Detained theatre director and playwright accused of ‘negatively characterising Russian men’

Detained theatre director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk, whose play “Finist, the Brave Falcon” is being investigated by the authorities for supposedly “justifying terrorism”, are also being accused of “characterising Russian men negatively”, Russian daily Kommersant reported on Tuesday.

The author of the Federal Security Service (FSB) report, Svetlana Mochalova, wrote that the play, which was written in 2019 and staged in Moscow the following year, had “glorified terrorists”, making them appear “interesting and attractive to girls and women”.

By contrast, she argued, the play portrayed Russian men in a negative light, citing the example of one character who says: “our men are best at three things: criticising, giving advice and assigning blame”.

The play, which is based on real events, tells the stories of several Russian women who decided to marry radical Islamists they met online and move to Syria. The production received two prestigious Golden Mask awards in 2022.

Berkovich’s lawyer, Ksenia Karpinskaya, told Kommersant that she was “outraged” by the poor quality of the investigation, saying that it had equated Islamic ideology to terrorism. “If this is the case,” Karpinskaya said, “then we then have half a country of terrorists”.