TFR enters the stage – Kommersant

Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow arrested theater director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk for two months. They are charged in a criminal case to justify terrorism, initiated because of the play Finist Yasny Sokol. The production, which tells about the recruitment of gullible Russian women by terrorists through dating sites, received two Golden Mask awards, was successfully staged even in the institution of the Federal Penitentiary Service, and dozens of celebrities vouched for its authors in court, including Oleg Menshikov and Konstantin Raikin. But the “destructological examination” featured in the case, according to the defendants’ lawyers, found in the production the glorification of the banned ISIS, the ideology of radical feminism and “the fight against the androcentric social structure of Russia.”

On May 5, about a hundred people, including Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov, gathered near the building of the Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow to support Yevgenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk, who were to choose a measure of restraint. Ms. Berkovich was brought in in handcuffs. A criminal case to justify terrorism (part 2 of article 205.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation; punishment from five to seven years in prison) was initiated by the investigative department of the ICR for the Central District of Moscow on April 10. But this became known on May 4, when Yevgenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk were first summoned for interrogation as witnesses, and then their status was changed to defendants.

The lawyer of Mrs. Petriychuk Yulia Kuznetsova told the publication Fontankathat the initiation of the case in January 2023 was preceded by an examination by the Moscow State Linguistic University (MGLU). From the document, according to the lawyer, it follows that Finist Yasny Sokol contains statements “expressing the justification for the departure of young women from the country” to participate in the banned ISIS and approving the activities of the terrorist organization, its “creative character … moral and spiritual superiority.”

At the same time, according to Yulia Kuznetsova, the case does not mention a full-fledged production of Finist the Bright Sokol, but a reading of the play. A recording of such a reading published on YouTube in 2019 was evaluated by linguists from MSLU.

However, the defendants were detained after another 125-page “comprehensive destructological examination” appeared in the case in May 2023, Ms. Kuznetsova explained to Fontanka. Its authors are the director of the Center for Linguistic Expertise of MSLU Galina Khizreeva and the head of the Laboratory of Destructology of MSLU Roman Silantiev. This examination, according to Ms. Kuznetsova, found in the production both signs of the ideology of ISIS with “ideas of permanent violence” and signs of “a destructive subculture of Russian neophyte wives of terrorists, extremists, the subculture of the so-called Russian Islam.” In the performance, according to the experts involved in the investigation, there are also “signs of the ideology of radical feminism and the struggle against the androcentric social structure of Russia.” “Destructological science”, in their opinion, “records the facts” when the assimilation of the ideology of radical feminism “led to a conscious preparation for the execution of a terrorist attack.”

It is noteworthy that in 2019 the play “Finist Yasny Sokol” was staged by the local Youth Theater in the Tomsk VK-2 of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Russian Federation.

The website of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Tomsk Region emphasizes that the performance-reading based on the play by Svetlana Petriychuk “is based on real events” and allows viewers “to focus on topical issues – propaganda of extremism and terrorism among young people”: “Skillfully using romantic relationships and sincere feelings, young people are recruiting young women into terrorist organizations. The consequences of gullibility and naivety are terrible – criminal cases and imprisonment for long periods. The words of the deputy head of VK-2, Yulia Aikina, are also cited, who spoke about the strong impression that the play “made on the pupils.”

Lawyer Ksenia Karpinskaya stressed at the court hearing that Galina Khizreeva and Roman Silantyev did not have qualifications and proper education, and therefore the expertise they had prepared could not be the basis of the case. The lawyer also considered the term “destructological” “pseudo-scientific, not included in the lists of existing expertise.” It should be noted that the laboratory of destructology has existed in the structure of MSLU since 2019, and all references to destructology as a science in public sources refer either to this laboratory itself or to its head, Roman Silantiev.

The investigating authorities petitioned to send Evgenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk into custody. The court received at least two dozen guarantees for Mrs. Berkovich (who is raising two adopted children), including from actors and directors Oleg Menshikov, Konstantin Raikin and Veniamin Smekhov. However, the court arrested both defendants for two months.

The Finist Yasny Sokol case is not the first high-profile theater-related process in recent years. In 2015, a scandal erupted around the production of the opera “Tannhäuser” in Novosibirsk, when director Timofey Kulyabin was accused of desecrating religious symbols. But then the administrative case was closed due to the lack of corpus delicti, and the criminal case was never opened. And in the Seventh Studio case (its founder, director Kirill Serebrennikov, was recognized as the organizer of the theft of 216 million rubles in 2020), the subject of the charge was not performances, but administrative and economic activities and the expenditure of state funds. Evgenia Berkovich, by the way, studied at the Moscow Art Theater School with Kirill Serebrennikov, later produced performances as part of his Platform project and on the stage of the Gogol Center (Russian Beauty by Viktor Erofeev, 2013; Marina by Lyuba Strizhak, 2014). For eleven years as a director, Evgenia Berkovich managed to work on the capital and regional stages, including the Alexandrinsky Theater and the Sverdlovsk Academic Drama Theater. Many of her colleagues, we note, point to the statements of Ms. Berkovich in social networks (including those with unequivocal criticism of the SVO) as a possible reason for the interest in the play Finist the Clear Sokol.

In 2022, Finist Yasny Sokol received two Golden Masks. Thus, the national theatrical prize itself may turn out to be discredited in the eyes of the state.

This is happening simultaneously with the discussion of plans to reform the Golden Mask on other ideological principles – the existence of such plans was confirmed to Kommersant by sources in the Union of Theater Workers.

Alexander Voronov, Klara Gazulina