living on the pages of The Raven’s Children.
Working on these books, I’ve read many personal testimonies of the period: letters, diaries, and memoirs. One of the most poignant Russian documents of the 1941–45 war was the diary of Tanya Savicheva, a young girl trapped in the Siege of Leningrad. Her last entry is known to almost everyone in St Petersburg: “Everyone is dead, only Tanya is left”. Children’s war testimonies always serve as an indictment of war, even if they are unleashed in the attacking country.
Children nowadays rarely keep dairies. If they do then not on a daily basis. When the war started and the weeks passed one another with no end to it, one thing became very clear: we are experiencing something unimaginable, something unthinkable. That’s when I started talking to children. Asking them questions and gathering the stories of their present lives. What do they see, hear and think? How do they go to school, argue, make friends, read? What do they feel?
I thought, surely, I would see how this war, despite being so far away from them, was seeping into their conversations, their quarrels and making-ups, their growing up. I thought that time would make these stories invaluable. People would be interested in them just like we are interested in lives and thoughts of children in Germany in 1933–1945. But then again, these stories are already invaluable as we speak. After all, the future of Russia is decided not by a 70-year-old president, but by those who are now five or seventeen, eight or thirteen.
This is not an anthropological study, nor a social survey. These are mere conversations recorded during the war, and nothing else. I interviewed about two dozen children myself, just as many filled in a provided questionnaire. The list of questions was compiled to sound as neutral as possible, accommodating different sides of the present situation. But most importantly, it acknowledged the unprecedented split that the war had caused in Russian society. It was not my task to argue, to convince, to persuade or to prove my point of view. Do you support the war? I’m listening. Are you against the war? I’m listening.
Most of my respondents are aged 12 and over. The youngest are just five. I spoke with some independently minded 17-year-olds who can hardly be called ‘children’ anymore. I spoke with their parents beforehand to check what subjects were out of bounds. Some asked to look at the questions in advance, some then walked away.
I found myself faced with numerous dilemmas. What to do when, all of a sudden, a little boy whispers to you: “Can you tell me what actually happened in Bucha, no one would tell me?” Only once a child asked me why I was asking all these questions. I recalled one Icelandic saga, where a troll (if I’m not mistaken) asks the protagonist the very same question to which he replies: “because I want to know.” This answer satisfied both the troll and the child.
I asked a fellow journalist to join me in my little venture. In a way she was right to refuse. “It’s pointless,” she said. Statistically, yes, it is certainly pointless. I could never claim “this is what children in Russia thought”. Then why am I so sure that these stories are invaluable? The answer is very simple: because these children decided so. I didn’t eavesdrop on conversations on the streets. I wasn’t fishing around. I didn’t pretend to be someone I wasn’t. I explained it to everyone loud and clear: because we live in historic times. Because I want to know.
My youngest interviewees were aged around five and six. Of course, they were encouraged to talk to me by their parents. These little ones don’t know there is a war ongoing. They live outside of time, and one needs to look closely into the flow of their innocent speeches to catch a glimpse of the sign of our times, to spot the slippery yet undeniable shadow of the war.
Teenagers, that’s a whole different story. Some were lost, some were angry, giggly, strict, arrogant, provoked. But them wanting to share their experience is their way of showing that they acknowledge the value of both their position and their emotions. They acknowledge the historical value of their experience. And I see something bigger in this acknowledgement. Something that will shape the future society. Something that will shape the future generation.
Я против войны – I’m against the war
Since the first days of the war, the state employed large-scale punitive measures to stop any protest movements and supress societal discussions of the war. In their eyes, discussing means condemning, and that’s what the state is so terribly scared of. The restraints haven’t stopped the protests, but rather turned them into peat fires. Those living in St Petersburg know very well what it’s like: the flames are nowhere to be seen; everything is smouldering. But the smoke gradually thickens. The protest has taken shape of little signs that are shared with each other, shared with the city, with the world, with anyone who is willing to see. Anti-war stickers, graffiti, posters, figurines, price tags, ribbons – they are spread swiftly, on the run, by somebody’s invisible hands. By children’s hands too.
There is a mix of terror and excitement in the words of older children and teenagers when they speak about all this. They are excited because it seems like a game to them. As if they have stepped into a fairy tale about Little Thumb who is trying to fool the ogre. But this game makes your heart pound for real, bringing out the genuine fear. These children already know that the state just sweeps people up randomly, having no soft spot for teenagers either.
They tell me in detail about fines and charges, about administrative detention and delinquency records. It’s not the fines and charges they are afraid of, at least not entirely. They are afraid that Mum will be worried. That Granny will be scared (“it’s not good for her health”). That Dad will say: “See, I’ve warned you.” That the schoolmarm will report them to the FSB (Federal Security Service).
