The court as a mission. Artistic

On August 17, a year has been performed from the date of the sentence - “two -steps”, as the president put it - in the Pussy Riot case. Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova are still in the colony, Ekaterina Samutsevich-at large. For what they fought and what the soloists of the famous punk group achieved-analyzed The New Times

Pussy Riot promotion in front of Red Square. January 20, 2012

Over the past year, the Sitters from Pussy Riot changed our perception of the court. This was not a planned action: neither Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, nor Maria Alekhina were going to communicate with Russian justice for so long and closely. Nevertheless, their speeches in court are an excellent example of serial actionism, that is, the type of art that Pussy Riot punk-group is engaged in. From these performances it would be possible to make a great video.

No Pasaran

It would begin like that. June 20, 2012. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in the cage of the Tagan court, dressed in a blue T -shirt with the words of No Pasaran, raises his hands in handcuffs and shocks them, laughing in front of the cameras: “Everyone can go handcuffs in Russia!” On this day, three Pussy Riot participants in turn declared a hunger strike against restricting the deadline for familiarization with the case. For each of them, this was the second hunger strike: for the first time Tolokonnikov and Alekhin were starving ten days in protest against the arrest and stopped the hunger strike when the Mosgorsud refused to arrest a complaint - they honestly admitted that ten days would not have been withstood before the next meeting.

Pyotr Verzilov and Nadezhda Tolokonnikov. 2008

Ekaterina Samutsevich was starving later, in May, without a concrete purpose - rather because she was ignored by her own lawyer and rotted in the cell, and the hunger strike allowed her to relax from cellmates (usually they were transferred alone) and attract the attention of lawyers. The second hunger strike Tolokonnikov and Alekhin was kept for almost three weeks, and Samutsevich even more, but they did not achieve the period for familiarization with the case.

Maria Alekhina: Hunger Art

Since then, Maria Alekhina has mastered the art of a victorious hunger strike. In May 2013, during the court at its request for parole, Alekhina announced a hunger strike with a request to cancel a number of severe measures introduced by the colony administration: to remove the castles that did not allow the prisoners to leave the detachment, to begin to accept the programs, etc. After 11 days of the hunger strike, when Alekhina was already hospitalized in a state of extreme weakness, the colony administration unexpectedly - according to some signs, by calling from the authorities - accepted the requirements of Alekhina, conducted an excursion to her in order to demonstrate that the locks were removed, and even organized the receipt of the transfer at earnest time on Saturday. Alekhina stopped a hunger strike in a new status: not only the main human rights activist in IK-28 in Berezniki (this role has already been established for it), but, in fact, a person who establishes a regime of content in a colony. The person to whom the administration bend.

Maria Alekhina in the Utrish reserve. 2007

 In the video, we would see how tiny Alekhina in a prison form walks along the colony with huge folders of papers - and she only walks. And in these folders, the documentation of violations of the regime (the due amount of square meters per convicted person does not correspond to the norm; there is no hot water in the units, for example), and labor protection (the working day exceeds eight hours; safety standards are not observed; money for work is not paid in full, for example), and excerpts from relevant regulatory acts. And we would see how they are afraid, respect and do not like employees (whom she does not call “staff” otherwise) and how prisoners respect and love. We would see a tiny 25-year-old girl Elena Tkachenko, who recently released after five years in IK-28 for fraud and almost immediately came with a program for Alekhina. “I know many people who are grateful to her,” says Tkachenko. - If not for her, these changes would not have happened. These changes are noticeable. ” The main thing is that some prisoners, thanks to Alekhina, was reduced to reduce the working day from twelve hours of hard labor to the legitimate eight. In some detachments, they made repairs, carried out hot water. In one detachment, the number of beds to the must be reduced.

Sentence

And then we would see how Pussy Riot participants pronounced the last word in the Hamovnic Court.

“This is a process over the entire state system of the Russian Federation, which, unfortunately for herself, likes to quote his cruelty against a person, indifference to his honor and dignity,” said Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. “Now the whole world sees that the criminal case set against us has been fabricated,” said Ekaterina Samutsevich. - The system cannot hide the repressive nature of this trial. Once again, Russia looks in the eyes of the world community not the way Vladimir Putin tries to imagine in his everyday international meetings. ”

“This court is not just an evil grotesque mask, it is a“ face ”of a conversation with a person in our country,” said Maria Alekhina. “At a public level, a situation is often needed to talk about a problem - an impulse.” And he further talks about his personal experience with the system on the example of a psychiatric hospital for minors.

