Latest news with #NKVD
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Two Prosecutors' Review: Sergei Loznitsa's Chilling Soviet Drama Is A Bleak Warning From History
Sergei Loznitsa's forensically objective, intellectually nuanced documentaries tend to stand in stark contrast to his fictional output; in films like My Joy, In the Fog and Donbass, the Ukrainian director is inclined to put his cards on the table, usually addressing his signature subject: the abject failure of the Russian state. Two Prosecutors follows in that tradition, being a very slow and very talky chamber piece that could be the most terrifying comedy that Aki Kaurismäki never made, or a Chaplin-esque horror film about the evils of bureaucracy in a world ruled by morons. This time, Loznitsa doesn't just have the Kremlin in his sights; Two Prosecutors is one of his most accessible films to date, with relevance to every country wrestling with authoritarian political parties right now. Based on a novella by Soviet and political activist Georgy Demidov (1908-1987), Two Prosecutors begins with a screen credit noting the year as 1937 ('The height of Stalin's terror'). A prison door opens, and a procession of broken men file out into the yard. 'This is your work gang,' a warden tells his colleague. 'What a fine bunch,' is the sarcastic reply. One especially old, dishevelled man is singled out for special duties; his job is to sit by a stove in an empty cell, incinerating a huge pile of folded papers. It transpires that they are letters, written to the dear leader by men being held illegally, having been forced to confess to imaginary crimes by NKVD, the USSR's secret service. He will never read them. More from Deadline Scarlett Johansson On Why The Script For Her Directorial Debut 'Eleanor The Great' Made Her Cry: 'It's About Forgiveness' – Cannes Cover Story Cannes Film Festival 2025 in Photos: Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro, 'Sound Of Falling' & 'Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning' Premieres 'The Little Sister' Review: Nadia Melliti Makes A Striking Debut In Hafsia Herzi's Seductive Coming-Out Story - Cannes Film Festival The old man is warned of dire consequences should he give any of the letters a reprieve. Nevertheless, he tucks one away, a missive written in blood and addressed to the Bryansk Prosecutor's Office. Somehow, it gets to its intended destination, and sometime after that, the first of the two prosecutors — a recent graduate called Kornyev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) — arrives at the prison asking to see the governor. Instead, he gets his deputy, who tries to fob him off with the Russian equivalent of 'he's in a meeting.' But Kornyev insists, demanding access to a prisoner named Stepniak. RELATED: The deputy goes to see the governor, who is lounging in his office on a leather sofa. 'Some student has turned up,' he says, and the two make plans to leave him hanging around in the deputy's office, hoping he'll just get bored and go. But Kornyev does not go, so the governor tells him that Stepniak has a contagious disease, reeling off a list of terrible diseases that are doing the rounds, like typhoid, diphtheria and much, much worse. Kornyev is undeterred, so the governor allows his request, albeit with a sinister warning. 'Washing your hands with soap won't save you from certain infections,' he says, an innocent enough line just dripping with barely concealed violence. Stepniak (Aleksandr Filippenko) is in solitary confinement, and reveals to Kornyev what's going on in the prison. Lifting up his clothing, he reveals weeping red welts and purple lesions all over his body ('That's how things are, laddy… My urine is red.'). Stepniak explains that the Soviet secret service, the NKVD, has infiltrated local government and are busily installing a kakistocracy, targeting older party members and taking them out with especially harsh punishments. Kornyev, a fine, upstanding Communist, is shocked at this contempt for the law of his land, and gets a train back to the city, where he demands an urgent meeting with the Prosecutor General. The pace is painfully methodical, as Kornyev faces obstruction and obfuscation at every level, enduring Kafka-esque levels of red tape before the Prosecutor General will even agree to see him. What separates this from, say, a Roy Andersson movie is the creeping sense of Parallax View-style menace that sets in; there's a sense that Kornyev is getting in over his head, never quite reading the room and making enemies that are each cumulatively more dangerous than the last. The set design is terrific in this regard; statues of Lenin and Stalin watch over airless, wood-paneled rooms bathed in a passive-aggressive Soviet glaze of green. In previous years, this might have seemed like more of a very local, and, culturally, very specific story, more of a cautionary tale about what might happen to us in the West if our democracies are not protected. It used to be a case of there but for the grace of God…, but in 2025, life is coming at all of us hard and fast. Two Prosecutors is a bleak warning from history, one that will only seem more and more prophetic with the passing of time — and that time starts now. Title: Two ProsecutorsFestival: Cannes (Competition)Director: Sergei LoznitsaScreenwriter: Sergei Loznitsa, based on the novella Two Prosecutors by Georgy DemidovCast: Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Aleksandr Filippenko, Anatoliy BeliySales company: SBS InternationalRunning time: 1 hr 53 mins Best of Deadline Broadway's 2024-2025 Season: All Of Deadline's Reviews Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize Winners Through The Years Deadline Studio At Sundance Film Festival Photo Gallery: Dylan O'Brien, Ayo Edebiri, Jennifer Lopez, Lily Gladstone, Benedict Cumberbatch & More
