The Artist Who Frightens Vladimir Putin

Among the 16 prisoners released in the recent swap with Russia was Sasha Skochilenko, an artist and musician barely known to the public. She had been serving a seven-year sentence for a clever piece of guerrilla art. In March 2022, a month after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Skochilenko entered a St. Petersburg grocery store and swapped five price tags with anti-war messages. These labels, originally intended to display prices of items like cabbage or stationery, conveyed critical perspectives on the war that were rarely voiced in Russia. One such label read, “The Russian Army bombed an art school in Mariupol where about 400 people were seeking shelter.” Another stated, “My great-grandfather didn’t fight in World War II for four years so that Russia would become a fascist state and attack Ukraine.” A third label demanded, “Stop the war! In the first three days, 4,300 Russian soldiers were killed. Why are they silent about this on television?”

Putin had swiftly pushed through a new law, Article 207.3, which criminalized the distribution of “false information about Russian armed forces.” Simply referring to Russia’s large-scale incursion into Ukraine as a “war” was made illegal; it had to be called a “special military operation.” Skochilenko’s grocery-store actions led to her detention in April 2022. She spent 20 months in pretrial detention, was denied necessary treatment for a heart defect and the special diet required for her celiac disease, and in November, she was convicted under Article 207.3 and sentenced to seven years in prison. According to Amnesty International, by the time Skochilenko was imprisoned, more than 700 people had faced criminal charges in Russia for anti-war activities, with over 250 indicted under Article 207.3.

Standing in the glass box where defendants are held in Russian courtrooms, Skochilenko, in a tie-dye shirt with a heart, tried to smile. She expressed disbelief that this was all due to five pieces of paper: “What weak faith our prosecutor has in our national society if he thinks that our state and our common security might collapse because of these tiny papers! What harm did I do? Who suffered because of my act?”

The headlines last week focused mainly on Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter convicted on fabricated espionage charges as a ploy for Putin to free one of his assassins from a German prison. Yet, it is Sasha Skochilenko’s story that more dramatically illustrates the everyday reality for Russians. Reflect on a regime that feels threatened by five small pieces of paper, and one can begin to understand the oppressive atmosphere enveloping Russia—a place where people risk their freedom and sometimes their lives to express certain truths, even quietly.

Skochilenko’s act of defiance calls to mind Hans Fallada’s extraordinary novel about German resistance to the Nazis, Every Man Dies Alone. Written in 1947, the book is based on the true story of Otto and Elise Hampel, a working-class Berlin couple. During World War II, they secretly distributed postcards around Berlin with anti-Hitler messages. When caught in late 1942, they were sentenced to death by guillotine.

In a swift 24-day writing frenzy, Fallada turned this story into a 500-page novel. The Hampels became Otto and Anna Quangel, who start their own subversive postcard campaign after their son, a soldier at the front, is killed. Their handwritten messages, scattered in Berlin’s office building stairwells, uncannily echo Skochilenko’s grocery-store labels. One read, “Mother! The Führer has murdered my son. Mother! The Führer will murder your sons too, he will not stop till he has brought sorrow to every home in the world.”

Anna Quangel initially felt the postcards were an insignificant gesture when suggested by her husband—a minor act of defiance dwarfed by her grief and anger. She wanted to directly kill Hitler, but Otto insisted there was nothing quaint about their project. “Whether it’s big or small, Anna, if they get wind of it, it’ll cost us our lives,” he told her. They dreamed about a potential chain reaction their postcards might cause, as the reality they pointed to was one no one else dared to name. “Perhaps already there are many thinking as we do,” Otto mused. “Thousands of men must have fallen. Maybe there are already writers like us. But that doesn’t matter, Anna! What do we care? It’s we who must do it!”

Fallada’s tale follows a police investigator as he chases the multiplying cards—a middle-aged couple armed with a pen becomes the focus of an extensive manhunt. It showcases the absurdity of a regime dedicating so many resources to apprehend two ordinary people because of their written words. The fate of the Quangels parallels that of the real-life Hampels: capture, trial, and tragic execution. An appendix to the 2009 English translation of the novel by Michael Hofmann includes images of the Hampel postcards. Written with awkward, blocky handwriting to avoid recognition, they seem small and pathetic, the protest of an ant facing a stomping boot. Yet, they are also artifacts of resistance, a reminder that even in the most repressive environments, some people will act on their values, unable to lie about the truth they know.

Skochilenko offers the same kind of hope for Russia, even in this dark moment. Despite Putin’s efforts to suppress information about the war in Ukraine, she found alternative ways to express its cost. In the speech she gave in court upon her conviction, she spoke about being driven by her pacifism and the sacredness and beauty of life. She addressed the state prosecutor directly: “I don’t blame you. You are worried about your career, about having a stable future to provide for your family. But what will you tell them? Will you tell them how you sent to prison an ailing woman because of five tiny pieces of paper? No, you will definitely tell them about other cases. Maybe you will convince yourself you were just doing your job … Even though I am behind bars, I am freer than you. I can make my own decisions and say what I think.”

Happily, Skochilenko left her cage last week, heading to Turkey and then Germany to reunite with her girlfriend and mother. Her case should be as well known as Gershkovich’s. Her persecution tells us something crucial about Putin—not about his strength in crushing dissent, but about his regime’s ultimate weakness and insecurity. His fear of Sasha Skochilenko, an artist and pacifist expressing the smallest dissent, highlights his deep concern about the possibility of Russians discovering the truths on those five pieces of paper. Silencing a whisper is necessary only if one fears it might grow into a shout.

Source: The Atlantic