22 Mar 22 | News and features
My nine-year-old granddaughter Lucia is a miracle. She speaks Russian fluently, without any taint of foreign accent. Paradoxically, she has never been to Russia. She was born in Covent Garden, London, and now lives in Bethnal Green. You can detect in her Londoner’s English a trace of a Yorkshire accent picked up from her father.
It’s not difficult to explain this miracle. Her Russian came to her, first, from her Moscow-born mother. My daughter arrived in England when she was the same age as Lucia is now. She has managed to retain her Russian despite her schooling in the UK. Lucia has also learnt her Russian while frequently spending time with me and my wife – we both emigrated from Russia when we were in our late twenties. The decision to emigrate four decades ago had cost us our Russian citizenships.
And so, since her early years my granddaughter not only heard Russian spoken at home but also learned to read – from the books that we ourselves used to love in our childhood. She fell in love with Pushkin’s poems and Chekhov comic stories, gothic tales of Gogol’s and absurdist children’s poems by Chukovsky and Kharms; she became a great fan of Winnie the Pooh not only in English, but also of its brilliant Russian version created by Boris Zakhoder. Later Lucia was introduced (through YouTube and other channels) to witty, funny and inventive children’s movies produced by independent Russian filmmakers. In short, she immersed herself in the world of images, vocabulary and ideas that have been shared by generations of children of the Russian liberal intelligentsia who used to regard the independent spirit of Russian literature as the best defence of their children’s consciousness against the onslaught of corrupt officialdom.
Lucia couldn’t describe the exact image of this dreamy Russia she had formed in her mind. What kind of mental construction could a child create out of the avalanche of words, pictures and ideas she had avidly been absorbing from books and films in Russian? Is it a fairyland with witches’ gingerbread huts on chicken legs or the one with Stalin’s skyscrapers looming grimly over old Moscow?
Each time when I heard Russian words streaming out of the mouth of my English granddaughter I felt as if I were present at some spiritual seance. Was she possessed by some Russian speaking ghosts? Should she be exorcised? But if it were a ghost, it was a benevolent one. The image of her fictional Russia was surely bright, enchanting and intriguing. For Lucia, it was the ideal country, because it was the place of her beloved mother’s childhood. It had also incorporated a dream of my sweet youth about Russia as the land of the free. Lucia was cherishing this dreamy land and wanted to see for real all that she had heard and read about. There were family plans for a trip to Russia, to celebrate New Year’s Eve in snowy festive Moscow.
And then, when Russia invaded Ukraine on Thursday 24th February something disastrous happened. On the Friday Lucia came back home from her primary school in Columbia Road in tears. School children were shown documentary shots depicting the brutality of the Russian invasion in Ukraine. She hasn’t been prepared for the shock. She hasn’t yet learned to separate the nation and its spiritual manifestations from the national government and its apparatus of suppression. What she saw was just the outright destruction of her fictional ideal Russia by the Kremlin’s dream murderers and mother-tongue abusers.
Zinovy Zinik is a Russian-born novelist, short-story writer and essayist. His fiction includes the novels The Mushroom Picker (1987), History Thieves (2010) and Sounds Familiar (2016)
18 Mar 22 | News and features, Russia, Statements, Ukraine
Victoria Roschina (or Roshchina), a journalist who works for the Ukrainian news channel we wrote about earlier this week, has gone missing while reporting on the war in the country and is believed to have been detained by Russian FSB security forces.
On 11 March, according to hromadske, Roschina left the city of Energodar to travel to Mariupol to report on what was really going on in the city, which has been shelled by Russian troops every day for more than two weeks.
The TV station has been unable to contact Roschina since 12 March when she is known to have been in the occupied city of Berdyansk.
On 16 March, the station learned that Roschina had been detained by the Russian FSB but nothing is known about her whereabouts.
“For two days we made every effort to release the journalist in a private manner. But it turned out to be ineffective. Therefore, we call on the Ukrainian and international community to join in the information and action to the release of hromadske journalist Victoria Roschina,” the channel said in a statement.
The channel (whose name means public) was founded originally as an independent TV station and prides itself on its freedom from control by oligarchs or the state even after Yanukovych was forced to flee by the “Maidan” protests of 2014. Over the years journalists at the station have adapted to shifts in the media landscape and now streams topical videos on YouTube and Facebook with special reports every Tuesday and Thursday.
