GREGORY WARNER, HOST:
You're listening to ROUGH TRANSLATION from NPR.
So here's a question. If you're an anti-war protester in Russia, what do you write on your sign when the word war is illegal?
ALEXANDRA ARKHIPOVA: To stand in the middle of the street with a small slogan, no war or stop war, you will get a fine, or you'll go to jail for 15 days.
WARNER: Alexandra Arkhipova, who goes by Sasha (ph), is an anthropologist who's been studying protests. She says that after these arrests, someone had an idea, a different sign with no words at all.
ARKHIPOVA: Just eight asterisks, eight dots.
WARNER: One dot for each letter of no war.
ARKHIPOVA: Which, in Russian, is eight symbols - (speaking Russian).
WARNER: But when Russian authorities caught on to this trend...
ARKHIPOVA: People who were trying to use these signs, they were also punished.
WARNER: So what about a poster with no words and no dots?
ARKHIPOVA: Three people who were protesting with a blank piece of paper, just a piece of blank paper, and they got arrested because Russian repression is evolving very quickly. They are learning. So they're - like, every week, their boundaries, their limits are moving further and further.
WARNER: And every time those boundaries shift, it's because someone was trying to feel them out.
ARKHIPOVA: Yes. To touch these limits, to find this border and to find if I can get punished for that or not.
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WARNER: This is ROUGH TRANSLATION. I'm Gregory Warner. If you've been tuning into the last couple of episodes, you've heard us talking to Russians about how they're trying to communicate or failing to communicate their feelings about the war to other Russian speakers. We've talked about the language of jokes and humor, the language of spells and curses and love. Today, the evolving language of protest, how to read the code. That's after this break.
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WARNER: We are back with ROUGH TRANSLATION.
Sasha never intended to become a political exile. She was actually on a long-awaited winter vacation, heading back home to Russia when she got off at a layover in Europe and found out the war had broken out. So she never went home. Since then, she's been couch-surfing.
ARKHIPOVA: Yeah. I - well, I'm kind of deplaced (ph) scientist.
WARNER: She's an anthropologist of folklore, though now in her role as a displaced scientist, she's become a liaison for people inside Russia who want to get their message out. Last month, she shared this video - Russian mothers with their children being arrested for showing up at the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow with anti-war signs and flowers.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
WARNER: But Sasha has also been tracking less direct forms of anti-war protest, stuff that if you didn't know how to read it, you might just walk right by. For example, a piece of graffiti that's been popping up on walls in Russian cities shows a line of ballerinas all in a row.
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WARNER: It's a reference to "Swan Lake."
ARKHIPOVA: "Swan Lake" - it's a very popular Russian ballet by Tchaikovsky, and it was extremely popular during the late Soviet times.
WARNER: "Swan Lake," though, pops up at key moments of Russian political uncertainty.
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WARNER: In 1982, when Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died, the state-controlled TV did not immediately announce his death. They interrupted their broadcasts with "Swan Lake."
ARKHIPOVA: The state TV was playing over and over this ballet.
WARNER: A stalling tactic while Soviet leadership decided on a succession plan.
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WARNER: And after that successor died, "Swan Lake" played again...
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WARNER: ...Again when his successor died.
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WARNER: But the one that everyone remembers is the 1991 attempted coup that led to the fall of the Soviet Union. During those days, when no one knew what was going on, the TVs played nothing but "Swan Lake" for days.
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ARKHIPOVA: So to make my long story short, "Swan Lake" is a political sign - I wish my leader to be dead or the situation to be changed very soon.
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WARNER: So when this graffiti pops up of ballerinas or a group of women post a selfie saying they're waiting 20 years for the ballet...
WARNER: It doesn't mean they're waiting for ballet.
WARNER: And who is the audience for this? I mean, is it expected that those who understand will understand and those who don't will miss it? Or is it expected that everybody will understand, but it's coded enough you won't be prosecuted? What's the game?
ARKHIPOVA: Well, it's a tricky question because, of course, the audience has a good education to understand all these signs. But also, you should imagine that other, more complex sign is the higher possibility that we will remember it. It's how our brains are working.
WARNER: We see a message we want to decipher, it sticks in our minds. That's the goal, she says, because every morning in Russian cities, you'll see this army of janitors scrubbing out peace signs or the no war signs they can find. But they're not told to remove ballerinas. So when people go to work, the ballerinas might still be there in the light of day. Sasha calls this part of a semiotic war, a counter-information campaign.
