Leesfragment: Fifth Wave 2023/1

Nu in onze boekhandels: Fifth Wave 2023/1, een nieuw tijdschrift voor vrije, onafhankelijke Russische schrijvers. Lees bij ons Maxim Osipovs redactioneel en de eerste pagina’s van Vasily Antipovs ‘Incarcerated’.

Fifth Wave offers a platform for the free and independent Russian voice. All contributions are by literary authors from Russia and abroad who are united in their rejection of war and totalitarianism: Vasily Antipov, Karine Arutyunova, Mihail Ayzenberg, Yuli Gugolev, Alexander Ilichevsky, Oleg Lekmanov, Boris Nikolsky, Maxim Osipov and Dmitry Vedenyapin.

N.B. Lees op onze site ook fragmenten uit Osipovs eigen boeken, De wereld is niet stuk te krijgen en Kilometer 101.

Editorial

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, every generation of Russians – those whose native language is Russian – has experienced its own catastrophe. The current generation has not broken that pattern: totalitarianism has again come to Russia; freedom of speech is severely oppressed; the regime’s number of victims and political prisoners continues to grow; and Russia is waging a war of aggression against its neighbor, Ukraine. Each catastrophe triggers an outflow of productive people from the country. The current wave of emigration is the fifth in the last hundred years or so, and just as before, both writers and readers feel an increasingly urgent need for uncensored publications. The purpose of this magazine, which we have titled Fifth Wave, is to play a part in satisfying that need.
The magazine will be published quarterly in a partnership with Van Oorschot in Amsterdam in two languages, Russian and English, and distributed around the world both in paper and electronic formats. This is not the first time in history that Van Oorschot has been involved in the Russian human rights movement; it is enough to mention the numerous publications of Russian dissident writers, published with the support of the Alexander Herzen Foundation, founded back in 1969.
The Fifth Wave project is literary, not socio-political: we plan to feature exciting, well-crafted work in various genres, including poetry, fiction, art history, memoir, etc., and not only on the burning topics of the day. The contributions will be solicited from authors living in Russia and abroad, all of whom are united by their rejection of war and totalitarianism, their love for Russian culture as part of European culture, their sense of personal involvement in and responsibility for what is happening, and their desire to see Russia as a free, peace-loving country, no matter how far-fetched this wish may seem.

Maxim Osipov

Vasily Antipov
Incarcerated

An account of a Belarusian prison and mental hospital

Translated by Reuben Woolley

1. The border

I need to find the right starting point, the point from which everything that I went through will seem useful not just for myself, but for others whose stupidity might land them in a similar situation.
So, I’m on the bus from Warsaw to Minsk, 12 kilometres from the border. I’m under the influence of some narcotics that are pretty decent, but not strong enough that I lose track of my surroundings. In my pocket are some unfinished leftovers: white powder wrapped in foil. I’m sat at the back of the bus. I think my companions, the young men who’d come from the south of France and who gave me the powder, got off back in Warsaw. On my right is a man, a worker, who’s telling me about how extensive the border guard inspections are for passengers. I make a mental note to throw the foil wrap in a bin as we approach the border on the Polish side.
The Polish border: I put my hand in my pocket and walk over to the bin. A guard is stood by it and stares at me. I realise I’m looking a bit suspicious. There’s a moment of consternation, and the guard looks at me with redoubled interest – or am I seeing things? – one way or another the moment passes, and my jelly legs take me back to the bus.
The Belarusian border: the doors at the front of the bus open and a Belarusian border guard enters with a dog. The dog is pulling the guard determinedly towards me – this time I’m definitely not seeing things. I decide not to wait for the dog, and run out of the back door. I scramble into duty free, take out the foil wrap and sneak it between two bottles of alcohol. My heart’s pounding like mad. I walk back outside and get in the line for inspection, and through the glass door I can see that the dog is following my trail. Any moment now it’ll reach duty free and they’ll find the wrap. There are cameras everywhere, they’ll watch it back and arrest me. I run back into the duty free, grab the foil and put it in my pocket, race over to the inspection, and the dog catches up with me. I’ve been exposed.
In the customs office they take everything off me and lock me in a cell.
I just sit there, completely crushed. ‘What have you done, what have you done... It’s all over, all over... You had everything, now you’ve lost it all... And my loved ones, my friends, my family, my daughter, everyone who loves me... What’s gonna happen to them?’
A few hours go by, and investigators arrive. They set up a camera to film the investigative re-enactment. I can see a table in the office, and a foil wrap lying on it. ‘Last chance,’ I hear in my head. The cell is opened and I run – no, I can’t really run anymore – they’ve cuffed my ankles – fly through the air in the direction of the desk; I see my hand reaching for the wrap like a slow-motion shot, grabbing it, and it’s already in my mouth. My jaws get to work, and my mouth is filled with the bitter taste of carbide. I shield my head and face because they’re throwing me in all directions, beating me, trying to fit their batons between my arms, pry my jaws apart. I’m given an electric shock. I push what’s left down my throat, it’s gone.
All that’s left are some scraps of foil. They’ve scratched up the inside of my mouth. I hear: ‘Turn the camera off, fellas...’.
They beat me with the taser a little more, take the foil from my mouth, take me into the corridor with no surveillance cameras. In the corridor: a short educational chat. Then they locked me back up in the cell.

[…]