{"id":29912,"date":"2022-12-06T15:12:09","date_gmt":"2022-12-06T12:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/?p=29912"},"modified":"2022-12-09T14:41:03","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T11:41:03","slug":"where-are-the-bellwethers-and-bleeding-hearts-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/articles\/columns\/where-are-the-bellwethers-and-bleeding-hearts-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Where are the Bellwethers and Bleeding Hearts Now?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last month of the accursed year of 2022 invites us to attempt to assess it. It was obviously a watershed year that involved the end of an era of relative peace in Europe (yes, the wars in the Balkans were bloody and terrifying, but in 2022 alone, more people have died on both sides of the Ukraine war than did in the Balkans in 10 years), numerous war crimes committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, the terror of Lukashenko\u2019s government in Belarus, the collapse of all the post-perestroika pillars of civil society in Russia (Memorial, Novaya Gazeta, Ekho Moskvy, and others), the definitive routing of the opposition, and the disruption of almost all forms of international cooperation. In an interview with Yury Dud, Dmitry Muratov expressed his highest regard for Mikhail Gorbachev\u2019s greatest achievement<\/a> of \u201c30 years without the threat of nuclear war.\u201d And then he explained that this year, when the threat became real again, he discussed a mathematical model of the consequences of an exchange of nuclear strikes with experts. These specialists took into account both the unavoidable loss of many millions of human lives and the irreparable harm to the environment, which would lead to starvation and extinction.<\/span><\/p>\n

Listening to this, I recalled another interview with Muratov. During a December 2018 broadcast of the program Yeschyonepozner<\/em> [Not Yet Pozner], Novaya Gazeta\u2019s editor-in-chief said<\/a>: \u201cThe country is being drawn to war, the topic of war has been laid open… State propaganda is conducting terrifying work.\u201d Muratov already predicted at that time that Russia would even support the use of nuclear weapons, reasoning that \u201cif we don\u2019t get to heaven, NATO troops will be there soon.\u201d Four years ago, there were probably very few people who understood so clearly what awaited the country and the world in the near future. Not because \u201cnothing heralded this,\u201d but simply because they did not want to look the impending horror in the eye. It was much more pleasant to say that there wouldn\u2019t be a war and that if there were one all the same, it wouldn\u2019t be a real war at all, but a \u201chybrid\u201d<\/em> one; repressions could be called \u201cpinpointed,\u201d<\/em> and the persecution of human rights defenders and journalists, \u201cexcessive acts.\u201d<\/em> By lulling our fears to sleep with such academic and fashionable words, we were able to assure ourselves and others that it was important to improve the city environment and call for people to participate in elections for municipal deputies who wouldn\u2019t \u201cput everyone in prison\u201d (but only the best, as 2022 showed us).<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s likely that the people who said in February 2022 that they \u201ccouldn\u2019t believe a war had started\u201d missed Muratov\u2019s statements in 2018 and his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech<\/a> in December 2021. They didn\u2019t pay attention to it, but he was already talking about the inevitable: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the diseased minds of geopoliticians, a war between Russia and Ukraine has ceased to be impossible. But I know that wars end with identifying soldiers and exchanging prisoners\u2026 If there\u2019s anything I can do in my new capacity to achieve the return of living prisoners of war to their homes, just tell me. I\u2019m ready.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Muratov was not the only one to sense the approaching catastrophe. Last year, the young performance artist Pavel Krisevich expressed the mood of the most thoughtful people in the generation born and living their entire lives in the era not of Gorbachev, but of Putin: He came out onto Red Square and, pronouncing the words \u201cThere will be shots before the Kremlin’s curtain,\u201d he shot blanks from a modified handgun into the air and at his own head. Krisevich was sentenced to five years in prison for his symbolic shots. When making his final plea in court, Krisevich explained his action as follows<\/a>: \u201cI wanted to show that Russia is on the border of blank shots and real shots, and, in fact, this actually came true a year later.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Commenting on his action prior to his trial, Krisevich said that he was imitating the act of suicide, thereby expressing fear of political repressions in Russia.<\/p>\n

Like any successful action, Pavel Krisevich\u2019s artistic and political statement goes beyond the scripted language and manifestos of the protestor. His performance is remarkable in that it predicted the upcoming times, even though far from everyone understood this in the summer of 2021. Krisevich perfectly expressed the mood of 2022: desolation, shame, despair, and fear.<\/p>\n

As often happens, recognition of the action\u2019s success took the form of a harsh punishment\u00a0\u2013 a five-year prison sentence, which would have been unlikely before 2022.<\/p>\n

Only a 20-year-old student at the time, Krisevich explained his need<\/a> to protest, to speak out on his own against the state system for suppressing freedom: \u201cI would have been consumed by remorse for myself and my own country if I hadn\u2019t helped stand up to the regime, if I hadn\u2019t helped protect people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Stefania KULAEVA, ADC Memorial<\/em><\/p>\n

First published on the Radio Liberty blog<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Photo: Vasily Krestyaninov<\/a>, @pavelkrisevich<\/a> \/Instagram<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last month of the accursed year of 2022 invites us to attempt to assess it. It was obviously a watershed year that involved the end of an era of relative peace in Europe (yes, the wars in the Balkans…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[362],"tags":[],"strategy_cases":[],"campaign":[],"archive":[],"filter-content":[],"regions":[515],"class_list":["post-29912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","regions-russia"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-e1670331875227.png",500,500,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-125x125.png",125,125,true],"medium":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-300x300.png",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-e1670331875227.png",500,500,false],"large":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-e1670331875227.png",500,500,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-e1670331875227.png",500,500,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-e1670331875227.png",500,500,false],"pub-thumb":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-220x220.png",220,220,true],"post-thumb":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-170x170.png",170,170,true],"wcicon":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-48x48.png",48,48,true],"wcsquare":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-300x300.png",300,300,true],"wcsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-250x250.png",250,250,true],"wcstandard":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-e1670331875227.png",500,500,false],"wcbig":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-e1670331875227.png",500,500,false],"wcfixedheightsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-180x180.png",180,180,true],"wcfixedheightmedium":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-300x300.png",300,300,true],"wcfixedheight":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-e1670331875227.png",500,500,false],"wccarouselsmall":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-210x150.png",210,150,true],"wccarousel":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-400x285.png",400,285,true],"wcslider":["https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kris-e1670331875227.png",500,500,false]},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"

The last month of the accursed year of 2022 invites us to attempt to assess it. It was obviously a watershed year that involved the end of an era of relative peace in Europe (yes, the wars in the Balkans were bloody and terrifying, but in 2022 alone, more people have died on both sides of the Ukraine war than did in the Balkans in 10 years), numerous war crimes committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, the terror of Lukashenko\u2019s government in Belarus, the collapse of all the post-perestroika pillars of civil society in Russia (Memorial, Novaya Gazeta, Ekho Moskvy,…<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"Columns<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"admin3","url":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/author\/admin3\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29912","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29912"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29915,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29912\/revisions\/29915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29912"},{"taxonomy":"strategy_cases","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/strategy_cases?post=29912"},{"taxonomy":"campaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campaign?post=29912"},{"taxonomy":"archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive?post=29912"},{"taxonomy":"filter-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/filter-content?post=29912"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=29912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}