But what scares them the most is being grabbed by strangers’ rough hands, being yelled at, shout at and barked at by grown-ups – overfed men and women in uniforms. When you’re eleven, all grown-ups look big to you.
They’re afraid. Yet it doesn’t stop them. Overcoming the fear empowers them.
“We’ve started tying green ribbons everywhere. They are now appearing in more and more new places. I was just about to tie mine when I saw there was already one. It made me so happy.”
“I wear two bracelets in the colours of the Ukrainian flag.”
“We made those pins ourselves.” “Do you wear them at school?” “Yes, at school. Once we’re outside, we take them off and hide. But it doesn’t mean we change our opinions.”
“Why do you hide them?” “It’s scary.” “What are you afraid of? “That grown-ups will beat us up or say something to us.”
“The war posters on the tube are always covered with stickers or gum.”
The omnipresent face of state propaganda is also overfed. Russian cities are plastered with banners and posters. Government propaganda is produced at printing houses, paid with money. Wrapped, packaged, and delivered – it’s a whole industry. Pure business, nothing personal.
With protests it’s the opposite: everything is handmade, people draw and write by hand in their own way. These signs are imbued with a personal meaning, and most importantly, with a choice. These choices are made by particular people, it’s of their own making. In this small way a person gets to share a fleeting touch with their city, turning these signs into an essential and visible part of the urban life. Coming and going, and then coming back (the street cleaner who can keep up with a teenager hasn’t been born yet), they are like tiny pulsating lights signalling to like-minded people who “are just afraid or can’t speak up.”
Назови ее своим именем – Call her by her name
The girl has a simple Russian name, it’s in the top five of Russia’s most popular ones.
I don’t ask for surnames or school numbers. I don’t keep any video or audio recordings, I just scribble with my pen on paper. Sometimes I pause the conversation: “Hold on, I want to write this down in full detail.” Or “Hold on, I think what you’ve just said is very important.” I ask questions that have no right or wrong answers. It’s the answer itself that matters. In the meantime, the war is going on and to use the word ‘war’ is now punishable by law in Russia. Now it’s not uncommon for schoolteachers to inform on their own students, and for students to rat out their teachers and classmates. The words ‘fear’ and ‘be afraid’ have frequented children’s conversations the way they shouldn’t have. I’m responsible for the stories trusted to me.
“We can give you a different name, what do you say?”
There is a long moment while she thinks. She then shakes her head and says: “No, if my name is ***, then I’m ***.”
I write it down: “***, 11 years old.”
*** tells me how she got into an argument over the war with a classmate. He threatened to beat her up if she wouldn’t shut up. “That’s him admitting his defeat,” she explained. She then hastily adds that she was ready to fight for her beliefs.
As I type the text on my computer, my hands freeze over ***’s words: “just a silly boy”. What if the boy is not that silly after all, and his parents can identify *** and inform on her, and then… I go back and erase her name.
Perhaps, I should just stick with calling my interviewees simply ‘a girl’ or ‘a boy’? Or in doing so would I unknowingly pass the point of no return, succumbing to the state narrative of depersonalisation which inevitably leads to dehumanisation? Russian foreign minister Lavrov referred to people killed in Ukraine as “collateral damage”, while for Putin they are “cannon fodder” and those who don’t agree with him are “midges”.
But she is not a midge. She lives in St. Petersburg, she is eleven years old, and she demanded to be called by her name. And yet here I’m writing “a girl”.
Excerpts from the article by Yulia Yakovleva published by Holod Media. Translated by Ekaterina Shatalova
22 Jun 22 | Events
Join Index on Censorship and Pushkin House for a night discussing freedom of expression in Russia as part of the launch of the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
The 2022 summer magazine looks at how the Russian invasion in Ukraine impacts freedoms within Ukraine and across Europe, Turkey and Russia. While the pages are filled with stories of brave and brilliant people speaking up and out, many write on the growing challenges for freedom of expression. This is especially the case for those living in Russia under Vladimir Putin. This will be the topic of our discussion for the launch.
Featuring a panel of people with direct experience and knowledge of Russia under Putin, the evening will address how much freedom there is in Russia right now, particularly in relation to media freedom and protest.
The panel will include Russian investigative journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, as well as Ben Noble, Associate Professor in Russian Politics at University College London. The conversation will be chaired by Index on Censorship magazine Editor-In-Chief Jemimah Steinfeld. The event will also include a reading of a passage written by the late Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in Moscow in 2006.
A wine reception will follow.
