They forgot

From the political prisoners, only memory remained. At least, judging by the events held in Moscow on October 30, we can conclude that there are a memory of political prisoners, but they themselves are not. But what a memory, what events!

Since 1974, on October 30, it was celebrated in our country as a political prisoner day . First of all, it was the political prisoner who sat then, although they also recalled the dead. The commemorative day was celebrated mainly by the Politsyki themselves in the camps and their friends in the wild. It was the day of the declared resistance to the totalitarian regime.

In 1991, the Yeltsin authorities, somehow camouflaged under the democratic one, cunningly renamed the day of the victims of political repression on the day of memory of the victims of political repression . Gave him official state status. Officials of different ranks, acting and former, including themselves participating in repressions, were frequent to the Solovetsky stone on Lubyanka. Kazenchin took out its essence from the event, replacing solidarity with political prisoners with a politically safe ritual of memory.

And how rituals love us - and there is nothing to say. Yes, so that to squeeze out a tear or so that patriotic delight is seized. Presidents, premieres, deputies and other state evil spirits are especially like to burn in public. As they like to stand in front of the television cameras with lean faces, solemnly put flowers where you need to kneel, thoughtfully cross, breathe hard and sympathize with a picture. As they love parades and solemn ceremonies, insignia and orders, standards and symbols of power. How they adore empty meaningfulness and prohibitive pathos. Well, if you start the Winter Olympics in 2014, then certainly at 20 hours 14 minutes! Even if we accept Olympic fire, so do not take it to the capital of games, but certainly send it to the Brownian movement throughout Russia, and in order to visit the North Pole in space, albeit not burning. What is there to burn in the airless space, when he constantly goes out on the ground ! An extinguished torch in outer space is a symbol of the madness of the Russian government.

It would seem that the devil with them and with their rituals, let's laugh and pass by. However, it turns out that the rituals displace a genuine life. In 2007, the Memorial Society, which previously held shares at the Solovetsky stone every on October 30, could not withstand the administrative influx and the vulgar substitution of the meaning of the marked date. They came up with a new action - the “ Return of the Names ” - which was held there, but on the eve of October 29. Hundreds of people recall that day who died in the Stalin years. Also a ritual, but at least sincere, without official lies and tension.

And what about political prisoners? Nothing. They seemed to be nobody - neither Alekhina and Tolokonnikova , nor the "swamp" prisoners , nor Boris Stomakhin , nor Khodorkovsky and Lebedev , nor many others . On October 30, on the day of the political prisoner, they were silent about them together. No, of course, they are remembered, they are worried about them, but their names on the streets and squares of Russian cities did not sound that day that belongs to them rightfully.

There were ritual actions. They opened a memorial plaque on the house where Varlam Shalamov once lived. We talked at a press conference about whom to consider political prisoners. They served a memorial service at the executed at the Butovo training ground. They stood in the picket for the opening of the Museum-Memorial in the "Firing House" on Nikolskaya. All this in itself is not bad, but where is the day today?

Maybe nothing happens? So not. To date, the whereabouts of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, which was taken away from one zone, was not known , but did not bring it to another. Today, in Moscow courts, cases of extension of the preliminary imprisonment Alexei Gaskarov and Leonid Razvozzhaev are obeying, an appeal is considered for the absentee arrest of Anastasia Rybachenko .

Life goes on as usual, political prisoners are sitting, and sly power and servile social activists captivate society with memories of the repressions of Stalin's times. And I noticed: the more the need to protect today's political prisoners, the more heat they recall the events of the distant years. They think that they compensate for their silence about today. As a result of October 30, there are only conversations that about the 37th year. And about 2013, the new government and new social activists will grieve in thirty years. Without any risk, dangerous analogies and risky comparisons. And of course, with a mask of the most sincere grief on honest faces. A wonderful relay!