women-from-russia

"Prosecute us if you will, but I am convinced that the day will soon dawn when our sleepy and lazy society will wake up and be ashamed that it has allowed itself to be humiliated for so long … and when this day comes, society will avenge us. Go on prosecuting us, physical force is still on your side: but moral force and the force of historical progress is on ours: ours is the power of ideas, and ideas cannot be impaled on the points of bayonets."

"Yes, we are anarchists, but, for us, anarchy does not signify disorder, but harmony in all social relations; for us, anarchy is nothing but the negation of oppressions which stifle the development of free societies."

"You have to show yourself to the people and not just get yourself nominated as a candidate and then not campaign anymore. People have to be able to see who you are and the values that you represent."

"The very essence of authoritarian power involves a constant increase in bets, an increase in aggression, and the search for new enemies."

"No matter how many people try to deceive themselves, hoping that another madman who clings to power will behave decently in response to concessions and flirtations, it will never happen."

"And this doesn’t only concern Aleksei Navalny. Where are last year’s laureates – the Belarusian opposition – now? Mostly in prison. Where is the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Lui Xiaobo? He died in prison."

"Why is it so hard to free from captivity those who are fighting for human rights? Why are they still thrown in jail, not only all over the world, but in European – geographically European – countries in the 21st century?"

"The fact that they blindly follow orders to kill a person just because he doesn’t agree with the way our state works – that shows that Putin fears my father. And that my father is doing something right! I do fear for his life, but it also means: He is doing something right."

"It was clear: He [Alexei Navalny] doesn’t run away from his problems."

"We, the citizens, will decide who is going to rule our country and for how long."

"The gentle flower couldn't survive. After the evil rain, she was alone I am with you, you will never be alone."

"“An essential characteristic of the vocabulary of this text is polysemy,” argues Tatyana J. Elizarenkova (1995: 285), who notes that double references create “serious obstacles for our comprehension of the text [...] In a large group of Vedic words this polysemy acquires a symbolic character.”"

"As Elizarenkova (1992) notes, "either one comes to know things due to archaeological findings and in this case their names and purpose may remain unknown, or only the names of the things are known from the texts, but the things themselves, as well as their purpose, are unknown" (129)."

"I want Putin and his entourage, Putin’s friends, his government to know that they will have to pay for what they’ve done — with our country, with my family, and my husband. And that day will come very soon. I want to call on the entire world community, everyone present here, people all over the world — so that we shall all together defeat this evil, defeat the terrifying regime that is currently in Russia. This regime and Vladimir Putin must be held accountable for all the horrors they are doing to my country, to our country — to Russia."

"[...] all the [...] Russians who oppose Putin [...] now desperately need the support of the whole world, all good people. Original: They, like all the other Russians who oppose Putin, now desperately need the support of the whole world, all good people. Russian: Им, как и всем другим выступающим против Путина россиянам, сейчас очень нужна поддержка всего мира, всех добрых людей."

"Self control is a very complex quality."

"I think for me, the biggest thing was my integrity being on the line, my integrity being questioned essentially. I didn’t win the Olympics with special treatment. I didn’t want to be there with special treatment."

"That was a moment that I was proud of because everyone constantly says, ‘Oh, you’re not strong.’ ‘You’re too this.’ ‘You’re too that.’ But to show that, yeah, I’m not physically the strongest one there, but I still was able to do something like that was a moment that made me proud."

"I wanted to give them that feeling of you are special, you are incredible, No matter what your accomplishments are, you are just as good as everybody else. I wanted them to feel like they were competing at the Olympics and now that they had made it, this is your moment, now just go out there and enjoy."

"We precisely want to go beyond bourgeois rights and bourgeois-inspired justice. Every one is entitled to their existence simply in virtue of being human."

"In the innumerable discussions which the Russian revolution sparked in the socialist and revolutionary milieus, the idea of a “transition period”, succeeding the victorious revolution, always appears; it might be the notion most commonly abused in order to justify indefensible behaviours and betrayals."

"We believe, finally, that this allows us to prepare, on top of economic and political victories, a higher stage of civilisation, both intellectually and morally."

"We can only reach a better life if we try to get it; experiment is the only way which leads to it, and there is no other. Instead of asking: are the conditions ripe? Are the masses ready? We should ask: are we ready? What can we offer as concrete, practical measures “the day after our victory, in order to achieve our socialism, communism, by organising outside and against any state? What are the measures to elaborate, the conditions to study beforehand?” This is where our main preoccupation must lie"

"We believe that this mode of transformation is better equipped to disarm conflicts and avoid civil war (because it allows for more freedom and more variety in forms of organisation) than introducing by authority one reform across the board."

"The Paris Commune, drowned in blood, blew away the cult of state centralisation and proclaimed the principles of autonomy and federalism. What about the Russian revolution? Whatever the future holds, it will have proclaimed the fall of capitalist domination and the rights of labour; in a country where the oppression on the masses was more revolting than anywhere else, it proclaimed that it is those masses who must now be master of their lives. And whatever the future, nothing will take away this idea from future struggles: the reign of the owning classes has virtually ended."

"We believe, as we have always believed, that peasants’ and workers’ organisations taking control of the land and means of production and managing economic life is more likely to ensure the material well-being of society than decrees from the government."

"There is, in Marx, a precious quote: “Mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve” In other words, if an ideal is conceived among a community, it is that the necessary conditions to its realisation are there."