In a Facebook post published before she disappeared, Roschina said she would “never forgive Russia”.
She wrote: “The other day I came across a column of Russian tanks in the Zaporozhzhya region. On the way there I saw a burnt car, a little further another with the burnt body of a man next to it. As it turned out, he was a civilian from the village.
“Then – the roar of tanks, the white letter Z, the flag of the Russian Federation. They came out of the turn and headed in our direction.
“Me and the driver switched to reverse gear and tried to turn around. The Russians began to ‘work’ [e.g. shoot] us actively. First bullets, and then red-hot shells. Fortunately, they flew by. I commanded the driver to stop, drop the car and lie down in the field. But the columns came in our direction and an abandoned house came to our rescue, behind [which we] waited for the Russian military hardware to pass by.
“Then we were saved by good people. While we were hiding, our car was opened although it had a PRESS sticker. They took away my laptop, camera, backpack…and the driver’s cigarettes.
“No connection, no light. Tanks on both sides of the village. We are surrounded and unable to pass on information. The scariest thing under occupation is night. Dawn still inspires hope for the best. In our case it did not start with shelling or [hiding in] the basement. Around 150 units of Russian hardware moved towards our peaceful villages. I went on reconnaissance on foot. Due to the stress, I felt neither tired, nor cold, nor afraid.
“I went to the regions to cover what is going on there and what people think. People who have been living without communication all this time, at the gunpoint of machine guns, [threatened by] MLRS Grad [rockets] and the rumble of Russian tanks.
“In small villages and towns, the occupiers feel that they’re ‘heroes’ [but they] shoot civilians, set cars on fire, kill, loot. They turn people’s lives into hell, traumatise the children. They took away my gear, but won’t take away the desire to tell the truth about their crimes.
“This time I was probably saved by a miracle once again.
“But I will never forgive Russia. Never. They will burn in hell. And they will definitely stand trial.”
Roschina is just one of a number of journalists and activists that have been detained in occupied areas of Ukraine according to our sources.
Index CEO Ruth Smeeth said, “Index on Censorship has always supported independent journalism throughout the world and the detention of reporters trying to report the facts can never be justified. Index on Censorship calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Victoria Roschina and other journalists held by the Russian forces.”
17 Mar 22 | 50 years of Index, Afghanistan, Africa, Americas, Asia and Pacific, Bosnia, Brazil, China, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Magazine, Magazine Contents, Mexico, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Philippines, Russia, Rwanda, South Africa, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Volume 51.01 Spring 2022 Extras
The spring issue of Index magazine is special. We are celebrating 50 years of history and to such a milestone we’ve decided to look back at the thorny path that brought us here.
Editors from our five decades of life have accepted our invitation to think over their time at Index, while we’ve chosen pieces from important moments that truly tell our diverse and abundant trajectory.
Susan McKay has revisited an article about the contentious role of the BBC in Northern Ireland published in our first issue, and compares it to today’s reality.
Martin Bright does a brilliant job and reveals fascinating details on Index origin story, which you shouldn’t miss.
Index at 50, by Jemimah Steinfeld: How Index has lived up to Stephen Spender’s founding manifesto over five decades of the magazine.
The Index: Free expression around the world today: the inspiring voices, the people who have been imprisoned and the trends, legislation and technology which are causing concern.
“Special report: Index on Censorship at 50”][vc_column_text]Dissidents, spies and the lies that came in from the cold, by Martin Bright: The story of Index’s origins is caught up in the Cold War – and as exciting
Sound and fury at BBC ‘bias’, by Susan McKay: The way Northern Ireland is reported continues to divide, 50 years on.
How do you find 50 years of censorship, by Htein Lin: The distinguished artist from Myanmar paints a canvas exclusively for our anniversary.
Humpty Dumpty has maybe had the last word, by Sir Tom Stoppard: Identity politics has thrown up a new phenonemon, an intolerance between individuals.
The article that tore Turkey apart, by Kaya Genç: Elif Shafak and Ece Temulkuran reflect on an Index article that the nation.
Of course it’s not appropriate – it’s satire, by Natasha Joseph: The Dame Edna of South Africa on beating apartheid’s censors.
