The writer, writer and human rights activist Polina Zherebtsova spent 10 years of her childhood and youth caught up in the wars declared by Russia on the Chechen Republic, which dreamed of independency after the collapse of the russian Union. She described her experiences from that period in poignant diaries, respective novels and poems. She warns the planet about the Kremlin, totalitarianism and violence, which are indispensable parts of all sphere of Russian reality. She besides recalls the victims of the Chechen wars, forgotten by the world.
KAROLINA ZUB-LEWIŃSKA: What are you presently working on? What actions are you taking in the field of human rights protection?
POLINA ZHEREBTSOVA: I am a author and journalist. Many people turn to me for advice and help. individual fleeing persecution in Russia asks for advice on political asylum, individual requests protection by applying to migration services of a peculiar country in Europe, as the household may be deported. In my spare time, I lecture at universities, including the celebrated Free University. Lectures on what war is and how to last during war.
I do not represent any human rights organization. On my own behalf, I aid those who have asked me for aid as a human rights activist. I compose appeals to the migration authorities, I come to the exile camp as a volunteer, I aid fill out forms for those who are fresh in the country and just learning the language, and if possible, I bring things and food. My aid is completely selfless. After all, my household erstwhile came to Europe. We were refugees ourselves and individual helped us too, there were many volunteers. The state of Finland helped us greatly. The law in Finland works well. I would very much like to see it start working in Russia as well, and for Russians to learn what law and human rights are.
In 2013, my husband and I were granted political asylum, and in 2017 we received Finnish citizenship. My books are published in Europe and have been translated into 30 languages worldwide.
Polina Zherebtsova in Grozny
Why is Russian reality permeated with force in practically all spheres?
The state strategy has long been utilizing force as the main method of managing citizens. This manifests itself in everything: changing the constitution in accordance with president Vladimir Putin’s wishes, tightening criminal law, monstrous repressions, igniting armed conflicts, and so on. If we look from the general to the specific, almost all Russian kid has experienced force from kindergarten teachers; a student experiences humiliation from a teacher at school; and a soldier from a elder officer in the army. Harassment and intimidation are practiced, which at the national level are perceived as the norms essential to raising a person.
This evokes in Russian society not a rebellion but love for the “hand of the master” and the “Stalinist order”, due to the fact that for decades the authorities saw force as the main instrument of governance. It claimed that, otherwise, the strategy would collapse due to the fact that we are surrounded by enemies. all day, in fact, we are reminded of this by propagandists on all leading tv channels.
The socio-psychological methods utilized by the leaders in Russia are designed for vast crowds of people and are based on coercion and incentive. People are initially driven into inhumane conditions, and then to those who become useful sycophants, the government throws crumbs from its table, thus elevating them above the remainder of the powerless citizens.
Those who were fortunate to last the war and genocide in Chechnya received no compensation for their injuries or the death of their loved ones. They were wandering, starving to death… They received neither medical nor financial assistance. This is what the Kremlin had for the citizens of their own country. I did not receive any compensation for the destroyed apartments of my ancestors in Grozny. Not a single rouble. And everyone from Grozny will respond the same. Meanwhile, Ramzan Kadyrov receives billions from the Russian budget. This is simply a concrete example of “justice” in Russia.
It seems that Russian society is incapable of rebellion
The totalitarian state drives citizens to specified a point that they are happy to inactive be alive, without reasoning about fighting and justice. Those fewer who effort to argue corruption and dictatorship end up like General Lebed, who was blown up, or the politician Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead, and the oppositionist Alexei Navalny, who was poisoned. This is why Russian society prefers not to complain, but to obey and sometimes even vigorously applaud the Kremlin’s decisions, excusing the authorities and supporting the decisions of those who can take the last thing from them – their life. The authorities can send children, grandchildren and the citizen himself to death, even if he is simply a father of 5 children, even if he is disabled.
Human rights, social safety and the privilege of education have long been taken distant from Russians. In fact, since the time of Ivan the Terrible, a person’s life has not been worth a dime. At times it was a small better, and at times even worse. However, it has not been possible to accomplish stableness in the country. From generation to generation, people, being in utmost situations, tell themselves that not opposing the circumstances and government’s decisions is the only way to survive. The same reaction of the condemned could be seen around the planet during planet War II in the humility of the victims of mass terror. force as a means of social control is very effective. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau noted: “Nothing can be more certain than that all man born in slavery is born for slavery. Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them: they love their servitude, as the comrades of Ulysses loved their brutish condition.”
How is it possible that public opinion supports Russian crimes in Ukraine?
Public opinion is very diverse in Russia. There are, of course, people who stand for peace; they are against the war in Ukraine. They are imprisoned for this, persecuted as traitors. The authorities are fundamentally unconcerned about public opinion. However, they do not like activists. erstwhile the aforementioned politician Boris Nemtsov collected a million signatures from Russians to end the war in Chechnya. The war started again, and Nemtsov was killed by Chechens with the aid of the Russian peculiar services just outside the walls of the Kremlin.
Chechens in the modern Chechen Republic joyfully dance the Lezginka and meet their “heroes” who fought, killed and stole in Ukraine. Russians, on the another hand, invitation participants of the war in Ukraine to meet children in schools and kindergartens. And this is despite the fact that participants of the war are frequently maniacs, sadists and paedophiles with criminal charges. Vladimir Putin, however, has allowed the recruitment of contract volunteers for the war against Ukraine. They are released from prisons and their sentences are overturned. Human rights activists and journalists are sounding the alarm, publishing circumstantial cases of brutal murders committed by these “heroes” in their homeland, but the Russian authorities are not responding to it in any way.
