It's not the first time that people who cherish the memory of Andrei Dmitrievich come together on this day in this hall. It has become a tradition. On the surface, it is a good tradition. But what about its essence? Isn't this gathering becoming somewhat a formality, somewhat cold on the inside, without joy? Illness is always considered a reasonable excuse for absence. But my absence is not only due to my illness. It is due to a persistent doubt forthe need for this gathering. A doubt that this evening is relevant to what is happening in our country just outside this hall. My absence has more to do with the fact that I have nothing joyous to say, while the bitter things have all been said. To repeat others, to repeat oneself is embarrassing. There was a time when we knew where we stood. Despite the difference of opinions in our close circle of dissidents and human rights activists, we did not subscribe to the State's ideology and mythology. We rejected the lies of the State. We were completely free in a State that was completely unfree. It seems, and this is a paradox, that when the State clothed itselfwith the outside attributes of democracy - elections, a diversified press, TV and radio, when the word "abroad" lost its forbidden charm, we - to varying degrees - lost our moral imperative. We became disoriented, and we lost our ability to distinguish between them and us. Some sided with the "Union of Right Forces" and with the idea of "war to a victorious end" (whatever that means). Others - with Putin in pursuit of "order" (whatever that means). Still others are for "The Great Motherland" (and these words are always capitalized).Once a close friend said "I don't care what they say, Sevastopol is still ours." Today, the same thing is said about Chechnya. And I felt likehowling as if I were a lonely, hungry wolf in the winter forest. All of our human rights NGOs - Memorial, Helsinki Watch, Amnesty International, Common Cause, Civic Dignity, and many others - are shouting at the top of our lungs, trying to be heard by something that has lost its right to be called a society, even less a civil society. Isn't it about us today that Mandelstam wrote back in 1937? "We've no sense of the country around us,
Our words are not heard 10 steps away."Well, the people, the electorate, has chosen war along with Putin, or Putin along with war (I don't know which one comes first). Together with Putinthe people forgot a lesson as old as the Ten Commandments, a lesson we learned from our own and others' experience: that the wellbeing andprosperity of a country and of an individual cannot be founded on war.This electorate, including many of us, subscribed to the myth that in voting for our new president we were voting for a strong government. Young,healthy, an expert in karate and jujitsu - "a sailor and a carpenter"* - I mean, a pilot, and what else? And we (if not all of us, then many of us) together with this electorate are ready to close our eyes to the fact that the President, by starting the war, has become a hostage of the generals. It is not he - the Supreme Commander - who decides whether there will be peace in Russia, but the generals. And they march across Red Square in one column, the veterans of World War II and the soldiers of this dirty war. Not one of them is guilty, but they are all implicated (to use theprofessional lexicon of the President). Is the President also hostage to the Family? That has yet to be revealed, but remember, the President has nominated Kasyanov and Ustinov, and the Duma confirmed them. The President is also a hostage of the FSB. Today, in the very center of Moscow five hundred men don machine guns, hiding their faces along with their conscience under black masks. Another government comes to mind that was famous for its black shirts. Now, a different style of dress is in fashion. I read this letter and I am horrified. It should not be this way. This is a birthday. It should be a day of celebration. But for me, there is no other way. Forgive me.Elena Bonner
21 May 2000* from a poem by Alexander Pushkin