After a year, it is clear that then there could be no audience of these speeches then, nor, most likely, to their authors. Samutsevich summed up the results: her confrontation with the judicial system, in any case, its public phase, came to an end. Tolokonnikova, starting from the group that had happened to her and other members of the group, made a diagnosis to the company in which such a court makes such decisions. And Alekhina, on the contrary, went from general to the particular, focusing attention on one specific totalitarian subsystem. From her experience of the activist, she could choose many other examples of collision with the system, but she chose a psychiatric boarding school - perhaps because of her experience at large, it was this best that prepared her for life in conclusion.

Maria Alekhina, Bereznikovsky City Court. Consideration of a complaint of a sentence. January 2013

 The chorus of this clip would be this: "It seems that in this court my right to defense is violated." In any Russian court, the defendant’s right to defense is violated. Tactics developed by Alekhina: to bring the court and - most importantly - all the witnesses of what is happening by the time when the violation becomes obvious and egregious. Usually this happens at a time when the judge loses not only a sense of superiority over the defendant, but also self -control. The last time, in July, when the Perm Regional Court examined Alekhina’s complaint about refusal to Udo, the judge lost his temper, when she once again demanded to interrupt the meeting in order to consult with a lawyer. Since Alekhina participated in a meeting on the video, technically, this demanded that the judge declare a break, and Alekhin was disconnected from the courtroom, switched to the office, where her defender Irina Khrunova could go for the meeting, and then everything and everything returned to their places. And so Alekhina said that such a moment came in the process, when she should discuss his further move with a lawyer.

“And before that, what did you discuss with the lawyer? - the judge in a beautiful black mantle was indignant, and his face was distorted by irritation. - If it's not a secret, of course. Did you discuss how to behave on the process? "

When they attack Alekhin, she immediately gains composure. “Perhaps the court limits my right to defense,” she said.

After conferring with Khrunova, Alekhina announced that she refused to participate in a meeting in which her right to defense is violated. She was already doing this in May, at that time she forbade her defenders further to participate, plunging the judge into hysteria. And in the video this sequence of personnel will be repeated when Alekhina literally turns his back to the court: we can see the screen for video communication, on it - a grille, behind bars - a silhouette of Alekhina with loose hair. With your back to the court.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova: Tribune

After the chorus, we would see a court session in Zubovaya Polyana in Mordovia in April 2013. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova submits a request for parole. In the Hall Plane: cameras, journalists, support group. And the lawyer Khrunova has something, outwardly reminiscent of a nervous breakdown. She screams, screams after the retreating judge, and the judge almost ran out of the hall. The judge has just announced that she was deleted for the meeting, that is, she announced the meeting almost finished: in a few minutes she will return with the decision. And Tolokonnikova prepared a speech, and all cameras, and the entire support group, and the lawyers themselves were waiting for her. "For fifteen years of lawyer practice, this has never happened to me!" - shouts Khrunova. This will not happen with Tolokonnikova.

Tolokonnikova turns his face, but not to the court, since the court has nothing to say, but to society. She comes to court with ready -made speeches - in the plural, because except for the main speech, which she pronounces at the first opportunity, without waiting for the last word, which may not be, she still has secondary and spare speeches, for all cases of the court session.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikov in the Supreme Court of Saransk on appealing the refusal to Udo. July 26, 2013

 “I would like to talk about such a concept as a correction,” the Tolokonnikova began during the July meeting in the Supreme Court of Mordovia in Saransk, where the hearing of the appeal to refuse too was underway. - I admit that with this power, with this aesthetics, with this ideology I have a crazy number of stylistic disagreements. Therefore, from the point of view of a state institution representing the aesthetics of power, my correction may seem non -evident. ” It is necessary, presumably, for most of the audience there was a quote from Andrei Sinyavsky, who said that he had “stylistic disagreements” with the Soviet government. And even more so - what is the relationship of the aesthetics of power to criminal punishment. But Tolokonnikova turned not to court, but to society.

“What can state bodies teach us? How can I raise a colony, and you are a channel, say, Russia 1? Joseph Brodsky in the Nobel lecture said: “The richer the aesthetic experience of the individual, the harder his taste, the more clearly his moral choice, the freer he is - although, possibly, it is unhappy.” We again in Russia found ourselves in such circumstances that resistance, and not least aesthetic resistance, is our only moral choice and civic duty. ”

