Translated material
Censored autumn
How and what was forbidden to scribes in the past September: a chronicle
Drawing: Pyotr Sarukhanov / Novaya Gazeta
September began unexpectedly calmly in terms of repression, although many were expecting it with bated breath: several laws came into force that significantly strengthened censorship. Among them is a complete ban on the educational activities of “foreign agents,” which caused a storm of book sales in August.
But the storm subsided, and it seemed that there was a calm that lasted throughout the first half of the month. That is, of course, “tornadoes” arose there too: either the next writer would be recorded as a “foreign agent,” or a protocol would be drawn up—and yet these were targeted manifestations of repression. But the “calm”, unfortunately, did not last long, and by the end of the month everything returned to normal.
We can say that repression in culture in September followed two main lines. The first is the topic of “foreign agents”.
In the legislative sense, the first place is, perhaps, the adoption by the State Duma of a law that toughens criminal liability for “foreign agents.” Its essence is that previously, for criminal prosecution for violating the procedure for the activities of “foreign agents,” it was necessary to bring to administrative responsibility twice under the relevant article of the Code of Administrative Offenses within one year. Now this condition has been removed: for criminal punishment, a single fine or an existing conviction under the “foreign agency” article 330.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is sufficient.
That is, if translated from judicial language into universal human language, imprisonment has become faster and easier.
The law adopted by the State Duma is the implementation of the initiative of the Ministry of Justice put forward at the May St. Petersburg International Legal Forum. “Stop babysitting these people who don’t bring anything good to our country,” Deputy Minister of Justice Oleg Sviridenko used to say at the time. The deputies warmly supported him, accompanying the adoption of the law with another portion of offensive and aggressive rhetoric addressed to “foreign agents.” State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin has already threatened them with further tightening of legislation. “If those who followed the path of betrayal do not realize this and finally understand that they cannot engage in actions to destroy the country, we will be forced to further tighten the legislation,” he said (quoted by TASS).
Another measure of pressure on “foreign agents” was invented by the Ministry of Finance, which prepared a bill on “limiting tax preferences” for “foreign agents.” The department proposed taking 30% of personal income tax from “foreign agents” and depriving them of tax benefits.
The bill “infringes on the rights of both individuals and organizations in this status, and is aimed at ousting them from Russia. Foreign agents, even those located on Russian territory, are actually treated like non-residents,” notes The Bell*.
“Foreign agency” legislation, however, provides vast opportunities not only for repression, but also for bureaucratic and parliamentary self-PR. Initiatives on such a topic are not only readily picked up by the media and provided with scathing headlines, but are also completely safe for those who put them forward. There is no risk of missing the mark, but on the contrary, there is a chance that the initiator will be praised.
So far, the idea of the Crimean parliament to completely ban the creativity of “foreign agents” also looks like self-promotion. A corresponding proposal has already been submitted to the State Duma. But, on the one hand, this is still a “grassroots” initiative, and such initiatives are not always implemented. On the other hand, the State Duma previously warmly welcomed it and promised to discuss it in the relevant committees. Representatives of the creative industries have previously expressed cautious skepticism, but who will listen to them.
Until the new version of the law comes into force, the authorities are actively using the old one. Thus, the Khoroshevsky District Court of Moscow arrested in absentia sex educator, LGBT** activist and writer Alexandra Kazantseva*, who is suspected of evading the duties of a “foreign agent.” Film critic Anton Dolin* also became a defendant in a criminal case under a “foreign agent” article.
Legislators work hard, but so do other departments.
Thus, the register of “foreign agents” is replenished every Friday, and here, too, September gave us an innovation: a whole literary prize was entered into the “foreign agents” category. This is the first time in our practice.
...We are talking about the independent literary award “Dar”*. She, according to the Ministry of Justice, in particular, “disseminated false information about the decisions taken by public authorities of the Russian Federation and the policies pursued by them, as well as false information aimed at creating a negative image of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.” The Ministry of Justice does not explain how the literary prize can disseminate such, and indeed any information.
Seriously, adding “Dar” to the register fully fits the logic of repression. “The Prize supports new voices and the best examples of independent contemporary Russian-language literature, promoting it in the global cultural space,” says the Dar Prize website. And the repressions are aimed primarily at fighting “the best examples of independent modern Russian-language literature,” because they, these examples, say things that are very unpleasant for the authorities.