This event is free, but seats are limited. Advanced booking is essential. Register for your ticket here.
MEET THE SPEAKERS
Andrei Soldatov is a Russian investigative journalist, co-founder, and editor of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of the Russian secret services’ activities.
He is co-author with Irina Borogan of The New Nobility. The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB (PublicAffairs, 2010), The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia’s Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries (PublicAffairs, 2015) and The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia’s Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad (PublicAffairs, 2019).
Irina Borogan is a Russian investigative journalist, co-founder and deputy editor of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of the Russian secret services’ activities. She chronicled the Kremlin’s campaign to gain control of civil society and strengthen the government’s police services under the pretext of fighting extremism.
She is co-author with Andrei Soldatov of The New Nobility. The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB (PublicAffairs, 2010), The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia’s Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries (PublicAffairs, 2015) and The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia’s Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad (PublicAffairs, 2019).
Dr Ben Noble is Associate Professor of Russian Politics at University College London (UCL SSEES) and an Associate Fellow of Chatham House. His research focuses on legislative politics, authoritarianism, and Russian domestic politics, with awards from The Leverhulme Trust, the Political Studies Association, and the British Academy. His co-authored book Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future? (Hurst and Oxford University Press, 2021) has so far been translated into eight languages, was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best books on politics in 2021, and has been shortlisted for the Pushkin House Book Prize in 2022. Ben frequently provides commentary and analysis on Russian politics for academic, policy, media, and general audiences.
Jemimah Steinfeld is the editor-in-chief at Index on Censorship. Prior to Index she lived in China. She is the author of the book Little Emperors and Material Girls: Sex and Youth in Modern China, and has written for a variety of publications, including The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, CNN, New Statesman and openDemocracy. She can be found tweeting @JFSteinfeld.
When: Monday 18 July 2022, 7pm
Where: Pushkin House, 5a Bloomsbury Square, London WC1A 2TA
05 May 22 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Russia, Ukraine
Russian politician, academic and economist Grigory Yavlinsky, who became known with his plan for a smooth transition from the Soviet regime to a free-market economy. Credit: Пресс-служба Президента Российской Федерации/Wikimedia Commons
Russian liberal politician, economist and professor Grigory Yavlinsky has long been a thorn in the side of Vladimir Putin. As the founder of the Russian United Democratic Party (Yabloko), which was the leading opposition party in post-Soviet Russia, Yavlinsky has campaigned against Putin on several occasions. In 2000 Yavlinsky participated in the Russian presidential elections under the slogan “For Russia without Dictators and Oligarchs.” In 2018, he ran in the presidential elections on an anti-corruption platform.
I first spoke to Yavlinsky in February 2012. In an interview for New Eastern Europe Yavlinsky told me he was preparing, once again, to offer Russian voters an alternative to Putin’s dictatorial reign in the Kremlin. Back then, Yavlinsky remained hopeful. “A non-democratic and corrupt system which has been created by Putin and Yeltsin, requires cardinal changes, and absolutely different politics in Russia today and important events will take place to see this happens in 2012,” Yavlinsky explained. “To change this system we need a political, economic, and moral alternative which would be supported by the people,” he added.
Today, these hopes have vanished. Why, then, do the Russian people still overwhelmingly support Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine? I caught up with Yavlinsky and this was the main subject I broached.
Ukraine is a subject that Yavlinsky is familiar with. He was, after all, born there, when it was part of the Soviet Union. Also, in 2018, when Yavlinsky ran in the presidential elections in Russia, he devised a plan to resolve the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian military conflict, which began in 2014.
My own interest in Ukraine is personal too. I was living in Lviv for two years. But I left the western Ukrainian city on 24 February 2022, the day of the Russian invasion.
The conversation below considers the war, as well as broader free expression battles happening in Russia right now.
Mr Yavlinsky, you were born in Lviv in 1952. Do you consider yourself Ukrainian?
I do not consider myself a Ukrainian, but I grew up in Ukraine, and studied at a Ukrainian school. I love the language and respect the culture. But regardless of where I am from, I consider the current events in Ukraine as a gigantic tragedy.
Recent surveys have indicated that an overwhelming majority of people inside Russia support this war of aggression against Ukraine. Clearly, then, it’s not just Putin’s war. Why do so many Russians support the conflict?
A lot of people [in Russia] seem to support what is happening [in Ukraine] for three reasons.
Firstly, propaganda in Russia has unfolded with great force.
Secondly, fear. Today in Russia, the fear of police and judicial harassment is huge. Finally, in Russia in the 1990s, an economic and political system was created that categorically excluded most people. It convinced the majority that they had no means of influencing what was happening in public life or the political sphere.
