{"id":11708,"date":"2016-04-19T18:36:39","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T15:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/?p=11708&lang=en"},"modified":"2019-01-28T18:54:57","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T15:54:57","slug":"pavlensky-believes-otherwise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/articles\/columns\/pavlensky-believes-otherwise\/","title":{"rendered":"Pavlensky believes otherwise"},"content":{"rendered":"

For many years now, volunteers, \u201cMemorial\u201d activists and historians have sought to preserve the memory of places of death and suffering of millions of victims of Stalinist repression in Russia. In most cases, this has been done at their own expense. These individuals have had to overcome not only resistance, but indifference and hypocrisy on the part of governmental authorities. These authorities have failed to erect monuments even to the greatest of writers and poets killed during the Soviet era, or to mark their graves with tombstones or monuments. Instead those who cared have taken up this task, though the memorials they have erected have often not been protected from vandalism. <\/span><\/p>\n

As such, a monument to Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, had to be gifted by sculptor Nenazhivin to the city of Vladivostok no less than three times due to damage sustained by vandals. Mandelstam, the greatest Russian poet of the twentieth century, had died at a prison transit point in the city. The inability of authorities to protect the monument from repeated acts of desecration in the location that it had originally been placed forced the need to relocate it to the grounds of the local university. <\/span><\/p>\n

Commemorations of<\/span>\u00a0Ukrainian poet and freedom fighter Vasyl Stus have similarly suffered. Stus died during a hunger strike in solitary confinement in 1985 at a Soviet camp for political prisoners. At the time, Heinrich B\u00f6ll had proposed Stus as a candidate for the Nobel Prize. Literary works written by Stus in the camp disappeared, and although a museum to the memory of the \u201cPerm-36\u201dcampwhere Stus died, had originally existed, this museum was taken away from the \u201cMemorial\u201d volunteers curating it, thus destroying this oasis of memory. Exactly one year ago, in April 2015, a memorial plaque installed at Donetsk university, where the poet studied, was also dismantled. Even 30 years after the death of Vasyl Stus there is a continued effort to eradicate any trace of his legacy. <\/span><\/p>\n

The term \u201cvandalism\u201d appears to take on a different meaning in Russia to elsewhere, with the Russian Penal Code featuring various articles criminalizing attempted attacks on \u201ccultural values\u201d. Contemporary artist, Piotr Pavlensky, was charged with vandalism for burning car tires during his performance \u201cFreedom\u201d in the center of St.Petersburg. He had not sought to destroy any cultural or architectural monument when a relatively small fire was lit. However, his act was considered a more serious offence than the destruction of the Vladivostok monument to Mandelstam \u2013 a poet, whose name had been banned for decades, whose works had been destroyed and about whose death all information has been erased from public memory.<\/span><\/p>\n

The symbolic burning of the former entrance to the Federal Security Service (FSB, heir to the KGB) in Moscow\u2019s Lubyanka Square likewise saw Pavlensky arrested and charged with vandalism \u2013 the damaged door supposedly also having great cultural and historical value. During court proceedings Pavlensky repeatedly objected to charges of vandalis. He categorically refused to call himself a vandal and instead proposed the reclassification of his case as a \u201cterrorism\u201d case so that the authorities could shed their \u201cmask of humanity\u201d. He was reportedly charged with Article 243 of the Russian Criminal Code (\u201cDestruction of or damage to the cultural heritage (monuments of history and culture) of the peoples of the Russian Federation, included in the state register of cultural heritage (monuments of history and culture)\u201d). Pavlensky stated in court that \u201cchanging the numbers\u201d of the articles of the criminal code with which he had been charged was an irrelevancy and that the motives of the newly qualified \u201ccrime\u201d were absurd. However, evidence in the case suggests that the elevated evaluation of the cultural and historical value of the FSB\u2019s doors was founded on the fact that Russia\u2019s \u201cprominent cultural figures were repressed and executed\u201d after having passed through them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe FSB is an organization of executioners, but they themselves claim that their office is an operating mortuary. What is the difference?\u201d said Pavlensky. Indeed, the FSB\/KGB\u2019s activities and the articles of the Criminal Code invoked in Pavlensky\u2019s case are both in essence, vandalism: that is, \u201cthe destruction of cultural heritage\u201d. A more pertinent question might be, what is really significant in terms of history and culture? If the historical value of the FSB\u2019s door is that Mandelstam, Babel and many others, who had entered through it, had lost their freedom first and then their lives, why doesn\u2019t the door itself feature a commemoration plaque to these great artists and their tragic fate?<\/span><\/p>\n