Ammon
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Ammon
Remembrance Day of the Victims of the Genocide against the Crimean Tatars
Myroslava Shcherbatiuk- Ambassador of Ukraine to Jordan May 18 is designated by the Ukrainian parliament as the Remembrance Day of the victims of the genocide of the indigenous Muslim people of Crimea – Crimean Tatars. On this day in 1944 the Soviet totalitarian regime committed one of the gravest crimes in its history — the forced mass deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar people from their historical homeland - Crimea. Acting on Joseph Stalin's personal order, the Soviet authorities decided to «completely cleanse» the peninsula of Crimean Tatars. This was an act of ethnic cleansing aimed at destroying the Crimean Tatars as an Indigenous people and national community, thereby enabling the full-scale colonization of the region. This crime was particularly devious, as the majority of the victims were women, children, and the elderly, while thousands of Crimean Tatar men were serving on the front lines of the World War II as part of the Red Army. At dawn of May 18 a large-scale operation by the NKVD (KGB) began simultaneously across Crimea. Armed officers stormed into homes, giving families only 10-20 minutes to gather their belongings before being forcibly expelled. By May 20, the Soviet authorities deported to remote regions of the Soviet Union by freight trains in total over 190 thousand Crimean Tatars, including more than 92,000 children under the age of 16. Deportees were transported in overcrowded cattle cars, without access to food, clean water or medical care. The journey to these remote settlements typically lasted two to three weeks. During the transportation alone from 7,000 to 8,000 people died from thirst, disease, exhaustion and the inhumane conditions. Upon arrival in exile Crimean Tatars faced forced labor, starvation, unsanitary conditions, widespread disease and total social isolation. They were resettled in specially designated, segregated areas known as «special settlements», which were operating as Soviet reservations. These settlements were subject to strict surveillance: mandatory registration at commandants' offices, prohibition from leaving the area and constant oversight by repressive authorities. Being a Crimean Tatar was a sentence, as these people were given the status of «special settlers» which entailed lifelong discrimination, restriction of basic rights such as freedom of movement, access to education, healthcare and employment in qualified professions. In Uzbekistan alone, according to official Soviet records, approximately 30,000 Crimean Tatars died within the first 18 months. In some areas, mortality rates reached 60–70%. According to the Crimean Tatar national movement, the actual death toll was likely even higher. Any attempt to leave the settlements could result in arrest, and repeated violations were punishable by up to 20 years of hard labor. In addition, nearly 6,000 individuals were sent directly to GULAG labor camps. Following the mass expulsion, the Soviet regime began erasing every trace of the Crimean Tatar presence in Crimea. The Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was turned into a regular administrative region. Crimean Tatar toponyms were russified, mosques were destroyed or converted into utility buildings, and settlers from other Soviet republics were relocated to the homes of the deportees. The Crimean Tatar language, literature, historical documents and cultural artifacts were systematically destroyed or replaced with Russian ones. Even mentioning the deportation — known as Sürgünlik — was prohibited, and the term «Crimean Tatar» itself was nearly eliminated from the public use. Following the death of Joseph Stalin and the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Crimean Tatars were still denied the right to return to their homeland — Crimea. In effect, their forced exile became indefinite. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, a national movement emerged, advocating for the restoration of Crimean Tatars' rights and their return to their homeland. The movement employed peaceful methods: public appeals, large-scale petition campaigns, non-violent protests and unauthorized returns to Crimea despite the official ban. It became one of the most extensive and longest-running human rights movements in the Soviet Union. In July 1987 hundreds of Crimean Tatars staged demonstrations on the Red Square in Moscow, publicly demanding the right to return. Under sustained public pressure in 1989 the Soviet authorities finally lifted the formal ban on Crimean Tatars residing in Crimea. After this decision a mass return of Crimean Tatars to their homeland began. By the late 1980s and especially in 1990–1991, thousands of families began their journey to homeland. The return was spontaneous and extremely difficult: the state provided no housing or support. Many families had to live in tents, dugouts or temporary shelters, building homes and infrastructure on their own. In response to bureaucratic resistance, particularly regarding land allocation, the community organized itself and founded around 300 new settlements in Crimea. In 1991 the institutional representation of the Crimean Tatar people was restored. On 26 June 1991 the historic Second Qurultay of the Crimean Tatar People was held in Simferopol, reviving the tradition of the national self-governance which began in 1917. The Qurultay proclaimed the restoration of the people's