24 February 2023

Today marks the anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion in Ukraine.

Over the course of this year we have drastically changed the programme of Pushkin House, dedicating our resources to raising awareness and better understanding the various aspects of Russian imperialism and Russia’s complex culture as well as promoting anti-war voices.

In January 2023, we asked our collaborators and people we have platformed, including artists, curators, activists, writers, sociologists and political experts, to share their thoughts, feelings and emotions a year after the beginning of the Russian war in Ukraine. We have received thought-provoking commentary and raw honesty, drawing both from our contributors’ personal and professional experiences as well as their observations.

The war polarises opinions even among those who wholeheartedly condemn the Russian aggression. Having some of today’s prominent voices express theirs is what allows for reflection and calls for articulation and discussion.

It goes without saying that we, as an institution which is run by a mostly Russian-speaking team and whose namesake's portraits are put on the facades of shelled buildings in Ukraine, are geopolitically, personally and emotionally affected by the war, as are so many of our contributors, partners and collaborators. Yet at a time when so many independent cultural organisations are closed down or cease to exist in meaning, when independent thinkers in Russia are shut down and have no choice but to flee the country, there is still hope, resistance and perseverance, the testament to which you will read in the statements below.

Elena Sudakova, Director of Pushkin House

Konstantin Akinsha, art historian and curator

Today we still cannot comprehend the scale of the catastrophe that occurred on 24 February 2022. If the vision of Ukrainians (despite unavoidable zealotry) is crystal clear, the relations of Russians (good, bad and ugly) with reality are murky at best. If Ukraine has two scenarios – positive or negative, victory or defeat – Russia has only one. It makes no difference whether the "Special Operation" culminates in loss or win – the disaster is unavoidable. So-called "good Russians" proved unable not only to create any relevant opposition to the regime but even to adjust their optics to the horrors of Putin's war. Instead of crying about the cancellation of Russian culture, it could be better to explain how it reached its current state. Russian culture (or actually, the Soviet/post-Soviet cultural model) collapsed before our eyes. The question "Is Pushkin possible after Bucha?" awaits its answer. Recently we have been facing an effort to reject any notion of not even collective responsibility, but collective guilt. It won't be easy, if not impossible. The Russian cultural and intellectual elite’s road to February 2022 was paved with all types of compromises. It is time to fetch the bill.

Boris Akunin, author

For me as a Russian writer, 2022 was a very challenging test of both my “Russianness” and my writing. My motherland turned out to be a real Evil Empire, and my literary texts seemed totally useless. The other Russia which I’ve been describing in my books, the Russia I love and respect, a country of culture and resistance to oppression, suffered a shameful defeat. It lost – we lost, I lost – the fight to a gang of criminals who have become the only Russia, the real Russia in the eyes of the world. But a defeat is final only if you stop fighting. We won’t. There are millions of us inside and outside Russia who will never accept our country being “Putin’s land” for ever. And there is a lot we have to do – that’s the general mood for 2023 among all the Russians I know.

Dr Vasilisa Burova, artist

“Nearly everywhere the political order is reconstituting itself as a form of organization for death,” Achille Mbembe diagnosed. Necro-politics and necro-aesthetics of the Russian state – aesthetics without ideology – are filling the media landscape. Demilitarisation by militarisation, agents of the West, the fifth column and other imaginary fiends populate this wasteland. Behind bleak official visuals and arrests lies an emptiness of ideology that only gets more visible as one delves into the cacophony of statements coming out of official mouths. The same emptiness sucks all living energy out of the remaining space, and restricts the horizons of our political imagination.

February has lasted a year. While direct political and practical anti-war work has been done by activists, volunteers, cultural workers and various movements, the fact remains – there is apathy instead of resistance, and the people are depoliticised, focused on their own fate and unwilling to take risks, instead joining the nihilistic coma fostered by the state. While the absence of the real practical politics of resistance is the most noticeable (and what hurts the most), a big part of this is a looming question of alternative sense-making that could oppose political nihilism and would help restore the sense of the common political body. As many of the workers who sustained some of this ethico-political work have moved abroad, new connections have started to be drawn between the new centres of emigration – yet they also face problems of sustaining themselves and these links.

