Meine Mutter hätte es Krieg genannt
Author: Vera Politkovskaja Sara Giudice
Publisher: Tropen, Germany
«Russia is plunging into an abyss created by Putin and his political myopia.» This politically topical statement was made by journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2004, two years before she was hit by five gunshots outside her Moscow apartment on Vladimir Putin’s birthday. At a stroke, her face became a world-famous symbol of press freedom and justice.
17 years later, her daughter Vera attempts to describe this abyss. From her voluntary exile in an unknown location outside Russia, she and journalist Sara Giudice have written a book about her mother. Anna Politkovskaya – activist, reporter, and author – worked tirelessly for the victims of the war in Chechnya, exposing the corruption in the Russian Ministry of Defence and the regime’s inhumane oppression of its own people. If the head of the Kremlin had only one arch-enemy, her name was Anna Politkovskaya. She knew she was putting herself on a death list: «My life is unlikely to have a natural end.»
There was little reason to wonder who was behind the murder beyond those who were put behind bars by proxy. But the fear of reprisals and the concealment and docility of Russian society meant that Anna Politkovskaya’s name slowly disappeared into a collective hibernation. Vera, the single mum, was also silent. «I wanted to participate in street demonstrations, but I couldn’t expose my daughter to being left alone with her mother in prison. In my country, freedom is a luxury few can afford.»
With Putin’s war of aggression, everything changed, including for Vera Politkovskaya and her daughter Anna, named after her grandmother. Now the name was back. So were the hate speech and death threats. So the decision was made. Mum and her teenage daughter crammed everything they could fit into their small car, drove off, and didn’t stop until they were over the border.
In her book Meine Mutter hätte es Krieg genannt, she weaves two stories together: What drove the exceptional person Anna Politkovskaya to risk everything, including on behalf of her family – and what it was like to be part of this family. She was not an easy person, professionally or privately, which led to conflicts with colleagues, her husband, and two children. She began her career as a journalist at a time of perestroika and a general belief in a better future for Russia. This meant fighting for transparency and justice. A fateful shift followed with the succession of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. With Vladimir Putin, the environment became increasingly characterised by violence and the hunt for «traitors,» i.e., anyone who opposed or defied the leader.
«In my country, freedom is a luxury only a few can afford.»
Chechnya
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Russia’s invasion of the North Caucasian republic of Chechnya in October 1999, war number two – officially labelled an ‘anti-terrorist operation’ – broke out in the region. Both sides in the conflict committed serious war crimes and human rights violations. Politkovskaya was relentlessly committed to supporting the victims of war in Chechnya through repeated trips to war zones and subsequent newspaper articles. This brought her both anguish and fame. During a terrorist drama in Moscow’s Dubrovka theatre, where 40 armed Chechen separatists took 850 people hostage, Politkovskaya was one of the negotiators at the separatists’ request. The demand was that all Russian troops should withdraw from Chechnya. The demand and every compromise were rejected. The hostages were given neither food nor drink, apart from some water and juice Anna bought and brought in. After two and a half days, the Russian special forces introduced toxic gas through the ventilation system. They then stormed the theatre. The anaesthetised Chechens were shot, and 130 hostages died, most of them as a result of the poisoning.
Even as disillusioned as Politkovskaya already was, the incident shocked her deeply. She saw the contempt for human life she witnessed here as symptomatic of the entire Russian state apparatus. She never spoke ‘wisely’ and carefully. In her last interview, Politkovskaya spoke about Chechnya’s commander-in-chief, Ramzan Kadyrov, often called ‘Putin’s bloodhound’: «Kadyrov is a liar through and through. On Chechen television, he says they will expel these Russians, the same day he has licked the great tsar’s (Putin) back.» Two days after the interview, she was killed.
The daughter’s admiration
The daughter’s admiration for her mother’s courage in both word and deed runs like a red thread through the book. In the same style, Vera herself protests against anyone who resorts to mitigating phrases in the direction of Moscow. Likewise, she has clear words about her mother’s upbringing of herself and her brother Ilya. The father, Aleksandr, plays a minor role in the family’s story. It was Anna who imposed the same ruthless discipline on her children that she imposed on herself. Even during holidays, Vera had to practice the violin, do her homework, and strive for perfection while her mother buried herself in work and saw fewer and fewer of her friends and colleagues. Nor did she spare the children the fate the family always had to be prepared for. She instructed them where money and other important things were hidden and what to do if she herself did not return home one day.
The mafia never forgets, warns those who know. The same applies to the Russian criminal dynasty, as Vera and her daughter Anna realised when the hate campaign against them began after the invasion of Ukraine. When they found themselves safely out of reach of their persecutors, it was decided to burn the family’s country house to the ground instead.
Novaya Gazeta
Anna Politkovskaya worked for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta from 1999 until her death. After the murder, the editor called it quits and gave her staff the message: «I give up. I can’t put you through this anymore.» They replied that no, they would continue working. At a press conference in Rome in January 2023, Vera stated: «My mother wrote the naked, raw truth about soldiers, bandits, and civilians, all of whom ended up in the meat grinder of war.»
Vera has written the book so that Anna Politkovskaya’s granddaughter and the world at large «would remember the unique story of a woman who never hid her disagreement with Vladimir Putin’s policies, who never failed to condemn human rights violations in Russia, which are caused by a former KGB officer who has become the architect of the mapping of a threatening empire. […] My greatest wish is to experience Russia as a prosperous, free, and developed country, not desolate, poor, and militarised.»