To detain the theater director Yevgenia Berkovich for two months – such a decision was made on May 5 by the Zamoskvoretsky court in Moscow. The director is charged under an article on the justification of terrorism – for the play “Finist the Clear Falcon” directed by her. Russian media rounded up what is known about the case so far and spoke to critics to find out where exactly in the play and production the justification for terrorism could be seen.
Berkovich’s defense insisted on extending his stay at the remand center so that the warden could familiarize himself with all the elements of the case. It also took time to prepare materials about Berkovich’s adopted children and a characterization of her. In addition, the lawyers are asking for time to receive a certificate for a grant allocated by the Russian Ministry of Culture for the staging in the amount of 250,000 rubles (the press service of the department did not respond to a request of Russian media on this subject).
At the meeting, sureties for Evgenia, signed by journalist Ksenia Sobchak, actor Maxim Vitorgan, philanthropist Lidia Moniava, Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov, head of the theater named after. Yermolova Oleg Menshikov and her colleague from the Youth Theater Alexei Borodin, as well as many others. More than 200 people came to watch the trial at the courthouse.
“Finist Yasny Sokol” is a performance by the Berkovich-based “Daughters of Soso” theater company, based on a play by Svetlana Petreychuk about Russian girls who fall victim to manipulation by radical Islamist recruiters after virtually marrying them and then quite realistically. them in Syria. Berkovich said the case of a Moscow State University student, Varvara Karaulova, caused the creative team to think about this. When it was staged, the play was supplemented by real interrogation protocols for Russian women who had returned to their homeland after being part of the Islamic State*. The performance received two “Golden Masks” – for the work of the director, as well as for the work of the costume designer.
How the business grew
The case about justifying terrorism in the play “Finist the Clear Falcon” became known on May 4 from a message from Elena Efros about a search of her apartment in St. Petersburg, where she lives with his mother Nina Katerli. Elena and Nina – respectively, the mother and grandmother of director Evgenia Berkovich; Investigators told relatives of the director that the search took place in connection with a case involving a play directed by her. Berkovich herself stopped communicating in the morning.
In the afternoon, the situation began to clear up – director Yuri Shekhvatov announced the detention of his wife, playwright Svetlana Petriychuk. Petriychuk is the author of Finist. Soon the two were found in the UK department in the Zamoskvorechye region. Besides, writing “Fontanka”, Alexander Andrievich, the director of the theater company “Daughters of Soso”, which produced the production, was questioned.
In the evening, they became “suspects”. The girls spent the night in a temporary detention center – presumably the TDF of the Directorate of Internal Affairs of the North-Eastern Administrative District on Ostashkovskaya Street. Andrievich left investigators in the evening in witness status, attorney Yulia Kuznetsova, who is working on the case, told the publication.
Terrorist or counter-terrorism propaganda
The incident caused a huge resonance in the theatrical environment. Actress Oksana Mysina addressed via social networks with an open letter to the head of the STD RF Alexander Kalyagin.
“Please just take the side of the law and do a noble act, within your position. This is vital today, in this historic time,” she wrote. letter, she recalls that Berkovich’s performance came out several years ago, was nominated for the Golden Mask award in four categories and won an award in two of them.
Scene from the play “Finist the Clear Falcon” The Girls of SOSO
“Time does not last. There are situations that are beyond us. It is such a situation. This is not only about respecting Zhenya’s right to free expression as a director, but also about respecting her right to personal liberty and inviolability,” the actress wrote. She recalled that Berkovich had two daughters, one of them a minor.
Director Kirill Serebrennikov, who was Berkovich’s class teacher at the Moscow Art Theater School, did not spare good words. “I always wanted to say how much I love you, but the feigned severity of the ‘class master’ did not allow it. You are my favorite student. The most talented, the smartest, the freest, “said – he wrote on his Telegram channel. – mother of two. Director, poet, playwright (I don’t know how to form your favorite feminist). You should be proud: such people in the culture of any normal country are a rarity, a miracle, a pride. But in Russia, everything is now upside down…” In his article, he recalls how Berkovich spoke in his defense during the trial, and also suggests that the reasons for his accusation are “political” and that “the same firm” that handled the Gogol Center case is handling his case.