How can we restore a common political body? Many of us have said many times that the war is not just a sudden onset of madness: it is a long result of gendered and racialised violence, rooted in colonial and imperialist narratives. Without addressing these, there won’t be a magical cure for the war. The call for the restoration of a common political body should start in the restoration of individual bodies and their lived experience: in exercising radical empathy, care and accountability.

Dasha Arzamaskina, activist

There are life-changing events that you expect and even look forward to. And there are those that you wish never happened. I was not among the few clairvoyants who saw the real war coming, so 24 February hit me hard.

Since then, among many things that have lost their meaning, I found two things that matter to me: being surrounded by people who feel alike and converting anger, frustration and other nasty feelings into empathy and energy to help Ukraine here and now.

For many months I’ve been supporting Helping to Leave, and when fundraising we give out postcards. There was one postcard that said: “We have to believe in spring.” Last spring this phrase meant nothing to me, but in February 2023 I am ready to believe in spring again: let it bring victory to Ukraine. And then one day I hope to see a Russian war crime memorial in the centre of Red Square.

Grigor Atanesian, journalist

In recent years, our world was rocked by two crises: the pandemic and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. There is no point in comparing the two, but there is a parallel: in both instances, only a small number of people can claim some sort of expertise.

During the COVID-19 years, common sense made us stick with the advice of virologists and public health experts. “Trust the science” was the motto and, however imperfect, it worked.

Of course, no university offers a joint degree in Russian military studies, politics, history and disinformation, and none of these disciplines is a precise science. But there are experts in each field. And yet, on social media and in the press, they are often overlooked in favour of those with less knowledge but stronger opinions.

Last spring, we saw a wave of op-eds calling tanks obsolete from pundits with no relevant credentials. They were soon proven wrong by Ukraine’s request for a large number of Western battle tanks. Similarly, there was an influx of articles on decolonisation written seemingly with no knowledge of the works of Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha or Edward Said.

Seeing the proliferation of such intellectual tourism made me appreciative of communities that put expertise and rigorous study first.

Clementine Cecil, former Director of Pushkin House

A year after the invasion approaches, and I feel deep sadness and ongoing shock at this murderous war waged by Russia against Ukraine. I am awed by the spirit of resistance in Ukraine – their calm persistence and bravery. I also feel deep sadness for the damage inflicted by Putin's regime against Russia and its people, the lives riven by the war – families broken up, futures smashed to pieces. I feel concern and fear for my friends who have remained in Moscow, who live in an atmosphere of paranoia and anxiety – condemning the war but unable to openly protest for fear of imprisonment and torture. I salute those who are selflessly helping Ukrainians in any way that they can, as many Russians are. I selfishly lament the loss of the Russia I once knew, as my friends scatter to the four corners of the earth. As this war grinds on, with its senseless killing, I hope urgently for the collapse of the death cult that is Putin’s regime. I pray the West’s resolve to supply weapons to Ukraine will hold, and that victory for Ukraine will be secured as soon as possible, without further escalation. I pray for many things, but nothing will reverse the losses of this most terrible of years.

Robert Chandler, translator of Vasily Grossman, Andrey Platonov, Teffi and many other Russian writers​​

I can answer best through the words of Vasily Grossman, from The People Immortal (1942). When I first read this passage about the German bombing of Gomel in autumn 1941, it seemed prophetic of the Nuremberg Trials. It did not occur to me that it would end up being applicable to the present day.

The day will come when the court of great nations will sit in judgment; when the sun will shine down in disgust on Hitler’s fox-like face, […] while the boss of the Fascist air force squirms beside him on the bench of shame. […]

“Death!” mothers who have lost their children will repeat. “Death, in the name of the holy love of life!”

“Death!” the land desecrated by the Germans will pronounce. […]

One of the most terrible of the millions of Nazi crimes is the bombing of peaceful towns and cities.

A hundred years from today, a young German will exclaim, “How can I ever be free of the shame? My great-grandfather was a Fascist pilot.”

A hundred years from today, historians will examine with horror the orders that the German High Command drew up so calmly and methodically […] Who wrote these orders? Wild beasts? Lunatics? Or is it possible that this was not the work of living creatures? Could these documents have been signed by the iron fingers of […] calculating machines?

Sasha Dugdale, poet and translator

KIA

In early spring, he drove his car
down narrow lanes, between bare hedgerows
parked it at the base behind a barbed wire fence
under a hazel tree, and left the keys in his locker.