right to self-governance in Crimea and established the representative body — the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People. The Mejlis became the legitimate voice of Crimean Tatars and worked with Ukrainian state authorities and the international community on issues of repatriation, restitution of property rights, education, language, and cultural development. Upon returning home, the Crimean Tatar people actively engaged in reviving their culture, language, and religious life, despite significant initial challenges. In the early years of repatriation, the Crimean Tatar Drama Theatre resumed its work, the folk ensemble Qırım was founded, and institutions such as the Ismail Hasprinskyi Library and the Museum of History and Culture of the Crimean Tatar People were established. The media began broadcasting and publishing in the Crimean Tatar language. Communities reopened mosques and reclaimed religious buildings that had been used as museums or warehouses under the Soviet rule. Schools were established with the tuition in Crimean Tatar language. After the Russian Federation occupied the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014, the genocidal practices initiated during the Soviet period were revived. The Russian occupation administration launched the systematic campaign of pressure, persecution, and displacement targeting the Crimean Tatar community — one of the most prominent centers of the non-violent resistance to the occupation. From the very beginning, the actions of the Russian occupation regime were aimed at destroying the identity, culture, political rights of this indigenous people of Ukraine in Crimea. In the first years of the Russian occupation the activities of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People — the legitimate representative body recognized by the international community — were banned. In 2016 a Russian court designated the Mejlis as an «extremist organization» depriving Crimean Tatars of the right to collective representation. Peaceful assemblies - including commemorative events marking the anniversary of the 1944 deportation on 18 May – as well as the use of the Crimean Tatar symbols, and public remembrance of genocide victims were either banned or severely restricted. Prominent leaders, activists and human rights advocates were forced to leave Crimea, while others became targets of criminal prosecution, political pressure and smear campaigns in the media. Russian security forces in occupied Crimea carry out systematic searches of Crimean Tatar homes, arrests on fabricated charges, torture, abuse, and enforced disappearances. One of the key tools of the repression is prosecution of Crimean Tatars based on accusations of involvement in extremist organizations. Dozens of Crimean Tatars received lengthy sentences (up to 17–20 years) for alleged terrorism without any proof. Among the victims of such cases are journalists, human rights advocates, members of the Crimean Solidarity movement, and other pro-Ukrainian activists. At the same time, the occupation administration pursues the deliberate policy of cultural erasure and forced assimilation. All independent Crimean Tatar media outlets, including the ATR channel were shut down. Opportunities to receive education in the Crimean Tatar language were severely reduced, and history programs in schools were altered in order to reflect the Russian imperial interpretations. Traditional cultural events were banned and the public use of the Crimean Tatar language, symbols and religious practices are increasingly restricted. All these repressive actions occur against the backdrop of demographic shifts: thousands of Crimean Tatars are once again being forced to leave their homeland due to the atmosphere of fear, continuous searches, political persecution, and compulsory military conscription. In parallel, the Russian Federation is actively resettling its own citizens to the occupied Ukrainian territory of Crimea. This involves hundreds of thousands of people, which constitutes a direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and an act that qualifies as a war crime. This policy of «hybrid» deportation serves the same purpose as previous repressive campaigns of the Soviet time: to erase the Crimean Tatar presence in Crimea and create a false image of the «Russian» Crimea. On November 12, 2015 the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine officially recognized the deportation of the Crimean Tatars as an act of genocide and condemned the policy of the Soviet totalitarian regime in accordance with the provisions of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Parliaments of Latvia and Lithuania (2019), Canada (2022), as well as Poland, Estonia, and the Czech Republic (2024) adopted resolutions recognizing the Soviet regime's actions against the Crimean Tatar people as genocide. These resolutions also explicitly condemn the Russian Federation's ongoing repressive policies against Crimean Tatars in the context of the ongoing Russian occupation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Ukraine continues to actively engage with governments and international organizations calling for a comprehensive legal and moral assessment of the events of 1944 and classification of the Crimean Tatar tragedy as genocide. One of the priorities of the foreign policy of Ukraine is the de-occupation of Crimea and protection of the rights of Crimean Tatars. Only the restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea - and the guarantee of the rights of its indigenous people - can ensure that Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians and other citizens of Ukraine can live freely.
