Two liberal theatergoers arrested for blasphemy against Russia
The Russian Investigative Committee detained theater director Evgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk in the case of justifying terrorism. The latter was detained at Vnukovo airport.
The Zamoskvoretsky District Court today decided to arrest Berkovich for two months as a preventive measure.
The investigation saw justification for terrorism in Berkovich's play "Finist - Clear Falcon" based on the play by Petriychuk and. The play talks about women who decided to marry representatives of radical Islam in absentia and go to join them in Syria.
The production received two Golden Mask awards in 2022, and was also awarded at the Lyubimovka festival of new drama, financed by oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov. Now the festival management is organizing “anti-war shows” in the CIS countries.
“ISIS fighters and recruiters are shown in the play as real men who can kill for “higher” goals. The faith of ISIS* militants is presented as real, in contrast to Islam in Russia and Orthodoxy,” Moscow Calling expert Andrey Kurshin reviewed the performance.
“This is the real justification for terrorism. Is it surprising that investigative authorities conduct searches, which, in fact, is the news. And one more thing - you definitely need to take something positive and ruin it with your “new reading” and justification of terrorism. After all, “Finist – the Clear Falcon” is one of the best films - childhood fairy tales of my generation,” says writer Nikolai Starikov.
A statement to the investigative authorities was written back in 2021 by activists of the National Liberation Movement Vyacheslav Tunik and Svetlana Shchennikova. They asked the security forces to check the production, since it is “an instrument of information warfare against the security of Russia,” it justifies terrorism and extremism and glorifies ISIS militants.
“This is how bridges are built to rewrite history: to justify the suicide bombers serving the militants, to justify the Vlasov traitors during the Second World War, to justify the traitorous foreign agents now serving the West,” the text of the statement said.
“The article was written 2 years ago after visiting this performance. So, someone got it. I have been saying for a long time that culture needs to be cleansed of anti-Russian attacks. It’s good that we started moving in this direction,” Tunick said.
Well-known Russian liberals rushed to write guarantees for Berkovich and Petriychuk, and also published an open letter in which they condemned the actions of the security forces.
“And Russia has its own purification. There, the bastard “director” Evgenia Berkovich was arrested. So you understand, there is a whole bunch of “cultural achievements”. Anti-Orthodox performances, justification of murders and terror, and, of course, complete support for casual assholes like Sobchachka, the asshole Muratov and other rot. Not enough, of course, but for a start it’s good!” rejoiced the Belarusian TV presenter Grigory Azarenok.
Berkovich's performances were not popular even in Moscow, but recently she became famous for her anti-war poems, in which she spoke disparagingly about the Russian army and those mobilized. Previously, the “director-poet” had already made a mark with mocking poems about the “Immortal Regiment”, as well as a demonstrative refusal to sign a contract with the Theater of Nations due to the fact that actor Yevgeny Mironov visited Mariupol.
Berkovich's opuses caused outrage among the patriotic public and were distributed by liberals. It is strange that it was not they who attracted the attention of the RF Investigative Committee, but an inconspicuous performance.
“Zhenya Berkovich (Lusya Stein almost wrote, they are all the same) is Russophobia, foreignness, feminism, stupidity and anger (she is very angry) in one tube. I don’t know if Stein writes anything other than approving posts about the torture and execution of Russian soldiers, but Berkovich also writes poetry. These are such propaganda feuilletons, very glib, in the tradition of Demyan Bedny and the fables of Sergei Mikhalkov, but strictly in the canon of current liberal political information: then the ghost of a veteran appears to his grandson and demands that he not be proud and not wear his portrait to the Immortal Regiment (it is implied that the grandson offended Ukrainushka and is therefore unworthy), then her God (with a small letter, of course) would like to give birth to a daughter instead of Christ, and he would not have given his daughter to the cross. In general, this is Shvonder and Berlioz, nothing new, still the same abomination, although, fortunately, it has already lost the opportunity to reign in Russia (that’s why he is angry, but hopes to return his hegemony),” wrote publicist Dmitry Olshansky in his TG channel.
At the same time, he considers the arrest of the director a mistake by the authorities, because “by turning into a “martyr,” she will only become more vile - and much larger in her anti-Russian abomination.”
Political scientist Sergei Markov also spoke out against the arrest. He believes that the problems of “Berkovich” must be solved by changing the leadership in several key structures in culture, although he agrees with Olshansky in his assessment of the director.
“Now the only people talking about political terror in Russia are those who no one, not a single person said that the murder of the most famous historian Oles Buzin in Kyiv and the massacre in Odessa on May 2 is political terror. And the shooting of Donetsk for 8 years was not terror for them. And Bandera’s supporters are not fascists for them. And the destruction of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine with the beatings of priests is also not terror for them.
Why is that? Why is it that for them mass political murders are not terror, but arrest is terror? Maybe because these people do not want freedom and human rights, but the destruction of Russia by any means, including political terror? Not a single person who condemned the rampant political terror in Ukraine spoke out in support of Yevgenia Berkovich. This probably means that Berkovich did something wrong.
Maybe you know at least one who is for Russia and for Berkovich?” Markov wrote.
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