It sat in its space all summer long
as the helicopters landed and took off
and the sap of the hazel that insubstantial shade
made a sticky film over the windows.

In the autumn the green nuts tattered down
the car was alone on the asphalt
warm inside, like something living
and no one had the heart to move it.

Kirsten Gainet, documentary filmmaker

2022 was definitely a tough year for all of us. The war in Ukraine, having revealed the hidden chest of war crimes on the part of Russia, was an eye-opening experience for the whole world. Putin’s regime showed its real face to the world community.

The world kept silent when Russia invaded Chechnya, Afghanistan, Georgia, Syria. The world kept silent when Russia annexed Crimea and began to commit crimes against the indigenous population there. The world kept silent when Russian human rights defenders and independent journalists revealed crimes, the Putin regime’s torture of political prisoners and the victims of fabricated cases.

And only today the world learns the truth.

Russian crimes committed against locals did not only happen today. They happened back in the times of the Russian Empire, when all regions were colonised by force. And today Russia keeps on promoting its colonial and imperialistic ideas, and Ukraine, unfortunately, has become a victim.

I think that we should not keep silent about today’s war. And we should acknowledge all war crimes committed by Russia on the territory of Syria and Ukraine. Through these examples we can observe that the indifference and silence of the world just contributed to the continuous aggression of the imperialist regime of Russia against minor nations.

I hope that Russia will not reach its next victims and that the Empire will be defeated. Regions and neighbouring countries will get rid of Putin’s regime.

Alisa Gorshenina, artist

Because I am still in Russia, it is vital for me to find some islands of hope. For me these islands are, first and foremost, people.

With every month that passes, there are fewer and fewer friends and distant acquaintances around me. I look around even more carefully, looking at their faces, remembering them, because I need to understand who remains here with me.

I am observing how, over time, open protests have been transforming into partisan resistance. It might be totally invisible to the rest of the world, but it is there.

In one year I have experienced all possible emotions. Many times I have thrown my hands up in despair, and I am writing this text in such a depressed state. But I still want to add hope at the end.

Hope still exists because all around me are people whose thoughts and feelings are at one with mine. People who, no matter what, are ready to clean up the consequences of this war, and no matter how long we have to wait, are ready to build a free country.

We still believe that everything will be ok in the end, but understand that this will come at an exorbitant cost.

Alicja Kaczmarek, founder and Director of Centrala

It's hard to believe that twelve months have already passed since the full scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The atrocities happening in Ukraine, including mass murder, torture and total destruction of society and culture are just unimaginable, yet I'm more than aware that wars and armed conflict are either a constant presence or threat in many parts of the world, including Eastern Europe. We are trying to navigate the postcolonial world, but the same powers still hold all of the cards.

We may feel powerless but we can still make a difference when we come together. In times like this, solidarity and support are very powerful even when everything seems impossible.

As an individual and as an organisation, we have been working tirelessly for the past twelve months to provide support to those fleeing the war, practical help, advocacy and representation for those arriving in the UK, and a creative platform for Ukrainian voices in culture.

Dr Michał Murawski, Associate Professor in Critical Area Studies at SSEES, UCL

de-pushkinisation

Since 24 February 2022, russia – as it currently exists – has accelerated its slow-burning but steady demise. The new (but also the old) nails in russia's casket take the form not only of the daily murder, rape and atrocity perpetrated by russia's war machine on Ukraine. They also come in the "soft" form of russians (and russophiles and russianists) refusing to listen to Ukrainians (and others) violently subjugated by russia, declining to acknowledge their concerns and to take their anger seriously. Continuing to gaslight, and gaslighting more than ever. There are very many exceptions, but, unfortunately – and shockingly – this applies to most russians (and russophiles and russianists) I know.

As russian institutions go, pushkin house has tried much harder and more stubbornly than most to foreground Ukrainian voices and points of view, to take seriously the imperative to de-russify russia. At times, this institution has even provided a glimpse onto a potential terrain on which new culture(s) (and histories) may crystallise and coalesce following the disintegration of the blood-soaked (and frankly cringeworthy) imperial fallacy that there is such a thing as a singular "russian culture" (let alone a “great russian culture”).