There also seems to be a sense that inside Russia people do not have access to their own history. Presumably this is an important weapon in Putin’s propaganda machine?
In Russia in the 1990s, the moment was missed when an honest assessment of Bolshevism, Stalin and the Soviet period should have been given. It was a huge failure in reforms, and we are now reaping the fruits of this tragic mistake. In general, people in Russia know their history very poorly.
Grigory Yavlinsky pictured with Vladimir Putin in 2000, when Yavlinsky ran for Russia’s presidency. Credit: Presidential Press and Information Office/Wikimedia Commons
Is an internal coup to bring down the Putin regime possible? Or is there simply too much fear in the Russian political system?
Today I don’t see any chance of anything like a coup against Putin. He has significant support among citizens. The scale of the opposition is completely insufficient to seriously influence the change of the state system. The reason for what is happening isn’t just about Putin – the entire Russian state and economic system has led to this.
How will western imposed sanctions against Russia affect the outcome of this war in the long term? Some critics claim, for instance, that the sanctions do not go far enough. Others have pointed out that a state that descends into poverty and chaos actually strengthens an authoritarian ruler like Putin.
The sanctions in their current form will create significant difficulties for the Russian economy, but they will not lead it to collapse. The decline in living standards will affect the middle class most of all. However, state propaganda will [blame it on] external and internal enemies. On this basis, a left-nationalist policy, national socialism can be formed. Putin will try to lead this direction. He has already talked about it. Under these conditions of a dictatorship and a police state, this will be a dangerous and difficult period.
Is Putin capable of using nuclear weapons?
Yes, I think Putin may use nuclear weapons, and this should be taken seriously.
Under what circumstances could the West become involved in a military conflict with Russia?
This is a question for politicians in the West. This may be due to provocation, or to the supply of heavy weapons. As with the use of nuclear weapons, such a danger exists.
Is there any evidence to suggest that Putin could lose his grip on power if Russia continues to suffer more military defeats in its war against Ukraine?
No matter how the military situation in Ukraine develops, there are no circumstances that can lead Putin to lose control of power in the foreseeable future.
But with more and more Russian soldiers dying, could a situation arise where Putin, under political pressure, looks for a potential compromise to end the war?
A cessation of hostilities is possible. But it will only be a temporary stop. Russia wants to build a separate civilisation and considers Ukraine a part of it. Ukraine, conversely, wants to become a European country, and considers itself an independent state. In these circumstances, any truce will be temporary.
Are you surprised at how well Ukraine has responded to this conflict?
No. I’m not surprised. [Since 2014] the armed forces in Ukraine have changed. There was a patriotic unity of the people, which became the basis of real resistance. The Kremlin expected that in the east of Ukraine [after the so called “special military operation” was launched on February 24 of this year] it would be greeted with flowers by joyful crowds of people. It turned out to be an illusion. Also, the Russian leadership did not expect such unity on the part of Western countries.
Ukraine seems to be winning the public relations war too. Why is that?
This is the gap of the post-Soviet space: Russia aspires to the 19th century, and Ukraine – to the 21st. This, [in essence] is the whole conflict. All the attention and understanding of the Russian leadership is turned back: to the Second World War, to the Soviet period, to the Russian Empire. Hence, ideological cliches about a separate civilisation. Ukraine found itself in a completely different situation. Ukraine wants to change the president regularly and have independent justice, independent private property, and be a European country.
Putin continually insisted leading up to the war that Russia would not invade Ukraine. Most western and Ukrainian politicians now believe he cannot be trusted in any diplomacy going forward. Will the Putin regime have to fall before this war ends?
Putin has talked about [his plans for Ukraine] before: in 2012, in 2014 and in 2018 during the presidential elections. He announced his programme in full in July 2021 in an article entitled “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians”. No one wanted to take Putin’s published doctrine seriously, either in the West, or inside [Russia]. We must understand that for a long time we will have to deal with this particular regime.
You have mentioned many times publicly that Russia is a European country. What exactly do you mean by this?
Of course, Russia is a European country. By its culture, by its mentality, by its history. The only positive prospect for Russia is the European one. Attempts to send Russia somewhere else, to make a separate civilisation out of it, are fraught with disaster and loss of the future. Right now, we are on the verge of this catastrophe. The current leadership of Russia does not understand this. It does not want a permanent, regular change of power. It does not want real elections, or an independent judicial system. And it does not want a rule-of-law state in Russia, or to have a real middle class. Because a real middle class would pose a threat to [the current Russian state]. [Which is built] on lies, propaganda, violence and a police state. That is why Putin and his entourage want to take Russia out of the European context. There is simply no alternative to Russia’s European path.