Theater critics and theater specialists in their comments on social networks talked about the essence and structure of the performance, and in this regard they drew attention to the absurdity of the wording of the charge. Critic and curator Maria Krupnik believes that the performance on many levels – documentary, mythological, realistic, musical – “shows all the horror of a real encounter with terrorism and the methods that recruiters use to create a psychological dependence in their victims”.
“The performance reveals the danger of an inattentive attitude to such social issues and is a direct ANTI-terrorist statement,” she summed up on her social media.
Theater critic, theater expert Alla Shenderova agrees with her. “I can say this is a warning performance that reveals a cunning mechanism by which radical Islamists draw new victims into their networks – naive and unsuspecting,” she told Russian media. , saved me from talking once again with foreigners from Eastern countries who appear in personal messages on social networks and begin to pour compliments and affectionate words. Shenderova called the performance “anti-terrorist”, noting that a different interpretation of the meaning of this performance by the audience, in her opinion, is completely excluded.
However, the charge was based on a review that claims otherwise. How reported telegram from the association of lawyers of the First Department, the investigators were guided in opening the case by a review conducted by Roman Silantyev, the founder of “destructology”, which studies sects, cults and ideologies for threats to “spiritual safety”. The review found in the production “the ideology of Islamism and jihadism”, as well as “signs of the ideology of radical feminism and the struggle against the androcentric social structure of Russia”, writing Fontanka edition.
Edition “Dash” complaints that the reason for initiating proceedings against Evgenia and Svetlana could be article 2021, signed by S. Shchennikova and V. Tunik and published on the National Course resource, which is considered a publication of the NOD movement. It said: “The performance “Finist the Bright Falcon” based on the play by S. Petriychuk, directed by E. Berkovich, which we saw on May 19, 2021, is an instrument of information warfare against the Russian security. We ask law enforcement to watch out for him! “.
Playwright Svetlana Petriychuk, during the election of a preventive measure in the Zamoskvoretsky courtMikhail Metzel / TASS
Corresponding RIA Novosti transmitted from the courtroom that the reason for opening the case was the posting of a reading of the exhibit on YouTube.
Evgenia Berkovich is a student of Kirill Serebrennikov and a graduate of his “Seventh Studio”, an acting and directing course, which later became an independent creative team. Berkovich – director, librettist, translator and poet; this is how, in the feminine, she prefers to talk about herself. The author of the performances “Russian Beauty” and “Marina” at the “Gogol Center”, “Penguins” at the Moscow Youth Theater, “Lark” at the Moscow Art Theater, “Solar Line” at the Alexandrinsky Theater. In 2019, she founded her own theater company “Daughters of Soso”, in which she staged the performances “Counting Book” based on Tamta Melashvili’s book, “Finist the Clear Falcon”, as well as “The Blue Rice Dog” based on the poems of Fyodor Svarovsky and the Christmas fairy tale “Our Treasure”. Takes a consistent anti-war stance; since the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, she has written and published several poems about it on her social networks, which have become widely known. Commenting on the opening of a case against Berkovich, Deputy of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly Boris Vishnevsky suggested that his anti-war poems may become the real reason for the director’s persecution.
The case of the “rehabilitation of Nazism”
Berkovich’s “theatrical affair” is not the first time that criminal charges have been filed over a work of art. A year ago, in April 2022, the Investigative Committee suspected an “undefined circle of people” of “rehabilitating Nazism” because of the sculpture “Big Mother” by Oleg Kulik, presented at the Art Moscow fair in Gostiny Dvor. The investigation interviewed Kulik himself, as well as representatives of Art Moscow and Vladimir Frolov, owner of the Frolov Gallery, which exhibited the sculpture.
The reason for opening the case was the appeal of State Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshtein. Russian media has repeatedly turned to the defendants in the criminal case for information on its progress, but they have not responded to requests. According to Russian media sources in law enforcement, at the moment the investigation is practically not advancing and none of the CIs interviewed in this case have received procedural status.
- the organization is recognized as a terrorist organization and banned in Russia
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