ARKHIPOVA: You know, after the Second World War, many Germans were saying, oh, we don't know what was going on in Auschwitz, The Hauge (ph) and - in the eastern territories. Maybe if we know, we would behave in another way. But we don't know. We were looking in a different direction. So there's a goal for this semiotic war. It's not to allow Russians look in the different directions.
WARNER: When Sasha was younger, she says she used to delight in talking to her older friends and relatives about life in the Soviet Union and learning how dissidents spoke in code.
ARKHIPOVA: It was quite amazing about coded messages, about hidden messages, how you can protest without actual protesting - those amazing piece of history. And now it's our future.
WARNER: And these codes are now reached for in Russia because of a very Soviet approach by Russian authorities to silence dissent, pitting neighbor against neighbor.
ARKHIPOVA: For example, there is a nice lady, Maria Petrovna (ph).
WARNER: Maria Petrovna is kind of like the Russian version of Jane Doe.
ARKHIPOVA: She can come to police and say, OK, guys, I saw this terrible video which my neighbors sent to me. I feel so disappointed. I cannot sleep. I was collapsed.
WARNER: So she's reporting on her neighbor sending a video which was anti-war.
ARKHIPOVA: Yeah.
WARNER: Now, this video that has harmed her might just be a Western news report about the situation in Ukraine, but that violates a new crime in Russia against spreading so-called fake news.
ARKHIPOVA: The person who committed this crime, he can say, OK, I just sent this file. I just posted this video. It doesn't hurt anybody. So there should be a person who declared to be hurt by this video at a point.
WARNER: In this environment, where you don't know what you say will become evidence against you...
ARKHIPOVA: You need to use a special coded language for that. For example, today is a nice weather. I am going to have a walk in the central together with my passport.
WARNER: Together with my passport.
ARKHIPOVA: Yeah. And these two words, walk and passport, means that you're going to protest and you are expected to be arrested. That's why you are taking a passport with you.
WARNER: How do people learn the coded language?
ARKHIPOVA: For many Russians, it's education that you can get from your family history. For example, there is a very popular phrase now in Russian internet, especially in the first days of war. People will say any phrases including two words, scarf and a snuffbox.
WARNER: Like someone will post on social media...
ARKHIPOVA: Let's toast for scarf and snuffbox. Or all we need in this situation is a scarf and a snuffbox. Why scarf? Why snuffbox? Because there is a popular historical legend that Russian Tsar Paul was killed by his officers.
WARNER: First, the legend goes he was strangled with a scarf and then beaten to death with his golden snuffbox.
ARKHIPOVA: And so this mentioning scarf and the snuffbox together in one sentence, it's a sign that I want to - this political situation could be changed quite radically.
WARNER: And then at what point does that become risky or dangerous to joke about?
ARKHIPOVA: I didn't see any court files against people who say something about scarf and snuffbox yet. Maybe we will - it happens later, it will happen later. I don't know.
WARNER: The way the trend is going, you think the scarf and snuffbox could also become an arrestable offense?
ARKHIPOVA: Yeah, because now they're arresting people for oral conversations.
WARNER: And oral conversations - you mean for something they said to a friend or a neighbor or...
ARKHIPOVA: Yeah. It never happens since the Soviet times. It's the first time in the new history of Russia that people got arrested for oral conversations.
WARNER: They can even prosecute you for writing that you feel ashamed of the war.
ARKHIPOVA: And people start to be punished for that also because it's a discreditation of Russian troops, to be ashamed.
WARNER: It's not just your beliefs that are policed. Expressing your feelings can be seen as an act of treason. Part of Sasha's research project is to document expressions of protest, and now that includes people talking about their shame.
ARKHIPOVA: And the shame - now it's a national emotion. I count - in social media, I count how many times people wrote, I feel ashamed because of this or because of Putin. It was almost 1 million posts. It's a huge number.
WARNER: These are expressions of shame in public posts worldwide.
ARKHIPOVA: And it's only in the open sources. So I can't count messages. I can't count closed posts and so on.
WARNER: Do you process - do you find yourself processing shame?
ARKHIPOVA: Oh, yes. A lot. A lot. Like, a lot. You cannot drink. You cannot eat. You - like, your shakes - your hands are shaking like it's - like after a terrible hangover. But it's not hungover. It's just a war. And it was made in your name.
