A Brief History of Political Insults

(from Soviet kitchens to the internet)

News of Russian courts punishing people for what they write or comment online is no longer anything out of the ordinary. Over the past several years, the state has used a range of criminal charges to prosecute citizens for online posts, ranging from “spreading extremism” to “promoting Nazi symbols” and “justification of terrorism.”

Then this past spring a new criminal charge was added to the state’s arsenal that rights activists say can be used to quash any and all manner of dissent. Since it was enacted, a law criminalizing “disrespect of authorities” has been used to prosecute ordinary Russians 45 times. In some cases, its implementation only served to incite more internet irreverence.

The law came about through an amendment of the existing law on hooliganism, and it made “offending” society, the state, its official symbols and institutions, punishable by a fine of R30,000-100,000 rubles ($460 to $1,500). In the case of a repeat offence, the fine is increased to R300,000 and can include up to 15 days behind bars.

Immediately after the law went into effect, a case was opened against Yury Kartyzhev, who had posted an image online of Vladimir Putin with the inscription “fantastic idiot” (сказочный долбоеб) – an expression lifted from a recent Russian film. If the prosecution was an attempt to bury this insult, it backfired spectacularly – the expression went viral and Putin is now sometimes referred to as simply “Mr. Fantastic.”

Negative media coverage of cases like Kartyzhev’s usually note that, while ordinary Russians can be punished for online outbursts, officials rarely give their own insults a second thought. Case in point is the hated governor of Arkhangelsk Oblast, who has held onto his post despite a year of violent public protests against the disposal of Moscow’s trash in the region (see Russian Life, Jul/Aug 2019). Governor Igor Orlov called protesters “riffraff” and waved off polls that suggested 96 percent of locals are against his waste project.

Given the palpable hatred on both sides of this issue, Arkhangelsk has led the country in launching probes into cases of “disrespect” – 15 percent of all such applications of this law have been in Arkhangelsk Oblast.

In Russian parliament, lawmakers are not exactly paragons of civil conduct. One of the worst is Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who once accused a female politician of “hysteria of the uterus” and called another, Ksenia Sobchak, a “stupid idiot” and a “prostitute,” without any consequences.

President Vladimir Putin, who, as the head of the country, receives the lion’s share of criticism for anything from his handling of the faltering economy to increases in the retirement age, has referred to similar laws abroad for justification. “In many countries, there is criminal responsibility [for disrespect].”

Be that as it may, a report in September on the law’s first six-months of use points out that Western countries have long since stopped prosecuting people for verbal criticism of authorities, even if the ability to do so exists in legislation.

The law “gives authorities a very convenient, universal, and powerful instrument for suppressing negative public opinion through forcing self-censorship on people,” wrote the human rights legal aid group Agora, which has represented defendants in 22 of the 45 cases of alleged “disrespect.”

“The law can affect absolutely anyone who expresses themselves in some way on the internet, on any topic aside from their personal family issues,” said attorney Stanislav Seleznev, who authored the Agora report.

In essence, it is as if Soviet-era kitchen conversations are now accessible to the police, who monitor and seize upon critical phrases to prosecute. If this trend continues, Russians may have no choice but to retreat back into their kitchens to talk politics.