A glimpse of Dmitriev

23 March 202029 March 2020 / editors (JC)

The hearing took place today, despite quarantine measures announced in connection with the Covid-19 outbreak.

Yury DMITRIEV in corridor of Petrozavodsk City Courthouse, 23 March 2020

Supporters caught a glimpse of Yury Dmitriev as he was escorted along the corridor. To judge by his appearance, he had recovered from his sickness. “He looked well and had put on weight,” Anatoly RAZUMOV told the Petersburg Human Rights Council over the phone from Petrozavodsk.

Dmitriev was glad that the new edition of his book, Sandarmokh, a Place of Remembrance, was being acquired by libraries in Russia, and sent greetings to all concerned about his situation.

The next court hearing has been scheduled for Tuesday, 14 April. As usual, today’s hearing took place behind closed doors. Dmitriev’s detention in custody was prolonged today until 28 June.

The Progress of the Trial: February 2020

27 February 202023 March 2020 / editors (JC)

“By 10 February, the prosecution planned, the final words by both sides would have come to an end and a verdict would be delivered,” says Anatoly RAZUMOV, a friend of Yury Dmitriev’s and a member of St Petersburg’s Human Rights Council. “However, the defence had prepared two speakers for that day.

**Anatoly Ya. RAZUMOV, National Library, St Petersburg**

“In the early 2000s, Professor Victor Kirillov, D.Phil. (History), was in charge of the creation of a unified database of the victims of political repression, the Their Names Restored project [see below]. He arrived by plane having travelled from Yekaterinburg in the Urals via Petersburg in order to testify on behalf of his friend Yury Dmitriev. Now even the President of Russia was suggesting that such a database be created, Kirillov said: a popular initiative was becoming a task for the State. The trial is closed and we can judge what is going on merely by the length of hearing. Victor testified for 40-50 minutes.

“Then the court heard a specialist in children’s issues. She spoke and was questioned the rest of the day, from morning until lunchtime, and after lunch until 5.00 pm. Seemingly, her testimony and explanations impressed the court.

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Next court hearing, 23 March

24 February 202023 March 2020 / editors (JC)

Due to illness — Yury DMITRIEV had a high temperature — the scheduled hearing on Thursday, 20 February, did not take place. The Petrozavodsk City Court will next assemble to hear the case in a month’s time, on Monday 23 March.

Andrei Oborin,
Dmitriev Supporters’ Page, Facebook

What Next?

10 February 202027 February 2020 / editors (JC)

A verdict in the second trial of Yury DMITRIEV is expected at the end of February. The prosecution and defence are currently summing up.

In April 2018, to the amazement of many, Dmitriev was acquitted of all the more serious charges. This time no one is hazarding a guess as to the outcome. Public interest within Russia remains high. If 4,000 signed a petition in the historian’s support during the first trial, over 10,000 have done so this time round.

Whatever the outcome it seems safe to predict that the losing side will appeal against the verdict to a higher court which, in this case, is the Supreme Court of the Karelian Republic. Waiting for that hearing will take us to early summer — and beyond, if the court of higher instance again supports conviction and prompts another wave of popular indignation.

For the time being, Yury Dmitriev remains in Petrozavodsk, in Detention Centre No 1, where he has been held since June 2018 and where he will stay until the Supreme Court issues its ruling. He has not yet vanished for years into a penal colony like his unfortunate colleague Sergei Koltyrin.

“The time is short,” wrote the poet, “but the waiting is long.”

Imprisoned for memorialising Sandormokh, refusing to forget the Great Terror

29 January 202030 January 2020 / editors (JC)

Halya Coynash

Russian historian Yury DMITRIEV turned 64 on 28 January 2020. It was his third birthday detained on charges that bear no scrutiny, and his arrest coincided with the beginnings of a campaign to rewrite the history of one of the darkest pages of the Soviet Terror – the mass killing by quota of Russians, Ukrainians and other prisoners of the Solovetsky Archipelago at the Sandormokh Clearing in Karelia in 1937.

Yury Dmitriev after his acquittal in April 2018,
The stone at the entrance to the Sandormokh memorial complex

If the current regime in Russia was hoping to silence Dmitriev, it has failed. The historian and head of the Karelian branch of the Memorial Society has just published a book entitled Sandarmokh: A Place of Memory, providing information about both the victims and the perpetrators of the mass executions in the forest. In a recent letter, Dmitriev wrote that

“it is memory that makes human beings human, and not a part of the population. […] While I’m alive, I won’t allow them to rewrite our common history. […] The attempt to rewrite the history of Sandarmokh is part of the strategy of the current regime, an attempt to return our country to a camp “surrounded by enemies”. The aim is to retain their power. A frightened population will always seek protection from a strong leader”.

In a preface to the book, Dmitriev repeats this central theme about the pivotal role of memory. He points out that, while Sandarmokh is a place of memory, for him it is also a place of education where people cease to be a faceless population and are transformed into a nation, conscious of their shared fate.