‘All Signs of Formation of Totalitarian State Now Present in Russia,’ Aug Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 11 – Yuliya Aug, an actress in Russia who has been denied roles in recent years because she has called the absorption of Crimea by the Russian Federation an annexation, says that in her view, “all the signs of the formation of a totalitarian state are now present in Russia.”

            “I have the complete sense that we are somewhere within a system which is frming a totalitarian state. All the signs of this are present,” the outspoken actress tells Deutsche Welle (dw.com/ru/юлия-ауг-в-россии-налицо-все-признаки-формирования-тоталитарного-государства/a-51943814).

            Despite this, Aug continues, she feels a certain reason for optimism because “there have now appeared more people who understand that it is necessary to seek a path for creating [films and television programs] bypassing state financing. And there have arisen very many new platforms for creating really interesting film and television products.”

            One of the first actresses to appear nude on screen, Aug rejects the idea that Russia is “a puritanical state.” Instead, she says, “in Russia there is such a cocktail of all-possible prohibitions including paternalistic ones that to call it puritanical would be much too simple.” Instead, there are elements of domostroy, the patriarchal family, and religion.

            In addition, Aug says, the state has played a role because in Soviet times, “in an absolutely non-religious country, the [communist] party replaced religion.”

            Aug says that she does not have “a drop of Russian blood” in here. She was born in Leningrad too a half-Swedish, half-Estonian father and a Jewish mother, and she grew up in Estonia a place she feels strongly attracted to, often visits but does not speak the language of fluently.

            It is wrong to say that the Russians and the Estonians are in a dispute with one another: their relations are different, those of “an aggressor and his victims.  This must not be called a dispute. And therefore, I understand very well Estonians who do not like Russians.  But, by the way, another generation has grown up” there.

            Unlike their parents, the actress concludes, they neither like nor dislike Russians. Instead, they focus on Europe. “Historically, they know about the relations of Estonia and Russia, but they already do not have such a trauma in the literal sense of the word.”