Aesthetics of the regime

Further, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova gave a five-minute lecture on the sources of the aesthetics of the Putin regime (the Tsar-Minsk aesthetics plus “The badly understood aesthetics of socialist realism”) and how this aesthetics are expressed in the work of correctional institutions. At the first hearing about UDO, the representatives of the colony pointed out a number of signs indicating that Tolokonnikova did not take the path of correction: he was not involved in the amateur song, in the Miss Charm contest - also, which means that he does not occupy an active life position. “And I argue that my fundamental and carefully thought -out life position is feminist, anti -Patriarchal, aesthetically non -conform - and is manifested in the boycott of“ Miss Charm ”. My position - and only mine, and not the protective position of the camp authorities - in the study of my books and magazines, the time for reading which I am forcefully select from the colonist dulling of the day (...) I demand to call a spade a spade. Yes, I did not go through a colonist test for the loyalty of the protective system of values, but in an active life position it is simply ridiculous for me to refuse. The so -called penalties are no less ridiculous. ” Tolokonnikova received the penalty for: concealing notes about life in a pre -trial detention center; rejection of a walk in the pre -trial detention center (she preferred to prepare for the hearing); The fact that she did not say hello to one of the employees of the camp hospital when she was hospitalized; And finally, for being in the colony club without the knowledge of the administration - and she came to choose a song to participate in the amateur competition, just after the comments received during the court session. In other words, all claims of the colony to Tolokonnikova are aesthetic. As, however, claims to Maria Alekhina, who received the last remark for working for a sewing machine without a scarf.

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 *“And I urge you to look wider,” Tolokonnikova answered and calmly continued to read the speech: “I came here to this court in order to once again highlight the absurdity of oil and gas raw materials, condemning people to senseless camp vesting ...”*”*”*

In this not the most logical place, the prosecutor interrupted the convict and asked her to say “on the merits of the complaint, but not about the Putin regime.” The judge partially agreed: “Continue, but let's get closer to the matter. We just have a somewhat already at the meeting.” “And I urge you to look wider,” Tolononikova answered and calmly continued to read the speech, which ended in the words: “I know that Russia, which walks under Putin, never get an early liberation.

The prosecutor, the lawyer and the judge quickly spread several replicas. There was a complete understanding between them: the judge demonstrated knowledge of the case file, did not refuse to join the documents, and there was nothing especially to argue with them. Therefore, soon the time for Tolokonnikova came up again.

“I am proud of everyone who is ready, sacrificing myself, to defend their principles. This is the only way that large political, value, aesthetic changes happen. I am proud of those who sacrificed their comfort and went on the streets on July 18 to affirm their rights and protect their human dignity. I know that our symbolic power, growing from conviction and courage, is converted into something more. And then Putin and his henchmen will no longer become the state power ... I will be glad if they give me a call, and not as with Khodorkovsky, they will “catch up”, as they say in the colony ... The word “correction” rises into a series of words, characteristic of a totalitarian system, where freedom is called slavery. ”

In the video in this place there would be a chorus: "It seems that in this court my right to defense is violated." And again, the shots of Alekhina, turning her back to the court.

Dissident conflict

In fact, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina allowed a long -standing dispute between Soviet dissidents: is it worth contacting the court as a court? Vladimir Bukovsky in his speech in the Soviet court analyzed in detail the shortcomings of the case and the trial itself, quoted the constitution and compared Soviet practice with the Spanish. The judge then interrupted Bukovsky and made him a remark for the unlawful comparison of the "fascist government of Spain and the Soviet state." “And I object to my violation of my right to defense,” Bukovsky answered and continued to disassemble the accusation against him in detail.

The opposite approach a few years later was demonstrated by Nathan Scharansky, who defiantly turned to his own brother in court and instead of the last word of the defendant, he dictated his passionate speech about the dissident movement, the movement for Jews to emigrate and emigration itself. And he finished it like this: "The court, who has only to read out a long -ready sentence, I have nothing to say."

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 *Fulfilling their art mission, they simultaneously make a diagnosis and show a possible way out. As is often the case with artistic actions, it does not reach everyone and not immediately*

“Pussy Riot participants allowed the old dissident dispute with the same artistry. Alekhina speaks with the court, unlike Bukovsky, not in order to prove his rightness - her rightness does not need proof, but in order to clearly demonstrate the condition, that is, the insolvency of this court. Tolononnikova considers the postulate of the insolvency of the court to be proven - perhaps because it is already it already Alekhina has repeatedly proved, and turns to the public over the heads of the judges.

The Pussy Riot behavior developed over the year in court is strikingly different from the behavior in the court of other Russian political prisoners, including the most experienced and famous. Performing their art mission, they simultaneously make a diagnosis and show a possible way out. As often happens with artistic actions, it does not reach everyone and not at once. But it will reach.

Photos: Pavel Lisitsyn/RIA Novosti, Andrey Stenin/RIA Novosti, Thomas Peter/Reuters, from personal archive, Denis sinyakov/reuters