Destroying the memory of victims of tragic political repression may be considered criminal, but can this door truly be considered a symbol of such memory and grief? Was this door \u2013 or any facade or wall of this KGB building \u2013 decorated with plaques commemorating the lives of those who were lost behind these doors forever?! One excellent public initiative known as \u201cThe Last Address\u201d, places memory plaques on houses to commemorate those taken away and killed by the Soviet terror regime. These plaques are placed by ordinary citizens, using their own means. Arguably, one should expect the entity that became heir to many such killers to atone itself by carrying out a similar such project \u2013 not least because it alone possesses all data about how, where and when such victims were tortured and killed. This information should placed above the FSB\u2019s own door. <\/span><\/p>\n

Had Pavlensky had tried to damage such a \u201cmemorial\u201d door, bearing the names of victims, their dates of life, portraits, poems, flowers, candles, or indeed anything made in their memory, he could indeed be called a \u201cvandal\u201d or destroyer of \u201cmonuments of history and culture\u201d. However, Pavlensky symbolically burned quite a different door \u2013 a door belonging to the current repressive regime that continues a long standing tradition of terror, destruction of history and culture. Indeed, Pavlensky himself could be considered a victim of \u201cdestruction or damage\u201d, being a cultural figure, persecuted for his art. Far from destroying historical memory, his so-called \u201cthreatening\u201d actions \u2013 burning the FSB door \u2013 in fact aimed to defend such memory by reminding people of this terrible part of Lubyanka\u2019s history and speaking truth about the present as this spectre from the past once again begins to rear its head to take more power.<\/span><\/p>\n

These are not, of course, juridical arguments and, as we all know, Russian judicial and investigative authorities do not accept what they might term as the \u201clyrical\u201d. It is now customary in Russia to invite experts to participate in judicial processes, allowing the courts, prosecutors and sometimes defence lawyers to evade responsibility for making their own assessments of events. But which expert is able to distinguish what has \u201cspecial artistic value\u201d and what does not? The Russian Ministry of Culture, as it turns out, does not have a methodology or even criteria for detyermining \u201cspecial value\u201d, and the Ministry\u2019s experts generally base their findings for court proceedings on methodological manuals that they themselves have compiled. As such, during one case concerning library books on heraldry, one \u201cexpert\u201d stated that \u201cthe special historical value of the books presented was that they can be used to study history, while the special artistic value of the books was that they featured pictures, including colored pictures\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is such experts that will probably argue the prosecution\u2019s case during court proceedings against Pavlensky \u2013 one of the most talented, courageous and honest contemporary action artists of today. It is using such banal criteria that they will pronounce their judgments on history, culture, memory and the objects of \u201ccultural heritage\u201d. One need not be a certified \u201cexpert\u201d to discern who is engaged in destroying memory, history and culture in this case. These people do not subscribe to the belief that \u201cmanuscripts don\u2019t burn\u201d, as Mikhail Bulgakov once put it. Manuscripts do burn and well they know. They do however believe that the doors to the offices behind which so many dark secrets are kept do not burn. <\/span><\/p>\n

Pavlensky, by contrast, believes otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Stephania Kulayeva<\/i><\/p>\n

First published on the website of Radio Liberty<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For many years now, volunteers, \u201cMemorial\u201d activists and historians have sought to preserve the memory of places of death and suffering of millions of victims of Stalinist repression in Russia. In most cases, this has been done at their own…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":11642,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[565,362],"tags":[],"strategy_cases":[],"campaign":[],"archive":[],"filter-content":[],"regions":[],"class_list":["post-11708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-columns"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",1240,700,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture-125x125.jpg",125,125,true],"medium":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture-768x434.jpg",640,362,true],"large":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture-500x282.jpg",500,282,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",1240,700,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",1240,700,false],"pub-thumb":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture-220x124.jpg",220,124,true],"post-thumb":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture-170x170.jpg",170,170,true],"wcicon":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",48,27,false],"wcsquare":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",300,169,false],"wcsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",250,141,false],"wcstandard":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",550,310,false],"wcbig":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",800,452,false],"wcfixedheightsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",319,180,false],"wcfixedheightmedium":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",531,300,false],"wcfixedheight":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",886,500,false],"wccarouselsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",210,119,false],"wccarousel":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",400,226,false],"wcslider":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wide_detail_picture.jpg",886,500,false]},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"

For many years now, volunteers, \u201cMemorial\u201d activists and historians have sought to preserve the memory of places of death and suffering of millions of victims of Stalinist repression in Russia. In most cases, this has been done at their own expense. These individuals have had to overcome not only resistance, but indifference and hypocrisy on the part of governmental authorities. These authorities have failed to erect monuments even to the greatest of writers and poets killed during the Soviet era, or to mark their graves with tombstones or monuments. Instead those who cared have taken up this task, though the…<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"Articles<\/a>, Columns<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"ad666","url":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/author\/ad666\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11708"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15539,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11708\/revisions\/15539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11708"},{"taxonomy":"strategy_cases","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/strategy_cases?post=11708"},{"taxonomy":"campaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campaign?post=11708"},{"taxonomy":"archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive?post=11708"},{"taxonomy":"filter-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/filter-content?post=11708"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=11708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}