Moscow Supreme Court confirms forced dissolution of 'Memorial'
The humanitarian association is reference point for schools of thought not aligned with Putin. With the invasion of Ukraine, the regime's warlike and hyper-nationalist rhetoric needs to eliminate alternative voices. Memorial activists are circulating cartoons that highlight the grotesque reality Russians are forced to live with.
Moscow (AsiaNews) - During the dramatic days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the capital's Supreme Court has rejected all appeals and confirmed the dissolution of the humanitarian association "Memorial", the main point of reference for non-aligned thought in Russia. The association's young activists decided to share 'living cartoons' on social networks and across media as a sign of protest against the Putin regime.
The regime's warlike and hyper-nationalist rhetoric needs to eliminate all alternative voices, so as not to fuel the sense of bewilderment caused by the radical choice to use weapons, which is now spreading throughout the population of Russia, even among those who had always approved of the politics and ideology of the last two decades. The young people in particular are concerned, who in successive waves are joining the demonstrations of movements such as Aleksej Naval'nyj's, which has also been completely silenced, and today's attempts to call for peace.
The marches of recent days have been systematically repressed, filling the "avtozaks" to clear the streets and the jail cells of the police stations, full to bursting. Every day, censorship and restrictions are applied to newspapers and news sites that even dare to mentioon 'war', while a 'defensive military action' is officially underway in Ukraine.
The young artists close to Memorial in response decided not to limit themselves to protest messages on Facebook or Twitter, which are also monitored by the censors' watchful eye. The idea was to make an almanac of cartoons and animated drawings that would highlight the grotesque reality that Russians are forced to live with.
Two of them, Anna Romanova and Semen Kulikov, posted the first sketch three weeks ago, and gathered 23 cartoonists and artists who had to choose a topic from the proposed list or think of a new word to associate and illustrate to describe an alternative reality.
The cartoons talk about the shared past (memory), the "claustrophobic square" that oppresses freedom, destiny depicted as a wall of empty hangers. They dalos depict mutual solidarity, the souls of Gulag prisoners returning to embrace the children of today, they depict time and fear, and also repression represented by the black masks of crows circling above a meat grinder.
The defence of human rights becomes an animated tightrope that is grasped by anyone who doesn't want to fall into a ravine, and the faces of the oppressed are lined up, while a fiery letter M from Memorial runs through the river of memory. The films are edited by young directors, some already established, others debutants, animated by great enthusiasm despite the tragic circumstances. Creativity overcomes repression, they say, and helps to at least 'survive in a world without speech and breath', to learn not to be silent.
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