WARNER: So Sasha says another goal of the ballerinas and other coded protest is to make people inside Russia know that others think and feel like them.
ARKHIPOVA: That's another goal. The first goal is to - like, literally to open eyes for Russians to see the situation like a T, that there is a war. There's a war time, and we are aggressors. It's - the goal No. 1.
WARNER: But goal No. 2 is...
ARKHIPOVA: Yeah, to show that we are majority, not minority, not freaks.
WARNER: One byproduct of this increasingly repressive environment is that Sasha has a lot of people writing to her to volunteer as researchers. They're people in Russian cities who say they can't risk protesting or even posting something anti-war.
ARKHIPOVA: That's why I have this huge collection of graffiti. I'm - there's, like, hundreds of people making pictures of the walls in different cities, and they were collecting jokes and would ask whatever they can.
WARNER: A joke or a piece of graffiti is less universal than a no-war sign. You have to know the culture to understand it, but that may be part of the power. It speaks with the language of us at a time when so much Russian repression seems to be about making an us and them. For example, consider this scene at the border when someone trying to leave Russia is forced to hand over their phone.
ARKHIPOVA: And they're checking your phones and trying to find what you're writing, what Telegram channels you were reading. And they - especially they're checking towards Putin and war. And then usually if they will found any information, it means that if you go back, you will be in the middle of trial. So it's a clear sign, not come back. Just stay whatever you want to stay.
WARNER: Oh. The story went a different way than I thought it was going to go because I thought they were going to stop you at the border and then fine you and arrest you. But, in fact, they're saying go and don't come back.
ARKHIPOVA: Yes, go, but just - a protocol exists.
WARNER: Well, that's the thing about it - right? - that it also - it feels like in a lot of speeches by Putin, there's no room for neutral. You're with the - you're with the state or you're against the state. You're with us or you're against us.
ARKHIPOVA: Now, in many cities, they ask you to put the letter Z in your social media or on your car. You're asked to support the war in Ukraine. So the ideology came into your life like it was in the Soviet times and not even in the, like, vegetarian Soviet times in that period of - in the late years of the Soviet Union but, like, in the Stalinist times.
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WARNER: Sasha has always admired the creative ways that Soviet dissidents would protest. As an academic, she's devoted herself to documenting the modern instances of that in Russia today, both for posterity and for people to realize they're not alone. But she can't shake the feeling that being a researcher in these dark times, cataloguing and observing Russian repression, it's like being a dentist for cannibals, someone making a careful examination of the teeth that will consume them.
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ARKHIPOVA: It's quite difficult to understand the value of what I am doing. People are actually dying and I'm counting - I don't know - how many people are arrested. I don't know how to explain it. But it's like I feel it being myself a traitor every day, every day, every day. Like, people are trying to go into rally, and they say why I am not here - there? Why am I here?
WARNER: Are they telling you join us or are they telling you, Sasha, stay where you are?
ARKHIPOVA: No, no, no, no, no. Everybody still in - don't be crazy. Don't come back. Don't come back. You're absolutely crazy. Well, you know, I read about this feeling in the literature from the Soviet times many, many time. And now I can feel it, but I can't explain it. It's this feeling that when you're protesting, it's like it's a very easy feeling because you already choose a side. And you doing something very simple and - to show your position. And it's like a way to save your soul.
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WARNER: Alexandra Arkhipova is a former senior research fellow at the Wilson Center. Her Facebook page and Telegram channels document the language of protest and loyalty in Russia today in real time. If you've enjoyed this interview, I strongly recommend you check them out. We'll have links in the show notes. This interview is part of a series of conversations that we're having with people about the linguistic and cultural front lines of this war. If you have a question or a topic you want us to cover or an interview you suggest we do, send us an email at roughtranslation@npr.org.
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WARNER: Today's show was produced by Tessa Paoli and edited by Luis Trelles. Our lead producer is Adelina Lancianese. Special thanks to Sana Krasikov. The ROUGH TRANSLATION team includes Justine Yan and Pablo Arguelles. Liana Simstrom is our supervising producer. Bruce Auster is our senior supervising producer. The master choreographers of this ROUGH TRANSLATION ballet are Neal Carruth, Didrik Schanche, Chris Turpin and Anya Grundmann. John Ellis composed music for our show. Josh Newell mastered the episode. And I'm Gregory Warner, back in two weeks with more ROUGH TRANSLATION.
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