But the most important consequence of the inclusion of the “Dar” award in the register of “foreign agents” will not even be this. In early September, The Gift announced the start of its second season. Even if not everything goes smoothly for the award, it is undoubtedly a major event for independent Russian-speaking culture. What does this mean for the state? That it is necessary to cut off as many writers and readers as possible from it, from Russia in the first place.
That is, the authorities have put another barrier to the interaction between the internal Russian environment and the external literary environment. And this restriction is primarily for those who live in the Russian Federation.
...In addition to the main “foreign agent” line, repressions continued under other articles beloved by the security forces. For example, according to the article about “fake news” about the army. This is exactly what journalist Ksenia Luchenko* was accused of, whose book “With Good Intentions: The Russian Orthodox Church and Power from Gorbachev to Putin” was recently included in the shortlist for the special “PolitProsvet” award of the “Enlightener” prize.
A real term fine was replaced for folklorist and bard from Khanty-Mansiysk Valery Ledkov, who was convicted in the case of donations to FBK***. The prosecutor's office, which petitioned for a tougher sentence, asked that the 60-year-old man be sentenced to four years in prison. The court gave three. A pensioner and visually disabled person was taken into custody in the courtroom. Initially, he was sentenced to a fine of 120 thousand rubles, having been found guilty of financing extremist activities: the investigation found that Ledkov sent seven donations to FBK for a total amount of 2,100 rubles.
Valery's son Konstantin, a librarian, is already sitting. In May, he was sentenced to five and a half years in prison in the case of repeated display of prohibited symbols, discrediting the army and calls for activities directed against state security.
On September 26, one of the most high-profile “literary” cases in the history of modern Russia—the “Mayakov Case”—turned three years old. Then a criminal case was opened against the young poets Artem Kamardin, Nikolai Daineko and Yegora Shtovba for “inciting hatred or enmity with the threat of violence” for the Mayakov Readings, which at that time were declared “anti-mobilization”.
All three are serving sentences in a colony, where their health is getting worse and worse. Relatives fear that Artem Kamardin will be released as a disabled person.
...Of course, “LGBT propaganda” has not gone away either. For this, Ivan Kvast, the manager of the largest Russian-language platform for publishing comics and literary works in the style of manga and anime, MangaLIB, was again fined 200 thousand rubles (in the summer, MangaLIB received a total of 14 million rubles in fines). This time the occasion was a manga about a marriage between a young girl and a huge snake, writes the pro-government channel “Baza”. The court agreed with the prosecution and recognized that the relationship between a person and a mythological creature falls under the definition of “non-traditional”. It sounds like a joke, but the fines are not funny at all.
The publishing house "New Literary Review" was fined for a much more serious book - for the study of the Swedish historian Per Faxneld "Infernal Feminism". For it, the Presnensky Court of Moscow sued NLO for 400 thousand rubles, considering that the publishing house committed “continuous propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships”, as it sold this book in the Phalanster store. The 2000th edition of the book was destroyed, reports Mediazona*. This, by the way, is also an innovation: before this, publishing houses in Russia were not touched, only bookstores were judged.
A protocol on “LGBT propaganda” was also drawn up against the publishing house Ad Marginem, reported Mediazona, which found the relevant information in the files of the Basmanny District Court. Sources of the BBC Russian Service* in the book market said that the publishing house received the protocol for Olivia Lang’s book “The Body of a Woman.”
...Of course, the authorities do not forget Dmitry Bykov*. This time he was included in the list of “terrorists and extremists”; he is listed there without an asterisk, which means an extremist article. In Russia, Bykov was even arrested in absentia and sentenced to seven years in prison.
He is accused under paragraph “d” of Part 2 of Art. 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation), Part 2 of Art. 330.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (evasion of duties provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation on “foreign agents”).
Those involved in the “publishers’ case” were also included in the same lists. They are also included in the register without an asterisk. Lawyer Maxim Olenichev, who collaborates with the “First Department”*, explained in the telegram channel of this human rights project that “this is a technical decision of Rosfinmonitoring, which he accepted after receiving documents from the investigation on bringing Artem Vakhlyaev, Dmitry Protopopov and Pavel Ivanov to criminal liability.” According to him, restrictions are imposed on them on the disposal of funds and property until this status is lifted. “This is another defeat for those involved in the “publishers’ case” in basic economic rights,” Olenichev noted.