The staged suicided that haunts Brazil, by Guilherme Osinski: Vladimir Herzog was murdered in 1975. Years on his family await answers – and an apology.
Greece haunted by spectre of the past, by Tony Rigopoulos: Decades after the colonels, Greece’s media is under attack.
Ugandans still wait for life to turn sweet, by Issa Sikiti da Silva: Hopes were high after Idi Amin. Then came Museveni …People in Kampala talk about their
problems with the regime.
How much distance from Mao? By Rana Mitter: The Cultural Revolution ended; censorship did not.
Climate science is still being silenced, by Margaret Atwood: The acclaimed writer on the fiercest free speech battle of the day.
God’s gift to who? By Charlie Smith: A 2006 prediction that the internet would change China for the better has come to pass.
50 tech milestones of the past 50 years, by Mark Frary: Expert voices and a long-view of the innovations that changed the free speech landscape.
Censoring the net is not the answer, but… By Vint Cerf: One of the godfathers of the internet reflects on what went right and what went wrong.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Five decades in review”][vc_column_text]An arresting start, by Michael Scammell: The first editor of Index recounts being detained in Moscow.
The clockwork show: Under the Greek colonels, being out of jail didn’t mean being free.
Two letters, by Kurt Vonnegut: His books were banned and burned.
Winning friends, making enemies, influencing people, by Philip Spender: Index found its stride in the 1980s. Governments took note.
The nurse and the poet, by Karel Kyncl: An English nurse and the first Czech ‘non-person’.
Tuning in to revolution, by Jane McIntosh: In revolutionary Latin America, radio set the rules.
‘Animal can’t dash me human rights’, by Fela Kuti: Why the king of Afrobeat scared Nigeria’s regime.
Why should music be censorable, by Yehudi Menuhin: The violinist laid down his own rules – about muzak.
The snake sheds its skin, by Judith Vidal-Hall: A post-USSR world order didn’t bring desired freedoms.
Close-up of death, by Slavenka Drakulic: We said ‘never again’ but didn’t live up to it in Bosnia. Instead we just filmed it.
Bosnia on my mind, by Salman Rushdie: Did the world look away because it was Muslims?
Laughing in Rwanda, by François Vinsot: After the genocide, laughter was the tonic.
The fatwa made publishers lose their nerve, by Jo Glanville: Long after the Rushdie aff air, Index’s editor felt the pinch.
Standing alone, by Anna Politkovskaya: Chechnya by the fearless journalist later murdered.
Fortress America, by Rubén Martínez: A report from the Mexican border in a post 9/11 USA.
Stripsearch, by Martin Rowson: The thing about the Human Rights Act …
Conspiracy of silence, by Al Weiwei: Saying the devastation of the Sichuan earthquake was partly manmade was not welcome.
To better days, by Rachael Jolley: The hope that kept the light burning during her editorship.
Plays, protests and the censor’s pencil, by Simon Callow: How Shakespeare fell foul of dictators and monarchs. Plus: Katherine E McClusky.
The enemies of those people, by Nina Khrushcheva: Khrushchev’s greatgranddaughter on growing up in the Soviet Union and her fears for the US press.
We’re not scared of these things, by Miriam Grace A Go: Trouble for Philippine
journalists.
Windows on the world, by Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee: Poems from Iran by two political prisoners.
Beijing’s fearless foe with God on his side, by Jimmy Lai: Letters from prison by the Hong Kong publisher and activist.
We should not be put up for sale, by Aishwarya Jagani: Two Muslim women in India on being ‘auctioned’ online.
Cartoon, by Ben Jennings: Liberty for who?
Amin’s awful story is much more than popcorn for the eyes, by Jemimah Steinfeld: Interview with the director of Flee, a film about an Afghan refugee’s flight and exile.
Women defy gunmen in fight for justice, by Témoris Grecko: Relatives of murdered Mexican journalist in brave campaign.
Chaos censorship, by John Sweeney: Putin’s war on truth, from the Ukraine frontline.
In defence of the unreasonable, by Ziyad Marar: The reasons behind the need
to be unreasonable.
We walk a very thin line when we report ‘us and them’, by Emily Couch: Reverting to stereotypes when reporting on non-Western countries merely aids dictators.
It’s time to put down the detached watchdog, by Fréderike Geerdink: Western newsrooms are failing to hold power to account.
