The Weekend Intelligence: The trial of Yevgenia Berkovich

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0:41In 2023, we released a podcast series called Next Year in Moscow. It told the story of how Russia changed almost overnight when the war in Ukraine began, and what that meant for the lives and hopes of the free-thinking Russians who were against the war and opposed Vladimir Putin. Ever since reporting that series, Arkady Ostrovsky, The Economist's Russia editor, has been thinking about a story he heard just as the first episode was going out. I'm Rosie Bloor, and today on The Weekend Intelligence, in a bonus episode of Next Year in Moscow, Arkady is ready to tell Yevgenia's story.

1:37The first instruction is to do a wedding ceremony. How to do a wedding ceremony? Moscow, December 2020. Theatres are alive again after lockdown. In a loft space with exposed brick walls and arches, a new play is being performed to a small audience. There is no elevated stage. Young actresses in stylized Russian folk dresses move freely around the floor, sharing their stories.

2:11The play is called Finis the Bright Falcon. The name comes from a Russian fairy tale, a story about a young woman, Mariuszka, who follows her heart and goes in search of the enchanted prince, Finis. The script is based on the real-life stories. of thousands of Russian women who were seduced and manipulated online and went to marry jihadists in Syria. They were lured by a promise of love and family. Instead, they were enslaved and abused. And when they managed to escape and return to Russia, they were tried and convicted as terrorists.

2:51The player unfolds in court, but also in the realm of a fairy tale. The director mixes documentary material with elements of folklore. Speech turns into song, testimony into fable. There is humor and compassion, and the result is a poetic and powerful warning against the lure of a violent totalitarian cult.

3:21Finist, The Bright Falcon, gained official approval from the Ministry of Culture and won Russia's top theatre awards. It was performed across the country. But it was still a fringe production. Few people outside theatre circles would have heard of the director, Evgeny Iberkovich. and certainly nobody in that audience in the winter of 2020 had any inkling that less than two years later their country would be at war, their state in the grip of a death cult and that this play would be caught up in its own drama.

4:05In the small hours of May 4th, 2023, Berkovic, and the play's author Svetlana Petriciuk were arrested and put in jail. They were accused of justifying and promoting terrorism.

4:26I was in London when I heard about the arrests. We had just finished the first season of the Next Year in Moscow podcast and were heading out for a meal to mark the occasion. One of our producers called me. I stopped in my tracks. I didn't know Berkovich personally, though I knew of her work. She'd written anti-war poetry after the invasion of Ukraine, and some of it had gone viral. We'd been in touch with her about appearing in the podcast, but we hadn't managed to make it happen. To be honest, we were not really sure how she would fit into our story. She was not an exile, a political activist, or a heroic opposition leader like Alexei Navalny.

5:12But since her arrest, I've come to realize that Berkovich's voice was, in fact, one of the most important. Not because it was the loudest or the strongest, and not because it was heroic or moralizing, but because it was none of those things. And yet, it was still singled out by the state.

5:41Evgenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petrichuk were the first Russian artists since Soviet times to be sent to prison for the content of their work, or, to be more precise, for the words of their characters.

6:10Theirs was a show trial, a performance that laid out new ideological boundaries, and its outcome was preordained. But this one had a twist in the plot. Professional actors and theatre critics were put in the stand, and they turned it into a different kind of show. One that put the spotlight on the radicalization of the Russian state.

6:46What you're about to hear is a documentary drama made from words that were spoken at the trial. The roles are read by friends and colleagues of Evgenia Berkovich, some of whom were present in court.

7:14Act 1 May 20th, 2024, 10am Interior, Moscow District Military Court No. 2 On the left, the defendants, Berkovich and Petrichuk, sit inside a bulletproof glass box. Against the back wall, a large desk, the domain of Judge Yuri Masin. Early 40s, black gown, perfect teeth. The audience sits opposite him on soft green benches. Birković cheekily sticks out her tongue as the photographers leave. Judge Masin turns to her. He appears considerate. How's your health? Satisfactory. Are you ready for the proceedings? Well, it depends on what will happen. Our gaze turns to state prosecutor Yekaterina Denisova, early 30s, a marathon runner.

8:11Her manicured nails are as sharp as her pointed shoes. She reads the indictment, addressing no one in particular. Berkovich and Petrichuk are accused of publicly justifying terrorism and propagating terrorism using telecommunications networks, including the internet, at a time not precisely established by the investigation, no later than 5th of August 2019, while at a location not established by the investigation. Prosecutor Denisova pauses only to breathe and never looks up. Evgeny Berkovich had a criminal intent to make public statements recognising the ideology of Islamic terrorism as correct, deserving of support and emulation, as well as disseminating materials and information aimed at shaping the image of the...

8:56The courtroom has become stuffy. The bailiff has fallen asleep with his mouth open. Eventually, the prosecutor gets to her key evidence. 130 pages, signed and sealed with a round blue stamp. It's a report, written by an expert in something called districtology. A comprehensive districtology forensic examination answers the question that, yes, the performance contains signs of terrorism and propaganda of ISIS. signs of destructivism, justification and romanticization of male terrorists, radical feminism towards boys and men. There is a pause. Someone in the audience matters. This is hardcore. Nobody has ever heard of districtology.

