Portraits of Defiance

Photographs by Kirill Nikitenko
Text by Owen Matthews

Russia’s revolutionaries have always been a diverse bunch. Some, like the liberals of the 19th century exiled to London and Siberia, were cerebral and philosophical. Others were firebrands who advocated anarchy or communism. But however radical their plans for Russia’s future, what most had in common was a surprisingly modest goal for the present—to start by bringing Russia up to date, to enjoy the liberty and prosperity taken for granted by the world’s civilized nations.

It is maybe a stretch to call today’s crop of Russian opposition figures “revolutionaries,” but they have that modest ambition in common with their forebears. What they propose sounds simple enough: to restore the three pillars of democracy dismantled by Vladimir Putin since his accession in 2000—a free press, an independent judiciary, and an honestly elected Parliament. But that would strike at the heart of the mafia-like structure of government that Putin created, a pyramid of bureaucracy where extorted or looted money is passed up the chain, while protection and patronage are passed down. In Putinworld, the only true crime is disloyalty.

“We want to live like people!” was the plaintive cry of Russia’s most recent revolutionaries, the democrats who poured onto the streets in August 1991 in Russia’s own Arab Spring. An exhibition at 25CPW Gallery in New York commemorates those democrats’ beleaguered heirs. Today they battle not just a brutal police, a closed press, and a campaign of dirty tricks from the Kremlin, but also the intransigence of most of their countrymen, for whom “democracy” became synonymous with economic collapse and wholesale theft. They are brave, marginalized, and maybe a little crazy. But Russian history tells us that eventually, Russia’s revolutionaries always win—for better or worse.

Exhibition sponsered by Institute of Modern Russia