A light in the dark, by Trevor Philips: Index’s Chair reflects on some of the magazine’s achievements.
Our work here is far from done, by Ruth Smeeth: Our CEO says Index will carry on fighting for the next 50 years.
In vodka veritas, by Nick Harkaway and Jemimah Steinfeld: The author talks about Anya’s Bible, his new story inspired by early Index and Moscow bars.
A ghost-written tale of love, by Ariel Dorfman and Jemimah Steinfeld: The novelist tells the editor of Index about his new short story, Mumtaz, which we publish.
‘Threats will not silence me’, by Bilal Ahmad Pandow and Madhosh Balhami: A Kashmiri poet talks about his 30 years of resistance.
A classic case of cancel culture, by Marc Nash: Remember Socrates’ downfall.
15 Mar 22 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine
Vasyl Symonenko (1935-1963), a Ukrainian dissident poet, died after a brutal attack by the Soviet police in Smila, Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. His death was likely connected to his interest in the mass graves at Bykivnia forest outside Kyiv, where the Soviet regime buried tens of thousands of its victims. His poem To A Kurdish Brother can be read as a call to his Ukrainian compatriots to rise against the Soviet regime. The Soviets had committed genocide against Ukrainians during the 1930s, exterminating millions of them during the Holodomor, a forced famine accompanied by mass executions. In the post war period the regime was slowly choking the remains of Ukrainian identity under the guise of “internationalism” by assimilating Ukraine’s people into Russian culture. Putin’s war is the Russian empire’s final effort to destroy Ukrainian identity, but it relates directly to hundreds of years of oppression.
To A Kurdish Brother
by Vasyl Symonenko
Fight… and overcome! Taras Shevchenko
The mountains cry, drenched in blood,
The battered stars fall down:
The fragrant valleys gouged and wounded,
Where chauvinism’s hunger tears in.
Oh, Kurd, conserve your ammo,
But don’t spare the lives of murderers.
Fall as a whirlwind of blood now
On these pillaging lawless bastards.
.
Only talk to them with bullets true:
They did not come just to take all you own,
But for your name and language too
And leave your son an orphan.
The oppressor will “rule” while you haul the cart
So you cannot consent to live with them
Drinking the blood of oppressed peoples they grow fat
For chauvinism is our most savage foe.
He will do anything, so that you submit,
He has betrothed treachery with shame,
Oh, Kurd, conserve each bullet,
For without them you won’t save your kin.
Do not lull to sleep the power of your hate,
Until the last chauvinist on the planet falls,
Into their open grave, only then take
Tenderness as your motto, however it calls.
—
Lina Kostenko was born into a family of teachers on 19 March 1930 in Rzhyshchiv, Ukraine. According to this poem, she wrote her first poem on the walls of a dug-out in World War II. It’s unlikely that this is poetic licence. Kostenko is a poet who is both highly literary, mixing references to Shakespeare and Gogol, but also very honest and accessible. That first poem written as shells fell around her has not survived so what we have instead is a poem about writing a poem. It is a powerful piece that speaks to the plight of children in war. She is currently seeing her country being invaded and shelled by another brutal dictator who, like Hitler and Stalin, wants to destroy the Ukrainian nation. Putin is committing war crimes and has displaced hundreds of thousands of refugees.
My first poem was written in a dug out
On a wall loosened by explosions
When stars were lost in the horoscope:
Though my childhood was not slain by war.
The fire poured its lava,
Stood in the grey craters of orchards,
Our path choked by water
In deranged barrages with flames
The world once bright now dark
That burning night illuminated to its depth
The dug out like a submarine
In a sea of smoke, fear and flame.
There is no longer rabbit or wolf there
Just a world of blood, carbonised star!
I wrote almost in shrapnel
Block capitals from the child’s primer.
I would still play in the dark and in classes
I flew on the wings of book covers in stories
And wrote poems about landmines
Having already seen death so close.
The pain of first unchildish impressions
What trace left on the heart
Verses do not say what I cannot speak
Have they not left mute the spirit?
The spirit in words is the sea in a periscope
And its memory, light refracted from my temple
My first poem, was written in a dug out
Simply imprinted on the soil.
Both poems translated from the Ukrainian by Stephen Komarnyckyj