9:48The judge turns to Evgenia Berkovich in the glass box. Late thirties, curly hair, big eyes. She is tiny, less than five foot tall But it's already clear that Birkovich will be the protagonist The play's author, Svetlana Petriciuk, has been cast in a supporting role Do you understand the church? I do not understand the question about whether I understand the church The meaning of the words is clear, I know Russian perfectly well but I don't understand how this set of words relates directly to me. According to the investigator from at least 2019 to 2020, I was not just a Muslim, I was a radical one.

10:35I've never worn a hijab. I'm in a secular marriage with a non-religious man. I eat pork, I take photos on the beach. I've never shared any form of Islam, whether radical or otherwise. I consider this indictment illegal. Do you admit your guilt? I do not.

10:59The prosecutor has accused Berkovich of using this play to carry out a conspiracy to promote terrorism, and of doing so without the knowledge of her actors. To Berkovich, the idea that this could be even possible is absurd. Theatre is a public activity even before the play takes to the stage. A performance is done with the participation of dozens of people over the course of at least a week, more often months, sometimes years. It is not a novel that a person can write alone at a desk without telling anyone anything. But there is another reason why this is offensive. Transparency is central to Berkovich's life and work.

11:50She was born in 1985, the start of Gorbachev's glasnost era. For her and her peers, living openly and speaking freely is a virtue. When I moved to Moscow in 2008 and enrolled in the Theatre Institute, I led a completely transparent life. I was in the public eye, surrounded by dozens, even hundreds of people, including some who were not particularly friendly. It is impossible to do anything in secret in the theatre at all. Moscow was booming. Galleries and restaurants were popping up across the city. But Berkovich and her friends wanted Russia to be not just glitzy but also more humane. Her theatre was a way to engage with the people who had been left out in the cold and to reveal them in all their humanity.

12:42flawed, funny, fragile. This is not sociological research, nor is it a report of the Federal Security Service. It is a play. This was the whole point of Finis the Bright Falcon. You cannot stage a production about women manipulated by terrorists without actually showing the women who were manipulated by terrorists. You have to show that these women are not some aliens. They are recognizable characters with recognizable problems. And you have to show the very moment of their delusion, the moment when they genuinely believe the nonsense being poured into their minds. Otherwise, nobody would see it.

13:31I staged the play with the aim of preventing terrorism. All of this was obvious to people who had actually read or seen the play, but not to the court. The defence points out that not a single word of the play has been cited since the trial began. The prosecutor doesn't even seem to have read the play. Denisovar demurs. The prosecution doesn't find it necessary to examine the material evidence. The judge sides with the prosecutor, and for the rest of the trial, he refuses to hear or watch the recording of the play that is the subject of this case. And so it falls to the defense to bring the play to the court.

14:28Act 2 Defence lawyer Ksenia Karpinska is in her early 50s. Her shoulder-length brown hair is tied back today. Karpinska has been involved in high-profile cases, but this is her first time in a military court. Her challenge is to introduce into evidence a play that the court has decided not to read or watch. So she turns to one of the actors who played a woman lured to Syria. Their characters were all given the same name, taken from folklore. Mariuszka. Can you read your Mariuszka monologue, please? May I read it out? Actor Yulia Vitkovska is on the stand. The judge agrees she may read from the play.

15:17How long will it take? Thirty seconds. I bring to the attention of the participants of the trial. The text is displayed on the screen of a mobile device. In Finist, the play, Vyotkovskaya's character is herself in court, in front of a judge. She describes her ideal in Syria. I never imagined war, those hardships, fear, all the bloodshed, all the bombings, all the videos ISIS publish about the perfect life, mutual help and sharia law. It's all aimed at people in Russia, or in cities outside Syria. If you think you'll make millions when you get there, you can forget it. It's nothing like that. Children there just sit at home and do nothing.

16:07They don't have proper toys, no proper food, no proper education, no proper medical care. Evgenia Berkovich gets to her feet. Defendants are allowed to cross-examine witnesses. But Berkovich is also a theatre director, even in the bulletproof glass box. When you are reading your monologue, do you address the audience? No. Who are you addressing then? My character cannot lift her eyes. Sometimes she stares into space. Generally, she stands with her head down. Sometimes she looks at the audience and then drops her head. Who are you talking to at that moment? Is there a particular person listening to you?

17:00Yes, I am talking to the judge. Is your character remorseful? Yes. Is she condemned or acquitted at the end of the play? She is condemned. By this point, people in the courtroom can sense that something strange is happening. It was the prosecution who called the actors as witnesses in the first place. But the witnesses don't play the parts assigned to them. They're testifying to Женя Berkovich's virtue and humanity. Женя helps so many charitable foundations that I don't even know how I'm going to list them all. It would take a very long time. Marietta Cegall-Polishuk is another of the actors. She is also one of Berkovich's closest friends.