And Memorial* recognized those involved in the “publishers’ case” as political prisoners. Human rights activists, in particular, note that in the actions of Dmitry Protopopov, Artem Vakhlyaev and Pavel Ivanov, “there is no event or corpus delicti at all: the publishing house employees were engaged in legal activities within the framework of their official duties.”
...Another innovation for the cultural sector in September was the nationalization of the Muzyka publishing house, which owns a gigantic music library. In principle, such a practice has not been surprising for a long time; similar things happen in the sphere of economics and business now all the time, but it has only now reached the publishing industry.
The Perovsky Court of Moscow decided to transfer the largest Russian specialized publishing house in the field of musical art to the state income at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office. The Gamma Press Publishing House LLC and the P.Music Publishing House LLC, created by the company’s general director Mark Zilberkvit, also went there. Jurgenson." The Prosecutor General’s Office believes that Zilberkvit illegally privatized these assets, with the intention of “depriving the Russian Federation of cultural property belonging to it and seizing a state-owned enterprise, turning its property into his own property.”
82-year-old Mark Zilberquit is a musicologist, honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts, founder and president of the International Tchaikovsky Charitable Foundation. The property of the publishing houses “Music” and “Gamma Press” is quite a serious jackpot. But in my opinion, what is important is that now a precedent for nationalization has been created in the cultural sphere.
...Another September trend is the use of high technology in censorship. While the whole world is racking its brains over what benefits and what risks artificial intelligence brings, in our country they are operating and have found applications for AI. I remember the character from “It’s Hard to Be a God” by the Strugatsky brothers, Father Kabani: “Thorn, are they raging? Thorn. From wolves, are they hiding? From the wolves... Okay, they're roaring, well done! Let's braid the mines... Don Reba himself braided it. And he took my meat roller. Well done, grit! Your head is grating!.. And now, that means, in the cheerful tower, tender minced meat is made... Very, they say, it helps...”
First, the director of the department of state support for periodicals and the book industry of the Ministry of Digital Development, Vladimir Grigoriev, announced at the MIB that AI was involved in censoring books. True, he assured that the program would look for “exclusively drug propaganda” in books.
It quickly became clear that the matter was not limited to drug propaganda. First, the StraightForward* foundation, in its Papercuts newsletter about book censorship, reported that one of the largest Russian publishing houses has been checking all books for “legal violations” using AI since the beginning of August.
Later, this information was actually confirmed by the head of Eksmo-AST, Oleg Novikov. According to him, against the backdrop of new legislative initiatives and the “case of publishers,” Eksmo-AST decided to introduce new control procedures, as well as speed up the implementation of artificial intelligence, which helps editors work with books. “Until many people perceived this, the laws are there and life is here, and they did not touch, there was some kind of relaxation, which is characteristic of creative people. This prompted both us and our employees to strengthen compliance, introduce new procedures, because some orders had been adopted before, some control measures were envisaged, but they could not control everything,” Novikov said in an interview with RBC Radio.
In general, everything is in order with prohibitive and repressive laws in Russia. For the convenience of book retail representatives, the Book Distributors Association has collected all legislative measures “related to working with books” into a general presentation. It presents work with books by “foreign agents”; separately - work with books of “foreign agents” included in the register of “terrorists”; working with books that “contain destructive content”; work with books containing “information about narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances”, mandatory labeling of textbooks, advertising on “prohibited resources”, the law on the platform economy...
All these measures are aimed primarily at self-censorship: this is much more profitable and convenient for the state than bothering with direct repression. And we see their effectiveness. However, in today's situation this is inevitable.
The second goal pursued by the authorities is to cut off the Russian audience as much as possible from dissent and free literature, which in its eyes are exclusively hostile and destructive.
The third is to punish as harshly as possible those who still do not succumb to pressure, at the same time achieving the effect of intimidation. And all this taken together has long looked not like a chaotic work of little interconnected structures, but a coordinated and systemic policy.