Dissident Spotlight: Svetlana Petriychuk
Svetlana Petriychuk wrote a play with an anti-terrorist message. She was imprisoned for "justifying terrorism" in her play.
Throughout the 2010s, many Russian women have fallen in love with ISIS fighters online and moved to the Middle East to be with them. Some of them were also horrified by the realities of the wars they came to support and fled back to Russia, where they were promptly imprisoned by Russian authorities.
Playwright Svetlana Petriychuk wrote a play following the same plot. Finist, the Brave Falcon is both the title of her play and that of a Russian fairy tale in which a princess must survive a series of trials and love the cursed monster of a prince to break the curse and live happily ever after.
Petriychuk’s play is laced with irony. Her heroine falls out of love with the terrorist she moved countries for, then gets arrested in Russia for terrorism after her inner transformation shows why an ISIS fighter can’t fill whatever void she felt at home.
Despite the clear anti-terrorism message, Russian authorities arrested Petriychuk and the play’s director for “justifying terrorism.” Both women were sentenced to six-year prison sentences in July 2024.
Dictators Aren’t Great Readers
The arts are designed to answer difficult questions about complicated human beings. These complex answers can be controversial, but they’re important to explore. Plays and literature are some of the most effective mediums for showing how internal motivations and decisions change.
Authoritarians don’t like these kinds of nuances. Layered motivations are out of their control and leave room for the kind of dissent that could undermine the regime. However, nothing is stopping dictators from seizing on flimsy pretexts to crack down on ideas—or artists—they disapprove of.
In Petriychuk’s case, Russian officials either misinterpreted her play or used it as a pretext to stifle free expression. She and her director are being terrorized for debunking the reasons ISIS sympathizers use to justify support for its fighters. So maybe it’s unfair to accuse Putin’s regime of having no appreciation for irony.