Last Friday, the first criminal case was filed in Russia for "public justification of terrorism" on a theater stage. The accused are the 38-year-old theatre director, poet and feminist Zhenya Berkovich and the playwright Svetlana Petriychuk. Her play "Lichter Falke Finist", which premiered two years ago by the theatre troupe "Soso-Töchter", uses real stories, interviews and trial files to tell the story of women who decide to marry followers of radical Islam on the basis of online dates and were recruited by the terrorist organization "Islamic State".

Last year, the production received Russia's main state theater award, the Golden Mask, for text and costumes. Now the authors face up to seven years in prison for the same play. The case is already referred to as the "theatrical trial" in reference to the court proceedings of the Stalin era. If Berkovich and Petriychuk were to be convicted, a criminal offense would be established, according to which any Golden Mask juror who voted for the play, any critic who wrote positively about it, could be convicted of "justifying terrorism."

A "threat to Russia's security"

The reason for the criminal case was a denunciation written two years ago by supporters of the ultra-nationalist "National Liberation Movement" (NOD), in which it was said that Berkovich's play posed a threat to Russia's security. The prosecutor's office relies solely on an expert opinion prepared by the head of the "Laboratory of Destructology" at Moscow State Linguistic University, historian and religious scholar Roman Silantyev. According to the "Destructive Science" he founded, Silantyev claims that the play contains "signs of destructive ideologies such as that of the Islamic State, jihadism, as well as the idea of permanent, including revolutionary, violence." He also found signs of a radical feminist ideology that contradicted the male-centered order in Russia.

Spectators and critics who have seen the play testify that it is a decidedly anti-terrorist work because it brings to mind the error of the deceived women and the consequences of their actions, such as enslavement, loss of children and, in the case of flight, criminal proceedings. The indictment is constructed according to a logic according to which Erich Maria Remarque could be accused of justifying militarism in his book "Nothing New in the West". Petriychuk's lawyer pointed out that a recording of the play was shown in a Siberian penal colony for women, where its deputy director said it made a strong impression on the prisoners.

Berkovich has a lot of resonance

Of course, it is probably less about the play, which has not been performed since last autumn, but about Berkovich, who was arrested after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine for a protest action against the war and served eleven days in prison. As a poet who condemns war in poems, interviews and Facebook posts, she had a lot of resonance. The fact that she is raising two adopted adolescents did not matter to the court. More than a hundred people gathered in front of the courthouse to show solidarity with the defendants. Even decorated actors loyal to the regime as well as spokesmen for the theatre union stood up for the defendant. An open letter in support of Berkovich and Petriychuk, published by the online newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was signed by more than five thousand people on the day of publication. None of this can stop the escalating dynamics of repression that are producing new victims every day.

Just last Saturday, the authorities in St. Petersburg closed Lev Dodin's Maly Theatre until May 12, allegedly due to deficiencies in fire safety and hygiene standards. Earlier, the theater had to cancel performances with the popular actor Danila Kozlovsky, who had been denounced for his anti-war stance. Also on Saturday, writer and singer Lyudmila Petrushevskaya announced that her sold-out concert, planned for Victory Day on May 9 in Moscow, had been banned by the authorities – apparently also because the 83-year-old artist opposes the war.