“The Open Wound of Chechnya”
Conversation with Sergei Lebedev
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The daughter of Chechen human rights activist Natal'ia Estemirova, who was murdered in July 2009, looks back on Russia’s wars against Chechnya, draws a link to the war against Ukraine, explains the psychological mechanisms behind the widespread denial of responsibility in Russia for the massacres in Chechnya and Ukraine, identifies the blind spots in Russia’s coming to terms with the past, takes a hard line against Ramzan Kadyrov’s despotic and criminal regime, and dreams that after the demise of the Putin regime, a democratic Russia will recognize its responsibility for the crimes committed in the Caucasus, the war criminals will be punished, and the murder of her mother will be solved.
(Osteuropa 1-3/2024, pp. 201–212)