Ukrainian and oppositional Russian courage
Words, voices, faces reclaiming the freedom to think
February 27, 2024, marked the 9th annual remembrance day of the assassination of Boris Nemtsov.
February 18, 2024
In a 2021 article in The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum said of Alexei Navalny, “The Russian opposition leader showed what courage means.”
When Alexei Navalny boarded a plane to Moscow on January 17, he turned his life into a metaphor. He knew it, his wife knew it, and everybody else on the plane knew it. So did the millions of people who had watched his documentary videos, who had seen the witty interviews he did on the plane, who have since joined demonstrations in his name. So did the leaders of Russia, including the country’s dictator and president, Vladimir Putin. This, Navalny was telling all of them, is what courage looks like.
— Anne Applebaum, Navalny’s Lesson for the World, The Atlantic, April 22, 2021.
In an article today in the same publication, Anna Nemtsova attempts to comfort us with the thought that Navalny had the last laugh. She says of Putin’s opposition: “Even if it costs them their life, they defy him with humor.” Nemtsova is referring to both Alexei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov who had once said to her, “Listen, if I don’t joke, I will go nuts in our reality.”
Anna Nemtsova herself, who is not related to Boris Nemtsov despite their last names, may be thought of as a messenger of courage: as a Russian journalist, she is in a dangerous profession. Still, I can’t wrap my head around the thought that death is the ultimate price that people like Boris Nemtsov and journalist Anna Politskovskaya had to pay to think differently, to want better for their country, to right the wrongs they saw. So much to lose — everything to lose — including their lives, and nothing guaranteed after they are gone. Will people rise up? Who will keep their legacy alive? Will people show up for Navlany’s “Noon Against Putin” strategy during the upcoming March elections even though he is gone? What will keep the fires of their struggles burning? Will their deaths be in vain?
How will history remember them?
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February 19, 2024
At first glance, it feel likes it is all in vain. The BBC reported that Russian TV, in its 45-minute Friday night news bulletin on the 16th, devoted a mere 28 seconds to the news about Alexei Navalny’s death. “Just 28 seconds for the man who'd become Russia's most prominent opposition figure and the country's most famous prisoner.”
But then again, outside of the state TV screen, there is an outpouring of sorrow amidst the sense of horror, shock and loss. It is striking how many people say Navalny represented hope for them. And how troubling that they feel that hope died with him! This is why early attempts at keeping people’s morale up, by honoring Navalny, by remembering him, feels so important. As Mikhail Shishkin, Russian author, writes in The Guardian:
[Navalny] judged people by the standards he set for himself. He supposed that if, for him, what mattered most in life was the rights and freedom and dignity of the individual, then that must be what mattered most to others, too. He believed people could be persuaded, inspired and led – and indeed his followers, mainly young, wonderful men and women, numbered in the tens of thousands … He has given support to all of us. By existing, by refusing to give in, by making that supreme sacrifice, he has given us all hope. We are now his hope.
“We are now his hope.”
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To keep going without feeling crushed by the terror of such a vast, dreary land, hope is a must. Hope is vital. Courage may set individuals apart from us ordinary folks, but hope sustains the entire population. Without a sense of hope in the population, courage of the leaders, martyrs, is limited by what it can accomplish.
Russians may be weary, Russians may fall in line with what’s expected of them by a murderous regime, Russians may even be apathetic to everything around them, but for the sake of Shishkin’s hopes, and for the sake of lives senselessly lost, I wish that Russians will heed exiled businessman Mikahil Khodorkovsky’s call. He has called on Russians will to give Navalny a symbolic victory posthumously by remembering him, by keeping him on the ballot one way or the other.
***
We understand courage as that quality embodied by men and women who embrace their calling and give their society’s struggle their personal all — people who are opposition leaders, dissidents, political activists, writers, Ukrainian military, defense personnel, artists in times of war…But even ordinary people choosing to live in a war-zone or citizens coming together to do what they have to do in defiance of authoritarian states — grieving, mourning, living, hoping — exercise their resolve to assert the essence of their humanity. Take for instance this Reuters report:
At the "Wall of Sorrow" memorial on the avenue named after Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, some Russians laid flowers beside pictures of Navalny. One message read: "We will not forget, nor shall we forgive."
"I came because I have grief," said Arkady, who declined to give his second name. "He was a man who I respected. I had hopes that he was someone who could do something in the future."
Experiencing grief publicly and expressing collective loss has become an act of bravery inside Russia. People who brought flowers were briskly ‘cleared’ just as the flowers for Nemtsov and Navalny were removed and made to disappear. There is a set of 18 photographs at this link — one glance at them is worth more than my 1,000 words. Take a look. The least we can do is not turn away from the world that opens itself up to us — we owe the people who trust us with their vulnerability at least that much.