War heroes in modern Russia are frequently those who have raped, dismembered and tortured their own citizens, sometimes minors, sometimes young children. At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Russia sent 18-year-old conscript soldiers to the slaughter, yesterday’s schoolchildren, who rapidly died, and now they are sending just these prison “heroes”. After giving ammunition and weapons to professional sadists and murderers, they are sent to another country to “restore order” among its citizens. This is simply insulting to the old veterans who erstwhile fought against fascists and Nazis during planet War II. Now the “defenders of the homeland” look different…
Is there a real chance that Russian war criminals and the full state apparatus will be held accountable for crimes in Ukraine?
In 2005, after analysing Red Cross records and reports from human rights activists, the Chechen authorities officially announced the losses incurred since the early 1990s: 160,000 dead, of which about 30,000 were cultural Chechens (including Chechen fighters). The remainder of those killed as a consequence of the war and genocide were Russians, Armenians, Ukrainians, Jews, Poles, Greeks, Tatars and another Chechen inhabitants. Taus Dzhabrailov, head of the Chechen State Council, stressed that he had reviewed authoritative papers from the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Ichkeria and provided a figure for 15 years of conflict. Missing persons were besides included. At the highest of the fighting in Grozny, 95 to 97 per cent of Russian-speaking residents with children remained under bombardment, while Chechen fighters who came to fight from villages to the capital took their relatives to Russian regions and mountain auls in advance. Local Ingush rushed to flee to Ingushetia. Along with the doomed Russian speakers, any Vainakhs [an cultural word for Chechens and Ingush – editor’s note] and those uncommon Chechen families who were not picked up by their relatives in time to take them to their villages or Ingushetia remained in the capital to defender their homes from looters. During moments of calm, Chechens and Ingush would return to Grozny.
So far, the Russian authorities have not been able to bring people to justice for the deaths caused by bombs and missiles, for the deficiency of intervention in horrific acts of genocide or registered war crimes! This is simply a terrible injustice to all the citizens of Chechnya. You are asking about Ukraine. I realize that there is simply a fresh war going on there now. erstwhile it’s over, in 50 to 70 years, witnesses, civilians from both sides who were under fire, will compose down their memories, accuse the authorities, and request justice – this always happens. Unfortunately, the real war criminals may escape punishment, as in the case of Chechnya. That is why journalists evidence the destiny of average people and compose publically about injustice, so our descendants can analyse what is happening and not make the same mistakes: not to elevate barbarians and tyrants to power, but to trust on human rights and politicians with humanistiand progressive views.
What will happen if Russia wins? What awaits Europe and the world?
It is not so straightforward – Russia will win, Russia will lose. In the case of specified a immense war, so many people have died on the 2 sides that no 1 will win anymore. In Ukraine, nothing will be the same as before either. Most likely a compromise will be made with the participation of the US and respective European countries. Ukraine as this sovereign, independent state, which existed for 30 years within certain borders, will not be within the same borders. This will be a compromise. I am not a military officer, I am not a political scientist. I’m a author and journalist, and I see this compromise as any kind of division of territory, in which Russia will besides take part. Human rights are not respected in Russia and the strategy is very complex, there is simply quite a few negativity in politics, laws are violated or do not work at all, depending on the region, officials are robbing the state… It is simply a catastrophe!
Despite this, however, Russia remains a powerful country. Powerful due to the fact that its rulers from the earliest times until present have never hesitated to expend human resources. And the human resources are immense. You can rise an army of a million or 2 million and wage long, terrible battles with outdated methods. I think everyone will be forced to make compromises so that a “fragile peace” will prevail, due to the fact that a “fragile peace” is better than a big, bloody war like planet War III… It will be even worse for everyone if God forbid it happens.
For me as a human being, the most crucial thing is that they halt shooting. The longer the war goes on, the more old men, women and children die. Therefore, the most crucial thing is for the war to end, and for the politicians to come to any kind of compromise, which, it may happen, will not be satisfactory to everyone.
Polina Zherebtsova’s household home in Grozny
When the war in Ukraine is over, the rulers of various countries will shake hands, and hundreds of thousands of people will not return… All wars come at the expense of human life. No 1 thinks about the small man. Rulers frequently think about resources, territories, domination. Therefore, in my opinion, the most crucial thing is the institution of professional negotiators, that is, those who negociate with terrorists. possibly then it will be possible to prevent larger armed conflicts – by entering into negotiations with implacable presidents.
Polina Zherebtsova is simply a Chechen Russian diarist and poet. She is the author of Ant in a Glass Jar, which covers her childhood, adolescence and youth that witnessed 2 Chechen wars.
Karolina Zub-Lewińska is simply a specialized translator of Russian (listed in the registry of translators of the Polish Chief method Organization), an east expert looking at the post-Soviet area through the prism of safety and business opportunities, and a investigator in the field of security. She is simply a associate of the Polish Society of Sworn and Specialized Translators (TEPIS), the Polish Society for safety Studies, and the Polish Society for global Studies (section on Russia and the post-Soviet area, section on global security, and section on studies of polar regions).
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