RIGHTS: Finnish Artists Honour Murdered Russian Journalist

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Linus Atarah

HELSINKI, Nov 7 2006 (IPS) - Several Finnish artists and journalists have come together to produce a song to honour the murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

About 1,000 copies of the single released here last week are now available in music stores across the country at a price of five euros, the producers say.

A video version of the song is available on YouTube, the online video website.

The song titled ‘In the beginning of a new era: A song for Politkovskaya’ was written in Finnish and translated into Russian and English by Terhi Koskinen, a song writer and former singer with the popular Finnish group Ultra Bra. It was composed by well-known Finnish composer Kerkko Koskinen.

All production work, recording and performance were done free of charge. Proceeds from the sale will be donated to Zhima Ditt, a Finnish non-governmental organisation campaigning for human rights in Chechnya, the producers say.

The idea came from theatre director Susanna Kuparinen who said she was moved by the large crowds that came out to express their grief the day Politkovskaya was killed. Kuparinen also brought the various artists together.

As a journalist with the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Politkovskaya rose to international prominence for her coverage of the war in Chechnya. She highlighted human rights violations in the conduct of the war.

Chechnya is a Muslim-dominated Russian territory in the Northern Caucasus mountains, and since the collapse of communism many Chechens have been fighting to secede from the Russian Federation.

Given her harsh criticism of the Kremlin’s conduct of the war, people suspect her death was connected with her work.

Politkovskaya had fled to Vienna briefly in 2001 after she said she received death threats from a Russian police officer accused of committing atrocities in Chechnya.

She was taken seriously ill in 2004 after having a cup of tea on a flight to report on the siege at Beslan, the Russian town where Chechen rebels had seized a group of school children and teachers. This was also widely suspected as an attempt on her life.

Kuparinen said Finnish people were deeply shocked at Politkovskaya’s murder because they had thought that human rights had improved in Russia. “I thought that no one would touch her because of her work,” Kuparinen told IPS.

The release of the song was timed to coincide with the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the EU summit in Finland two weeks after the murder of Politkovskaya.

“We planned to have the song played on all radio stations in Finland when the Russian President came here to meet European leaders,” said Kuparinen.

“We succeeded in that, the song was played very widely at the time, but we didn’t succeed in influencing our Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen,” she said, in reference to the fact that human rights in Russia did not feature at the meeting, as the group had demanded.

The next step, the producers say, will be to release the song in Russia. But that may not be easy.

“Russian musicians are afraid that their careers may be ruined if they get involved in the project,” said Anu Harju, founder of Zhima Ditt and spokesperson for the artists. But negotiations are still ongoing with some Russian musicians, she said.

Harju was doubtful, however, that the song would receive much attention in Russia because she says Politkoskaya’s work was not widely known in her home country.

But wide reception for the song in Russia is less important than the issue of human rights that the project is trying to highlight, she said.

“We are not trying to provoke our Russian neighbours. We are trying to explore how to find common solutions using culture as a bridging tool.”