Photo: Reuters and Ole Kristian Strøm
Several experts VG has spoken to believe that Alexei Navalny will become a martyr for the Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin. But they dare not predict what might happen.
Saturday 17 February at 23:27
– There is a Russian proverb that says that “Russia loves its martyrs”, says former Moscow correspondent Hans-Wilhelm Steinfeld to VG.
– Navalny becomes a martyr, like the murdered politician Boris Nemtsov and the journalist Anna Politkovskaya. From the Soviet era, we have experience that prisoners of conscience also get the same effect.
– It is part of the Russian mentality, says Steinfeld, who has lived in Russia for 20 years of his life.
– In a society where there are not so many ideals of a positive sense, the martyrs become important.
Hans-Wilhelm Steinfeld:
– Putin does not control this.
– How important?
– I can’t say anything about that until it happens! But Putin remembers the mass demonstrations in Bolotnaya Square in Moscow in 2011 after the rigged election. It is not this tradition that Navalny gets a political effect. And this does not control Putin.
Steinfeld continues:
– Navalny becomes more dangerous to the Putin regime dead than alive.
A woman touches her face at the mountain of flowers at the Solovki Monument in Moscow. Photo: STRINGER / Reuters / NTB
Both Friday evening and Saturday there were reports from a number of Russian cities that the police prevented people who wanted to lay flowers in Navalny’s memory. At least 270 people have been arrested, according to OVD-info.
People in Moscow have nevertheless flocked to a rock from the Solovki Islands, also on Saturday.
The first GulagGulag is a term for forced labor camps and penal colonies in the Soviet Union from the 1920s until a few years after Josef Stalin’s death in 1953.-camp was established on the Solovki Islands, and the stone bears the inscription “In memory of millions of victims of a totalitarian state”.
- The mountain of flowers that began on Friday continues to grow on Saturday.
Photo: Alexander Zemlanichenko / AP / NTB
The mountain of flowers that began on Friday continues to grow on Saturday. Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP / NTB
– Was it Putin who killed Navalny?
– It is undoubtedly the regime that is responsible for his death. It is a strict regime, and Navalny was in a harsh penal colony. But if you ask whether Putin had a motive to take Navalny’s life, it speaks against it. But we have to wait for the autopsy, says Steinfeld.
– Putin also knows that martyrs are more dangerous dead than alive, continues Hans-Wilhelm Steinfeld, who is now coming out with a new book, “The Slavic Tragedy”, which describes Russia’s dominance, oppression and negative presence in the lives of the various Slavic peoples in Eastern Europe.
Professor emeritus at Lund University, Kristian Gerner, agrees with Steinfeld:
– Navalny will become a martyr for democratic Russia, he says to VG.
– He returned to Russia after the poisoning, he knew what he was doing, but in Russian tradition he sacrificed himself to show the powers that they are not omnipotent. He was willing to pay the ultimate price, his own death.
RED ROSE: “He didn’t die, he was killed,” reads this poster of an elderly woman laying a red rose at a memorial in St. Petersburg on Saturday. Photo: AP / NTB
– Why?
– Because Navalny was concerned about the future of Russia. He sacrificed his life, as Aleksandr Radishchev did in the early 19th century when he fell out of favor with Catherine the Great and was sentenced to death. The sentence was later overturned and he was exiled to Siberia, says the history professor.
Like Steinfeld, Gerner does not believe Navalny’s death was “planned.”
– Everything points to that. They had no ready comments. They just said they were trying to keep him alive. Putin’s regime is in any case responsible for his death, but it may have happened, for example, because of poor treatment in prison.
2024-02-17 22:27:08
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