TimesLIVE
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- TimesLIVE
From London, a Russian film maker explores the pain of exile
When Russia was convulsed by revolution and civil war more than a century ago, an estimated two million people fled abroad, including artists, musicians and poets. Some, like Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita, became famous in the West, while others lived in near-obscurity, haunted by the desire to return home but able to do so only in their imaginations. Liberov is equally fascinated by those who made the opposite choice and remained in Russia despite the danger of persecution, such as the poet Anna Akhmatova. Akhmatova wrote dozens of poems reproaching her former lover Boris Anrep for leaving her, and Russia, behind, foreshadowing what Liberov calls the 'terrible conversation' taking place today between those who stayed behind and those who left. She endured surveillance by the NKVD secret police, expulsion from the Writers' Union and her son's arrest, while other writers and artists, including her friend Osip Mandelstam, perished in Josef Stalin's camps. Several Akhmatova poems are included in Keys to Home, an album compiled by Liberov in what he calls his farewell to Russia. It features music by artists inside the country, though Liberov said seeking partners there was a tough process during which he discovered 'things I'd prefer not to know'. 'People were selfish, scared. People lied, people were false. People avoided (me), people did not respond,' he said. However, he declined to engage in personal recriminations. 'If we're going to blame those who stayed and they're going to blame those who left, it leads to nowhere, only to further separation.' From exile, Liberov, 44, has tracked the repression of fellow artists with horror. In a high-profile 2024 case, a playwright and a director, Svetlana Petriychuk and Zhenya Berkovich, were sentenced to six years each in prison for 'justifying terrorism' in a play about Russian women who married Islamic State fighters. Inspired by a defiant speech Berkovich delivered to the court in verse, Liberov created a widely viewed YouTube video in which her words were turned into rap-style lyrics, accompanied by drawings made inside the courtroom. Last July Russian pianist Pavel Kushnir, 39, died in a Siberian prison where he had launched a hunger strike while awaiting trial on charges of inciting terrorism after posting anti-war material online. Thanks to Liberov's efforts, a recording of Kushnir playing Sergei Rachmaninov's preludes has been restored and released on Spotify and Apple Music, and a scholarship was established to support young pianists from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus who want to study in Europe. Concerts dedicated to Kushnir are taking place this month in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv and Berlin. Liberov is pessimistic about what lies ahead. Russia squandered the opportunity to reinvent itself as a free country after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he said. 'So the question is: will we ever have this chance again? I pray for that, but I doubt it. If we have this chance I would love so very much to go back home and work there.'
