Russia on Monday placed the writer Boris Akunin, who has lived in exile since 2014, on its list of “terrorist and extremist” personalities, the latest illustration of the repression targeting critics of the Kremlin.
Real name Grigori Tchkhartishvili, the author was added to this list kept by Rosfinmonitoring, the Russian financial intelligence service, noted AFP. “The terrorists declared me a terrorist,” he reacted on Facebook. An investigation targeting him for discrediting the army was opened last week, a source familiar with the matter reported to the Interfax agency on Monday.
Born in 1956 in Georgia, then a Soviet republic, the novelist is a writer known in Russia for his historical detective novels, notably the successful saga The Investigations of Erastus Fandorin, a hero living in the Tsarist era. He also authored History of the Russian State, a nine-volume compilation which traces the developments of the Russian state up to the revolution of 1917.
Akunin spoke out in 2014 against the annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula, before going into exile in London, where he has lived since. On February 24, 2022, he deplored on Facebook the outbreak of “an absurd war”. “Madness has won,” he wrote then. “Russia is led by a mentally disturbed dictator and, worse still, it obeys his paranoia,” denounced the man of letters.
In the process, he co-founded the “Nastoyashchaia Rossia” (“Real Russia”) project, supported by several cultural figures in exile opposed to the Russian assault in Ukraine and supposed to help Ukrainian refugees. Several NGOs and media have denounced since 2022 a cultural purge in Russia with the demotion, dismissal or flight abroad of artists who criticized the Russian assault in Ukraine or who did not publicly support the government. Others were also imprisoned.
Conversely, the government encourages, finances and highlights artists and cultural productions supporting its assault on neighboring Ukraine and its increasingly conservative and nationalist discourse.