‘The Last Free Tribune’: Performance and Anthologization of the ‘Last Words’ of Political Prisoners of the Putin Era

• In Event: Narratives of Trial and Imprisonment in Russian and Soviet Culture from the 1920s to the 2020s

Abstract

This paper examines the uses of the genre of the ‘last word’ (poslednee slovo) in Putin-era political prisoner trials, especially in the 2020s. The granting of the ‘last word’ to the defendant is a surprisingly durable feature of the Russian trial system of the late 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, having been reaffirmed by the authorities as recently as 2023. As conditions for free speech in Russia have deteriorated over the 2010s and especially the 2020s, the often lengthy and creative concluding speeches by political prisoners have attracted increasing attention at home and abroad. This paper analyses the distinctive uses of the ‘last word’ in Putin-era trials compared with the use of the genre in late Soviet and late imperial trials. It pays particular attention to the proliferation of ‘last word anthology’ projects in textual and other media in the 2020s, asking what these projects reveal about current forms of political prisoner activism, especially in fast-developing Russian emigre communities in Europe.

Author

• Polly Jones, U of Oxford (UK)