These attempts have not always been successful, but they have been real. Now, if this house would like to continue to function as a legitimate forum for russia's self-decolonisation (and de-russification), or for the emergence of a dynamic, reflexive post-russian (or anti-russian) culture, it ought, in my opinion, to take the symbolically critical step of de-pushkinising itself. I hope that a sensitive process can be put in place by the stewards of this house to bring about this process of de-pushkinisation. 

Ukrainian architectural historian Jenia Gubkina, a native of the city of Kharkiv, said in her powerful contribution to a recent conference on the ruination and reconstruction of Ukraine: "When aggressors avoid responsibility for their crimes for centuries, they make it their nation’s foundational myth, and the basis of their culture." Indeed, russians (and russophiles, and russianists) refuse to acknowledge crime as the foundation of their culture. Instead, they dig out pushkin and place the dead weight of their culture on his cadaver. pushkin, goes the old cliché, “is our everything”. 

russia's refusal to acknowledge its crimes as crimes, its murders as murders, its rapes as rapes, its imperialisms as imperialisms, its conquests as conquests, its genocides as genocides and its wars as wars is unmatched in its revanchist dog-headed determination. pushkin, through (relatively) little fault of his own, is no longer a writer or a historical figure. pushkin is now merely the main among many zombie marionettes invoked by russia (and by russians, russophiles and russianists) to justify, decorate, conceal or smokescreen the trans-historical, unceasing russian reality of war, rape, murder and genocide. 

pushkin, oh russians, russophiles and russianists, is not your everything. For as long as you remain complacent, defensive and self-righteous, prigozhin – and at other times a constant procession of his no less farcical, bungling, murderous predecessors – will constitute the foundation and essence of your culture.

Ekaterina Muromtseva, artist

Russia’s war with Ukraine has been going on for a year. Thousands of dead people, destroyed cities, millions of refugees, separated families, broken lives, cold houses without electricity and light. As an artist I felt a necessity to respond to the catastrophe with a series Women in Black Against the War that was inspired by the Feminist Anti-War Resistance (FAR) group. The evil that Russia inflicts never wins in the long run. There are always people who are ready to resist it. On 31 January, an exhibition of anti-war posters by Elena Osipova, a 77-year-old artist who consistently and publicly opposes the war in Ukraine, opened in St Petersburg. On 1 February, police came to the exhibition and confiscated all the works of the artist. Now she is being investigated for extremism. Elena Osipova is not afraid to take a stand against the war. She’s not afraid to draw posters. Not afraid to speak out. The Russian authorities are afraid of Elena Osipova. They are afraid of her posters, her determination, her words and images. I stand in solidarity with everyone who has the courage to protest the war in any possible manner.

Dr Ben Noble, Associate Professor of Russian Politics at UCL

Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the Ukrainian people have been subjected to outrageous pain and suffering as a result of Russia's illegal aggression – a new phase in violence begun in 2014. While Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people are lauded for their bravery and defence of freedom, Vladimir Putin continues to show the destruction that can result from dictatorial hubris and an imperial mindset. In this context, Pushkin House has provided a vital space for reflection, interrogation and debate.

Pavel Otdelnov, artist

2022 was a year when everything was turned upside down, when black called itself white and outright evil pretended to be good, all on an unprecedented scale. It was a year of terrible disappointment, when you thought you shared the same values as the people around you, but it turned out this was not the case. It was a year when an abyss of misunderstanding opened up between people, even when they once understood each other without words. A year of an enormous, incessant catastrophe from which there is no way out. A year of sleepless nights, tears and anguish for other people, anguish in your inability to change anything. It was a year when everything that had been done, built up and accomplished over many years became meaningless.

It is as if the simplest and most fundamental things are not so obvious for everyone. The basis of morality, trust, friendship and relationships between people suddenly vanished, and it’s like the very fundamentals of culture and intellectual activity were destroyed. Painful questions have appeared. How is it possible to create art when human life itself has been devalued, when right now people are dying because of the actions of others? And if art is still necessary, then what form should it take? Is it possible to talk to someone for whom black is white, for whom everything is the wrong way round, simply because “there was no other way for them to think”? Do we really need to argue, again and again, that 2x2=4 and that the right to life is an integral right for every person? Where is the way out from this hopeless darkness?