Why did corruption and kleptocracy beat transparency and the rule of law during the early years of the Russian Federation?
There was gross mistakes and crimes in the reforms. Hyperinflation in 1992 was 2600%. This led to criminal privatisation – [public] property was then transferred free of charge to persons close to the authorities. Consequently, there was a merger of property and power in Russia. A corporate mafia state was [thus] created. There cannot be an independent justice, an independent press, an independent parliament, or a state governed by the rule of law [in Russia], because all these institutions threaten the results of this criminal privatisation. This system demanded a leader like Vladimir Putin. The West turned a blind eye to all of this.
Putin’s reckless lawbreaking over the last two decades has included numerous illegal overseas assassinations . Then there is murder of domestic critics, which includes many journalists. And the jailing of numerous opposition political figures, like Alexei Navalny (still in prison) and Mikhail Khodorkovsky (who spent a decade behind bars). Has your own life ever been threatened by the Putin regime?
It is a well-known fact that it’s really dangerous to engage in politics in Russia. The biggest political crime, of course, is the murder in 2015 of Boris Nemtsov, 100 metres from the Kremlin. As for personal threats, it is completely pointless to discuss them. For the last 25 years, they have been a constant factor for [any]opposition politician inside Russia.
In 2018 you participated in the presidential elections in Russia. You presented a plan in your campaign to resolve the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian military conflict, which began in 2014. Can you discuss what that plan involved?
I participated in the presidential elections in 2018, because it was clear that this was the last election in which it was still possible to influence something. I proposed to resolve the situation in the east of Ukraine, in the Donbass, in particular, by taking the following steps.
- To propose to the countries of the Normandy Four and the United States a form of international guardianship over the “territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions with a special order of local self-government” on the basis of the institute of international guardianship provided for by Chapter 12 of the UN Charter, using the experience of the 1995 Dayton Accords and the 1954 Saarland Status Agreements.
- To conclude a special multilateral (Ukraine, Russia, Germany, France, the USA and the EU) agreement on the temporary status of the “territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions with a special order of local self-government” under the auspices of the UN Security Council, according to which all powers in these territories are transferred to international governing bodies, judicial proceedings, law enforcement, border control carried out by representatives of the countries participating in the agreement.
- To contribute in every possible way to the international peacekeeping forces and to ensuring the security of the population of Donbas.
- Withdraw all Russian “vacationers and militias” and all units of the Russian armed forces from Donbas. Immediately cease military, financial, diplomatic and other support for separatist forces and movements operating on the territory of Ukraine.
- To immediately stop the Russian state media inciting hatred towards Ukraine, and to stop encouraging [anti-Ukrainian] propaganda.
- To abandon the policy of “limited sovereignty” in relation to Ukraine. And for [Russia] not to hinder Ukraine’s [choice] towards the European way.
- [To ensure] the entire territory of Donbas will be transferred under the full control of Ukraine.
If you became Russian president, how would you try and transform the Russian state?
If I became president, I would build a democratic country that corresponds to the basic principles of modern European democratic civilisation: a rule of law state and separation of powers. These two institutions would stop the endless lies and propaganda. The country would certainly support me. There would be no conflict with Ukraine, but there would be a joint movement towards Europe instead.
This question is theoretical. But if you were approached by western politicians, or by the Ukrainian state, to act as a peace negotiator to end this war in Ukraine, would you consider taking on such a diplomatic position?
Such negotiations require powers that [right now] don’t exist. Without a serious change in attitude to the negotiations on the part of the Kremlin, it is impossible to change anything for the better. Personally, I am ready for literally any action that could lead to a ceasefire agreement.
You have lived through decades of the Soviet Union, and 22 years of the Putin years. What will the future of Russia look like?
It is very difficult to talk about the future now. It is completely unclear how the present will end. What is happening today is a tragic end to the old Russia, which was founded in 1917 and whose post–Soviet modernisation did not take place after [1991]. To remake and rebuild Russia we cannot just replace one president with another. It will be necessary to create a different political and economic system within the country. In the foreseeable future, I expect big problems, and very difficult years ahead.
Is there anything that gives you hope?
I believe in the future of Russia. There are people in Russia, many of them, who are ready to devote their lives to the creation of a New Russia and, finally, to complete the stage of more than a century of deviation of our country from modern civilisation.
Grigory Yavlinsky currently lives in Moscow, where he teaches at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. He is the author of many books including Realeconomik (2011) and The Putin System (2019)
JP O’ Malley is a freelance book reviewer, cultural critic, writer and journalist. He currently lives in Split, Croatia. He can be found on Twitter @johnpaulomallez
