Responsibility is the key. There was a lot of good in the country I grew up in, the one that stopped existing two weeks ago. But responsibility was what we lacked. Russia is a very individualistic society, in which people, to quote the cultural historian Andrei Zorin, live with a “Leave me alone” mind-set. We like to isolate ourselves from one another, from the state, from the world. This allowed many of us to build vibrant, hopeful, energetic lives against a grim backdrop of arrests and prison. But in the process, we became insular and lost sight of everyone else’s interests.
We must now put aside our individual concerns and accept our common responsibility for the war. Such an act is, first and foremost, a moral necessity. But it could also be the first step toward a new Russian nation — a nation that could talk to the world in a language other than wars and threats, a nation that others will learn not to fear. It is toward creating this Russia that we, outcast and exiled and persecuted, should bend our efforts.
Mediazona, an independent website that covers criminal proceedings and the penal system, has a haunting slogan: “It will get worse.” For the past decade, that’s been a grimly accurate prediction. As Russia bombards Ukraine, it’s hard to imagine things could be anything other than awful. But we must.
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