17:50I met Женя thanks to the theatre festival called I Am Not Alone, which we organised in 2015. The project involved Trenia and other directors living with children from orphanages for three weeks, staging a play with them, and then performing the play at the Pushkin Theatre. As a result of the project, several children gained foster parents. Berković didn't plan to be one of those. But when two girls she got close to risked being returned to the shelter after their foster mother became ill, she stepped in to help. She ended up adopting the two teenagers. In life, in work, and generally in the modern creative world, everything is quite closely connected.

18:40In my work, I have always been interested in the possibility of exploring various social issues through art, helping both specific individuals and society as a whole. For Berkovich, empathy is the tissue that connects her work and her life. The defense calls Lev Zaks to the stand, to explain the meaning of art. He is a professor of philosophy and a scholar of theater. Art, unlike law or court procedures, is concerned with people's fates. the roots of their happiness or unhappiness, their rises and falls, their guilt, their responsibility, and who else is to blame on all of this, if art is true.

19:33This military courtroom has become a theatre class. The psychology of art is based on transferring a person into an imaginary life. There are two effects here. creating this imaginary life and then transferring or jumping into it. As a result, there is a third effect known since ancient Greece as catharsis.

20:01Professor Zaks' testimony has a strange effect. It broadens the meaning of the show unfolding in this court. Theatre in Russia has always been imbued with a sense of mission playing the role of parliament, university, and half-strangled church. Now, it's performing the role of the court.

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20:56The judge appears intrigued. You said art, unlike law, is concerned with the fates of people. What does law have to do with it? Is it possible to evaluate the content of the play and the performance from a legal point of view? Professor Zaks says what everyone is thinking. That's exactly what is happening in our court.

21:26Act 3 Vladimir Yuryevich, thank you very much for coming to the court hearing today. It's the turn of the sharp-nailed prosecutor. to bring her key witness to the stand. She turns on the charm. We apologize for the delay in starting. First, tell us a little about yourself. I'm an actor and director. I have my own theatre in Nizhny Novgorod, where I put on various patriotic plays in support of the special military operation in Ukraine. Vladimir Yurievich Karpuk is in his early 30s. He's wearing white jeans and an electric blue jacket. Tell us about the play. What's your feeling? What's the play about?

22:13Who is Finist the Bright Falcon? He is a hero, a Soviet hero who we all know from childhood. And they say that Finist the Bright Falcon is some kind of jihadi. In October 2022, Finist was due to be performed in Karpuk's hometown. On the eve of the performance, Karpuk posted on social media denouncing the play. He cited the attack on the Kerch Bridge connecting Russia to Crimea that was carried out by Ukrainian forces on Putin's birthday a few days earlier. The Crimean bridge was blown up and a play about terrorists is being shown. Well, it is unacceptable to show such a performance. Karpuk also posted highly personal photos of Berkovich that had been stolen from her phone and leaked to a sleazy Telegram channel.

23:10He said they illustrated a rabid propaganda of militant feminism, unconventional relationships, unconcealed sympathy for Ukraine and hatred for the current government. He urged the authorities to cancel the performance. Well, my articles are read by people, someone apparently, I don't know, from above. And where the play was supposed to take place, it was cancelled.

23:40The day Berkovich was arrested, Karpuk rejoiced on social media. So, the lovers of the West, latent enemies of our state, which of us turned out to be right, he wrote. As soon as the special military operation ends, an in-depth, cultural special operation will begin, which will wipe out all liberal filth to hell. The language was straight from the late 1940s, a period that was also marked by an attack on theatre. It's an anti-Russian play, that's what it seems to me, because what is it saying? That Russian guys are bad, right? Stalin targeted rootless cosmopolitans, a code word for being Jewish.

24:29accusing them of being susceptible to corrupting foreign influence and hostile to Soviet society. We still have a state, thank God, of traditional values. Yes, of traditional orientation. We have a patriarchy. What they say about our men, well, about us, is destructive.

24:57Karpuk's first big break came when he attended a Kremlin-run festival and posted a selfie with Vladimir Putin. His second comes now, with this lead role in a show trial. But his performance is unconvincing. He throws his arms around and flops his lines. It becomes clear he never even saw the play. His main issue with it seems to be that the female protagonists don't value Slavic men like him. Glorification of those Middle Eastern men, that they are supposedly good, that they treat a girl well? Well, first of all, it's a lie. It was even shown in the play. Even Judge Massin cringes at his performance.

25:46So at the last minute, the prosecutor introduces a new element into this production. A secret witness. The witness is to appear by video link. Judge Massin leaves the room to verify his identity. When he returns, his mood is changed, darker. He issues a warning. If anyone present starts to protest, I will remove them. Judge Masin declares the new witness will be known by the name Nikita. His testimony does not start well. His voice is disguised, robotic and mostly inaudible. The defence objects. I can't conduct a defence in this case because I don't hear what the witness is saying. This is your subjective perception of what is happening.

26:42Евгения Беркович joins in. Your Honor, we have a similar subjective perception. One of the actors makes a joke about every trendy theatre production inserting a video. But in truth, the introduction of this new witness brings a sense of foreboding. Nikita went to see a performance of Finist and recorded it on his phone. He says to show a friend. But four months later, he reported it to police headquarters in Moscow.

27:39The defense begins to suspect he is an operative for the security agency, the FSB.