Two Russian artists declared “terrorists and extremists” because of a play

Russian artists Evgenia Berkovitch and Svetlana Petriïtchouk, in pre-trial detention for a year because of one of their plays, have been added to the list of “terrorists and extremists” established by the Russian authorities. Russia has been engaged for years, and even more so since the offensive against Ukraine launched in February 2022, in a repression of voices deemed critical of the Kremlin.

Director Evgenia Berkovitch, 39, and playwright Svetlana Petriïtchouk, 44, have appeared since Monday under numbers 2464 and 9901 on the list of “terrorists and extremists” of the Russian federal financial monitoring service, Rosfinmonitoring. The two artists were arrested on May 5, 2023 for “justifying terrorism”, a crime punishable by seven years of imprisonment. They have been awaiting their trial in pre-trial detention since then.

The accusation concerns a 2020 show, telling the story of Russians being recruited, on the internet, by Islamists in Syria in order to marry them. The play was a success with critics and the public. She even received two “Golden Masks” in 2022, the main theater award in Russia. Russian daily Kommersant reported in January that a new linguistic assessment claimed the show “justified terrorism” because it painted a “romantic image of the terrorist.”

Asked about the placement of artists on the list of “terrorists and extremists” even before any conviction, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov estimated that “the organizations behind this decision were acting within the framework of the law”. Russia has placed many personalities on this list, such as Russian opponents Garry Kasparov, a former chess champion in exile, and Alexei Navalny, who died in March in a prison in Russia, as well as the “international LGBT movement”.

In October 2022, the American giant Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, was also classified as a “terrorist and extremist” organization, opening the possibility of legal action against its users in Russia. Evgenia Berkovitch, mother of two minor children, had published poetry against the offensive in Ukraine, launched in February 2022, evoking in particular the distress of Ukrainian cities, ravaged by the Russian assault. Since this offensive, the Russian authorities have accelerated the repression of all forms of dissent in Russia, with fines and prison sentences.