Paul Goble
Staunton,
November 12 – The start of the trial in Arkhangelsk of Ivan Moseyev, the
director of the Pomor Institute of Indigenous and Numerically Small Peoples of
the North, for inciting ethnic hatred and treason in favor of Norway, was
postponed today because of the illness of the accused (nazaccent.ru/content/5936-v-arhangelske-iz-za-bolezni-lidera-pomorov.html).
But
the charges, which many observers are calling truly “Orwellian,” have sparked
widespread attention and condemnation both inside and outside of Russia (See, for
example, barentsobserver.com/en/society/amnesty-will-monitor-moseev-case-11-11, barentsobserver.com/en/society/oslo-moseev-case-raises-concern-10-11,
www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1591861.html, www.publicpost.ru/theme/id/2532/moseev/, newsbabr.com/?IDE=109876, mariuver.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/goizm/
and www.politonline.ru/?area=articleItem&id=12342&mode=print)
and have simultaneously raised questions about the Kremlin’s nationality
policies and sparked new interest among some non-Russians in seeking
independent statehood.
An
article posted on the Free-Karelia.info today both reviews the case and helps
to explain why it is radicalizing opinion among non-Russians. As the site reports, Moseyev has been accused
of “thought crimes” that could lead, if the Pomor activist is convicted, to his
imprisonment for up to 20 years (www.free-karelia.info/ru/nastoyashchee/federatsiya/106-federalizm-gosudarstvennaya-izmena.html).
Moseyev
apparently attracted the attention of the authorities in Moscow not only
because he called for the recognition of the roughly 7,000 Pomors as an
indigenous people, something that would gain them certain kinds of state aid,
but also cooperated closely with Norwegian officials across the border and even
“dreamed about the establishment of a Pomor Republic.”
(According
to a report in “Russkoye obozreniye,” the Russian FSB became interested in the
Pomors in June of this after “Kommersant-Vlast’” published an article about
Moseyev. On June 25, officials searched his apartment, confiscated his
notebook, and tapped his phone line (www.rus-obr.ru/ru-web/21168).
The Moseyev case must be viewed in the context of
the recent wave of Russian laws and proposals that represent “a frontal attack
on federalism,” FreeKarelia.info says. “Regional
organizations conducting joint projects with foreign partners are declared ‘foreign
agents.’” And some Moscow politicians have even called for the abolition of the
non-Russian republics.
Most recently, over the weekend, it was reported
that the Russian Justice Ministry has suspended the activity of the Indigenous
Numerically Small Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East, a group that
has extensive ties with Arctic peoples in Scandinavia and North America (nazaccent.ru/content/5920-minyust-priostanovil-deyatelnost-associacii-korennyh-malochislennyh.html).
“Clearly,” the site continues, “the Russian Federation
as ‘the legal successor of the USSR’ is without deviation repeated [the former
state’s] path. The Soviet Union also
nominally called itself ‘a federation,’ but in reality it was a harshly
centralized unitary state where any independent social activity was denounced
as ‘a betrayal of the Motherland.’”
If Moscow continues on its current path, the site
suggests, the end of the Russian Federation is “inevitable” because its “citizens
will simply cease to consider this single camp with a totalitarian ideology to
be their Motherland.”
“A contemporary and vital federation is based on regional
and cultural diversity,” the site adds, and no one living in a genuine
federation sees ethnic advocacy of cross-border cooperation as treason. “In the US, no one is afraid that Alaska will
secede and join Canada (or Russia). And in the Federal Republic of Germany there
are several self-administering Euroregions.”
Only in the country that calls itself “the Russian
Federation” is “such crossborder interaction” viewed with suspicion. It is
clear from this if from nothing else that “the Russian powers that be [today]
still live in the USSR.”
The central government in a genuine federation, the
site argues, “should on the contrary do everything it can to support and
develop crossborder cooperation projects, by establishing an attractive image
of the Pomor Region so that even the Norwegians with their high taxes will envy
it and will build their enterprises there.”
Unfortunately, “the stereotypes of ‘the cold war’
and ‘the besieged fortress’ still operate in Russia,” and to support “this ‘patriotic’
struggle,” show trials like the one being conducted against Moseyev are needed,
a point even some Russian officials concede (www.kauppatie.com/04-2010/6.pdf).
Such trials are intended to intimidate, and they
may do so in some cases. But in this one and any others like it that may
follow, Russian officials appear to be falling into exactly the same trap as
their Soviet predecessors, radicalizing the very people they hope to silence (www.free-karelia.info/ru/budushchee/proekty/107-nezavisimost-karelii-za-i-protiv.html).
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