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The persecution of a playwright and director in Russia for his paintings is an alarming sign of further repression, cultural figures say.
By Valerie Hopkins
They wrote and performed their work as an indictment of terrorism, examining the deceit and depravity of violent extremists and others whose lives they ruin.
But today, the two women who produce “Finist the Brave Falcon” are on trial in a Moscow court, accused of justifying the kind of acts they sought to condemn.
Director Eugene Berkovitch, 39, and playwright Svetlana Petriitchuk, 44, two iconic figures of Russia’s new theater, have been detained for more than a year and face up to seven years in prison if convicted.
One of his lawyers and members of the Russian cultural network say the indictment is one of the clearest examples of the accelerating crackdown on freedom of expression since Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022.
Cultural figures who support the women say it is the first time in Russia’s post-Soviet era that an art painting has been judged. The prosecutions have been condemned by some of Russia’s best-known intellectuals, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitri A. Muratov and director Kirill Serebrennikov, with whom Ms. Berkovich studied, as well as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch et al. other human rights groups.
“Finist the Brave Falcon” combines an ancient Russian fairy tale with the private tragedy of a woman who falls in love online with a radical extremist, who tricks her into coming to Syria to join the Islamic State. But there is no satisfying ending; Instead, feeling horrified and betrayed, she returns to her home in Russia, where she is condemned as a terrorist.
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