The Moscow Times reported, as of Feb 18, 2024, 154 people in Moscow alone were handed jail time of up to 14 days for mourning Navalny under Russia’s anti-protest laws. By Feb 21, 2024, the number has gone up to at least 400 and some mourners have been handed military summonses.
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February 20, 2024
One way that those of us on the outside can do our part is by remembering the names, faces, words and works of those slain by cowardly authoritarians. Here is a U.S. Department of State press release honoring Boris Nemtsov on February 27, 2023, to mark the 8th day of remembrance of Nemtsov’s death by murder:
Nemtsov was a former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, a political activist, and a reformer; someone who devoted his life to improving the lives of his fellow citizens. He was fearless and outspoken, and his civic commitment has continued to be an inspiration for other pro-democracy politicians and human rights defenders, such as Aleksey Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Although the Kremlin continues to intensify its campaign of repression, Navalny, Kara-Murza, and hundreds of other political prisoners remain stalwart advocates for a freer, more democratic Russia. Today, as we pay homage to Boris Nemtsov and his legacy, we also recognize those brave Russians who continue to work in the face of severe repression for a better future for their country.
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February 24, 2024
When I think of courage in Ukraine, I think of some of my zemlyaki (India-born) who, alongside other international and Ukrainian populations, continue to live in Ukraine. At the beginning of the war two years ago, concerned folks on this side of the world and in India wondered if the chaotic logistics of leaving via neighboring European countries prevented them and if they needed specific help to get out. Those concerned here did not understand that my zemlyaki chose to stay back despite the dangers and fears. Ukraine has been their home for years, even decades. Ukraine is where they work. Ukraine is where they raise their children. Ukraine is where they teach the next generation of students.
Ukraine is where their heart remains. Their choice is as natural as the Ukraine-born population living through this horror.
I will write a little more about some of my zemlyaki later so you too can come to know what extraordinary people they are. I spoke with one of them today. She had just come back from a walk and shared how calm the city is on this day which marks the start of the 3rd year of the phase of the war that started in 2022. She was quick to note that for many Ukrainians the war had already started in 2014 and so this was yet another year marking the long period of occupation. I remembered that in 2022, when I woke up in the morning of February 24 and caught up with the devastating news, she was the first person I texted. She sent back a few photos of people going about their day as calm and normal as possible, as was seen on the streets of the central part of the city that had been attacked early that morning. In one she had captured the dignified — head held high, straight-backed, calm body language — posture of an older woman with a purposeful stride. As if to say, people here are not panicking. They will not cower down.
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Larissa Babij is living in Kyiv. Through her writing, she introduces the world to people engaged in extraordinary undertakings as well as in everyday living during this war. It is impossible not to be moved by those she meets on buses, in the streets, inside stores. In one of her latest pieces, she highlights a beautiful, but stark realization of Kevin, an American medic, who attends to the needs of the injured and broken in a low-resource setting. We come to know that somebody’s passion was nature photography through his obituary. She quotes Larysa Venediktova and Oleksandr Lebediev who address the discomfort I felt long ago when I heard something similar from an American whom I thought was arrogant and chauvinistic: “[Russian] culture is incapable of teaching people to differentiate between good and evil.” I argued with him then. But now I too see it. I agree with the American; I agree with Venediktova and Lebediev; I allow Larissa’s entry to shift something inside me.
In the pictures Larissa paints of Ukrainians using just her words, people go about doing what they would have done anyway, if there had been no war, such as waking up, going for walks, learning, thinking, writing. Only, there is a war and, as if to reiterate the cruelty of the proverbial Russian roulette, random — or not so random — missiles put a premature end to the life-in-resistance led by some.
There was a time when Ukrainians living at home, keeping on with their civilian pastimes—cafes, concerts, kids, etc.—was a form of resistance. If russia is trying to make our home unlivable, then we refuse to stop living… here, at home. Now Ukrainian schools are equipped with bomb shelters so children can keep learning underground whenever there is an air raid alarm. Domesticating a war zone only makes it easier to pretend that you can live under perpetual military assault. Until russia is defeated, every child in Ukraine is a potentially dead child.
— Larissa Babij, February 14, 2024, Kyiv, a Kind of Refugee.
Read more here:
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Ukrainian courage is the determination to continue on the frontline, as my friend’s daughter is doing even after her father was killed in a recent battle. By policy, the daughter — who happens to be the only child of her parents — can leave the military because the family has already lost a member in active combat. But, as a medic in a critical area, she will not hear of it. She does not believe in leaving her responsibilities and her Ukrainian soldiers even though death has struck so close to her heart.