Ella Rossman, activist of the Feminist Anti-War Resistance group, PhD-researcher at SSEES, UCL

It's hard to believe that a whole year has passed since the beginning of a new phase of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Two days after the war's outbreak, together with activists from all over Russia, we created the Feminist Anti-War Resistance group. We wanted to support Ukraine and oppose the war precisely as feminists since we believe that the struggle for peace is an indispensable element of the feminist vision, advocating prosperity, equality and care – virtues that are the exact opposite of war.

After a year of our work, I have mixed feelings. The destruction and mass murder in Ukraine devastates me and has made me lose faith in the future. The repressions of civil society in Russia exacerbate this frustration. In December, our organisation gained the legal status of "foreign agent" in Russia, and our partners became "undesirable organisations", which means that many of us will not be able to visit our home country anytime soon due to the threat of arrest. How is it possible not to fall into despair?

At the same time, I have never experienced such solidarity and unity in my work as during my time at FAR. In a year, we've managed to create a network of organisations worldwide, organise numerous actions online and offline, raise money for a generator for a hospital in Cherkassk, and help dozens of Russian activists who got into trouble because of their anti-war position. I feel immense honour and gratitude that I am going through this challenging time alongside my comradesses, who I can always count on. Although, of course, I want this time to end as soon as possible. The happiest day of my life will be when the need for our organisation disappears.

Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, Professor and Director of King's Russia Institute (KCL)

Война. The War. Several generations in Europe and Eurasia grew up with the scars of the immense suffering and losses of WWII. How did this new war that Russia started against Ukraine become possible? This question will be central for a long time to come. Some answers might be straightforward, though far from easy to act upon. Personal dictatorships all evolve in one direction – a dictator inevitably loses touch with reality, making suicidal decisions and policies that affect the whole country. Democracy is a system that allows for mistakes that could be corrected because power changes hands regularly. Democracy is the institutional mechanism that can prevent such wars. But there IS more to consider. The lands and peoples associated with the former Soviet Union are burdened with a complex legacy of orientalism, and internal and external colonialism. Dealing with the legacy of Russians and non-Russians in these lands won’t be as easy as building democratic institutions. But there might be a hope in tackling these two issues together, after the war.

Alissa Timoshkina, food writer and historian, co-founder of the #CookforUkraine campaign​​

This has been the darkest year in the lives of so many. A year that will become, perhaps, the most significant landmark in the chronology of a lifetime. A year where I have been shaken to my core, both as someone born in Russia but also as a human being. I have experienced a major paradigm shift in understanding Ukraine’s place in world history, and in the history of Russian imperialism, most importantly. While I have never felt so profoundly devastated by the incredible cruelty and ignorance of those waging and supporting the war, I was also moved to tears time and time again by the resilience, the courage and the solidarity of the many who defend and stand with Ukraine. And while we are still staring into the abyss of the unknown, a year after the invasion, I am full of hope.

Katherine E. Young, poet and translator

I’ve lived and worked in both Russia and Ukraine, and I have friendships and professional relationships in both countries. I’ve translated poetry from both countries – including war poetry – and written poetry about both. Years ago, I worked with Jewish Americans seeking traces of their family history in Ukraine; I’ve visited the burial pits left by war and genocide. Now, new pits are being dug. Every day brings fresh anguish, horror, rage – and grief beyond measure.

Zinovy Zinik, author

The Russian state has contributed nothing to world history but tutorials on national self-destruction and subjugation of its neighbours. The barbaric Russian invasion of Ukraine has also destroyed the Russian intelligentsia as a class and spawned instead an army of demagogues busy abusing the Russian language. “Holy Russia is getting unbearable for me. Ubi bene ibi patria.” (Alexander Pushkin, 1824).

Josephine von Zitzewitz, Lecturer in Russian, New College, University of Oxford

The worst thing about the fact that Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine is about to enter its second year? (Disclaimer – I live in London, and while Solovyov and other Putinists have threatened bombs on my city, I consider that highly unlikely). The worst thing is that the anguish of February 2022 has given way to numbness. My own numbness embarrasses me. I no longer check in daily with friends in Ukraine. I teach a Russian class while my media feed updates with news about a Russian rocket attack on Odesa, and for some reason I don’t leave the room screaming. The Russia that has shaped every single part of my life no longer exists. I still find it utterly strange to think about Russia as an enemy. No. The worst thing about Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine? War is back in Europe, and there is no end in sight.