Al Jazeera
23-02-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
The wounds of the 1944 deportation still fester in Chechnya and beyond
A day before Ukraine marks three years since the full-scale Russian invasion, the Chechen and Ingush peoples are commemorating the 81st anniversary of their forced expulsion by the communist regime in Moscow. The impact of this genocidal operation, which began on February 23, 1944 on the orders of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, continues to reverberate today throughout the North Caucasus and beyond. The decades-long efforts to suppress the memory of this violent expulsion and the refusal of Moscow to acknowledge and apologise for it have ensured that it remains an open wound for the Chechen and Ingush people. I distinctly recall being six or seven years old when I first heard the term 'deportation'. It slipped from the lips of one of my parents, only to be swiftly followed by silence. Soviet authorities in the early 1980s still had a strong grip over the country and resolutely suppressed discussions of this topic, particularly within the Chechen and Ingush autonomous republics. Adults lived in an atmosphere of fear and mistrust and were very cautious about discussing the topic even in front of their children. A child repeating the word in front of strangers or at school could attract the attention of the Soviet secret police, the KGB, and lead to some kind of punishment. The era of Perestroika, marked by increased openness and the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union, lifted the veil of silence surrounding taboo subjects, including the various crimes the Soviets had committed. The younger generations of Chechen and Ingush peoples began to learn about what had happened to their parents and grandparents. They finally heard the stories of how, during World War II, elite divisions of the NKVD, the predecessor of the KGB, and the military were deployed to deport the entire Chechen and Ingush populations from their ancestral lands. Even more chilling was the revelation that Soviet soldiers did not hesitate to kill the elderly and sick to meet the deportation schedule. Their bodies were callously disposed of in mountain lakes. Entire communities were burned down. In the case of the village of Khaibakh, the NKVD burned alive 700 of its residents, including pregnant women, children and the elderly, who could not be transported to train stations in time for deportation due to heavy snowfall. The gruelling three-week journey in rail cars meant for livestock, where people faced starvation and unsanitary conditions, further contributed to the staggeringly high death toll. Dropped off in the Central Asian steppe with no food or shelter, the deportees had little chance of survival. Due to the deportation, the Chechens and Ingush lost almost 25 percent of their populations, according to the official estimate, before they were allowed to go back to their homes in 1957, four years after Stalin's death. In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the first democratic elections in the Russian Federation, the state started paying monetary compensation to those who were born or lived in exile. But the amount paid out was meagre and insulting. Still, the Chechen people hoped they would receive a formal apology from newly elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin. In 1993, during a visit to Poland, he honoured the more than 20,000 Polish officers executed by the Soviets in Katyn at a monument commemorating the massacre. However, neither he nor any of his successors issued a formal apology for the more than 100,000 Chechen and Ingush deaths during the deportation. In 2004, during the raging war in Chechnya, the European Parliament raised a question about recognising this tragedy as genocide. The initiative was not successful and the genocide was not formally recognised. The violent and traumatic experience of deportation was a driving force behind the declaration of Chechnya's independence in 1991. The Chechens did not want to have a repetition of this experience and therefore sought the protection of their statehood through international law. However, Russia's aggression in 1994 against Chechnya shattered these hopes. Even after achieving victory against Russia in 1996, the Chechens found themselves abandoned by the world, meaning it was for Moscow to decide what came next. Three years later, the second Russian aggression against Chechnya followed. During the war, which lasted until 2009, Yeltsin's successor, Vladimir Putin, installed an authoritarian regime led by the Kadyrov family. To demonstrate his loyalty to the Kremlin, in 2011, Ramzan Kadyrov, who inherited the presidency of Chechnya from his father Akhmat after his assassination in 2004, forbade the commemoration of the deportation on February 23. Instead, he forced people to celebrate the Russian holiday, the Day of the Motherland Defender. It was only five years ago, in 2020, that some commemoration events were permitted in the republic on February 23. Yet, these ceremonies primarily served to legitimise Kadyrov's power in Chechnya and propagate the cult of personality surrounding his father, Akhmat. In 2023, Kadyrov took a step further and compelled the authors of a newly issued Russian history textbook to revise the section that had justified Stalinist deportations. Of course, this move does not signal a shift in Kadyrov's relationship with the Kremlin. He will remain loyal to Putin as long as he maintains power. But the fact that the Chechen leader who wields absolute power in Chechnya feels compelled to revise his own policies of erasure means he understands that the memory of the deportation will continue to serve as a rallying cry for the Chechens for years to come. The memory of the deportation continues to inspire support for Chechen independence, despite the brutality and devastation of the two Chechen wars. It also motivated hundreds of Chechens to go to Ukraine and fight the invading Russian army in 2022. It is important to remember what happened to the Chechen people today, as Ukrainians also face the danger of suppression and erasure. Ukraine risks being abandoned by the world just as Chechnya was in the 1990s. The consequences can be devastating, just as they have been for the Chechen people who continue to suffer under brutal authoritarianism.