***
Ukrainian courage is the courage to keep writing even if you no longer believe in the ability of literature to change the world, as writer Tetiana Maljartschuk does. Maljartschuk’s novel Forgottenness, translated by Zenia Tompkins, won the BBC Ukrainian Book of the Year award. Here is a snippet of a transcript of an interview by Leila Fadel on NPR:
MALJARTSCHUK: I don't believe anymore in the literature. You know, sometimes I think it's not enough to be a writer.
FADEL: Why?
MALJARTSCHUK: Because, you know, all writers, I think, somewhere they believe that they can change this world a little bit with their texts to make it better. But, now it's - I don't believe it anymore. Literature is something that you are writing afterwards all the time, afterwards about the tragedies.
FADEL: Already perpetrated, when they've already happened, when nobody stopped them.
MALJARTSCHUK: And then, this vicious circle is going on.
FADEL: Yeah. When did you feel like, I don't believe in literature anymore?
MALJARTSCHUK: It was an illusion for me. So I don't believe in this illusion anymore. But I can think only when I write. So it's only one thing for me to be alive.
The courage to think. Now that is something else that Americans in this election year can learn from Ukrainians.
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Malathi Raghavan: Thank you for memorializing Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny.
The other commentator believes Navalny was no friend of Ukraine. For a long time, Navalny held traditional Russian views about Ukraine. But Navalny opposed Putin's war in the end.
Navalny, totally unlike the other commentator's remarks, was not foolish and forgettable, but a visionary who wanted to leave hope to the Russian citizen.
Russia has had other martyrs before Navalny.
They are not forgotten.
Fr. Georgy Apollonovich Gapon (of Ukrainian descent), a priest of the Holy Orthodox Church was at the head of the peasants, hoping to petition the Country's Father for redress of grievances.
As in 1917, there were strikes throughout the land.
The overwhelming forces of the Imperial Guard opened fire and massacred hundreds of innocents, many women.
Now, my colleague (below) might say, "the decision to demonstrate in Russia was stupid and had no legs."
Now maybe, with his long attention to Slavic history, the learned commentator can correct me.
But I have read some authorities that haled from the Glasgow University, Russian. East European and Eurasian Studies, including Jonathan Smele's study of the Russian Civil War.
Now maybe the commentator, "Researching Ukraine," finds events do not leave memories, but the major studies I have read say that Bloody Sunday 1905 kept the revolution alive and made the revolutions of 1917 inevitable, so much so that Lev Trotsky himself wrote a history of the 1905 Revolution many years later.
Maybe the Scholls could have left Germany during the Third Reich. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in 1938 was offered a Professorship and permanent residence at Union Theological Seminary in NYC.
The Scholls remained.
Bonhoeffer determined he had to return to Germany, because a postwar Germany would need a rebuilt Christianity.
The Scholls were murdered by the Nazi authorities.
Heinrich Himmler personally signed the death warrant for Dietrich Bonhoeffer in April 1945, so that Bonhoeffer was martyred on month before the war's end.
The "Cost of Discipleship" is the more poignant to read, when one considers the martyrdom of the great theologian.
At 76, I personally remember the 1956 revolution in Budapest.
In the Spring this year, a newly found friend opined that the 1956 revolution, where citizens uprose and threw Molotov Cocktails and bricks at the incoming tanks, died in vain.
Not so. I was an 8-year-old boy in Long Beach, California, watching the events live on a little, vacuum tube TV, black and white, on a tremendous console that matched my mom and dad's wooden furniture.
At 76, the Budapest martyrs inspire me, and I assured my newfound friend in Budapest that the Revolution of 1956 made of Armando a lifelong admirer and supporter of the people of Hungary.
Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny repented of his unkind thoughts toward Ukraine. Navalny will be remembered along with the martyrs in Budapest in 1956, the Scholls, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the hundreds of innocents of Bloody Sunday 1905.
Navalny leaves behind a worthy heritage.
Nevalny was no friend to Ukraine. He believed in Empire just like Putin. He just thought it could be done democratically. His decision to return to Russia was stupid. It has no "legs" in today's attention deficient tiktok world.
6 months from now he could still be opposing Putin safely from Germany. He could prove me wrong and show strong support for Ukraine by rallying partisans to open a new front in Russia. He could be doing so much more.
As it is... he is dead. His contributions will be 90% finished in about 6 months. His work written in history books outside of Russia. The last 10% will fade over the years.
It's my opinion that he started believing in his own celebrity and thought he had more power than he actually had. It did not protect him. Now all Russia and the world has are his not insignificant contributions up to and until his death. No more. He was a fool to go back and serves very little purpose other than to get clicks and headlines for others.