"A revolution is not only the conclusion of a preceding evolution, it is also the starting point of the following evolution which will precisely be concerned with the realisation of the ideas which, during the revolution, have not found a wide enough resonance."

"We believe that the direct participation of the people in building the new economic forms makes the victories of the revolution more stable and ensures better their defence."

"Kropotkin’s anarchist communism is endorsed by a vast majority of anarchists, but not by all. There are individualist anarchists, some of whom are proponents of private property, while others have little concern at all for future social organization, concentrating their attention on the inner freedom of an individual in any social order; there are also Proudhonist anarchists. But the fact that anarchist communism is accepted by all those involved in the social struggle of our time, chiefly in the workers’ movement, is not a coincidence nor a question of the temporary success of one idea or another."

"We do not believe in predetermined phases of evolution, identical for every people. We know that the general march of human development leads mankind better to use the strengths of nature and better to ensure within its ranks the liberation of individuals and social solidarity. On this path, there can be stops, and even retreats, but no definitive backtracking. And the closer the communion between different peoples is achieved, the faster the ones which are further engaged on this path will help the latecomers. Everything else, the rapidity of the movement, its peaceful or violent forms, what conquests are gained where and when, all of that depends on a number of factors and cannot be predicted."

"Even when a revolution is vanquished, the principles it has put forward never die. Every revolution in the 19th century has been defeated, but each one of them has been a step closer to victory."

"How did the great emancipatory movement unfurl in the past? The fight against the existing class order first only starts among a small minority whose circumstances made them feel both their oppression and the hope to put an end to it – more than among the great masses. Among the masses, oppression is too heavy for the number of them who manage to free themselves mentally to be, at first, consequent. But the revolutionary minority fights at its own risks, without wondering about whether others are following. Little by little, it starts to grow; it can be seen, if not in facts, at least in spirit. The brave struggle of some diminishes the fear of others; the spirit of revolt grows. We don’t always understand clearly what is the goal of people in revolt, but we understand against what they are fighting, and this elicits sympathy for them. Then the moment arrives at last when an event, sometimes insignificant in itself, a flagrant act of violence or arbitrary power, sparks the revolutionary explosion. Events are precipitated, new experience is had every day, among the intense agitation of minds, ideas develop in leaps and bounds among the masses. The gap between the mass and the revolutionary minority shrinks."

"The Paris Commune was not aiming at an anarchist society; but anarchists of all countries highly appreciate it for its large-scale federalism. In the same way, during the Russian revolution, anarchists have welcomed with sympathy the institution of free soviets, in the way they emerged from popular thought, of course, and not from the official organs which, nowadays, are a mere caricature; they saw there a form of political organisation preferable to classic parliamentarianism, which allowed more development of collective initiative and action among the people."

"It was the development of the theory of anarchist communism that Kropotkin believed to be his main contribution to the theory of anarchism. Indeed, what had the economic ideal of the anarchist movement been before Kropotkin published a series of his famous articles in the Le Révolté newspaper in 1879, articles which eventually made up his book Words of a Rebel?"

"Kropotkin’s communism stems from two sources: on the one hand, from the study of economic phenomena and their historical development, and, on the other, from the social ideal of equality and freedom. His objective scientific research and his passionate search for a social formation into which maximum justice can be embodied consistently led him to the same solution: anarchist communism."

"Progressive people have always known that to raise people to be better, more advanced, more cultured, they should first be raised to better living conditions; that slavery can never teach you to be free; and that a war of all against all can never engender humane feelings."

"Biochemical data and experiments confirm that human possibilities – including biological ones – they improve when they get in touch with positive energy and the adrenalin that derives from the best forms of culture. It is a very evident application and it help all sorts of human fulfillment. I think this is the main economic effect the museums give."

"The artist’s book is a territory of an experiment. "City" demonstrates a diversity of methods and a huge spectrum of artistic languages that create the unique atmosphere of this publication. All the common print techniques are used here: etching, lithography, linocut, silkscreen, plywood print and stencil. At the same time every work of art shows the individuality of its creator. Almost all of them were completely made by the authors themselves. In some cases, the help of professional typographers was needed. All the compositions and details were discussed with the art-moderator. That is why it is possible to talk about the synthesis of livre d’artiste and artist’s book."

"Project "City" by Alexey Parygin and Timofey Markov is sure an example of livre d'artiste with all its classical characteristics from the form (portfolio with impressions) to the choice of participants who mostly see this work as a kind of experiment, just an episode in their artistic work. Inviting new authors to play with the idea of a book is a very positive decision that provides a lot of new ideas. The chosen subject — “urban theme” — connects the project with its prototype, because the city was one of the most popular and actual subjects for collections of printings. Some format restrictions are traditional for such a project: Their size of paper is defined. And the sheet doubled up. Actually, each participant of the project is invited to decorate a page-spread. The difference is in the absence of any literary text. Furthermore, the subject is given abstractedly: Just a city, without any personifications, details, geographical coordinates. It forms a huge field for reflection and gives every artist the maximal freedom to narrate about his personal connections to the city. Thirty-five voices, views, private stories about the city, thirty-five visions and arts to be in and with it. The visual part is completed with the words the artists tell about the city. These sentences are not always connected directly to the printed impressions but they give more volume and depth to them anyway."

"Another important direction in contemporary Russian artists’ books, with many precedents set by the Futurists, is the fusion of poetic and artistic talent of artist-authors blessed with Doppelbegabung. The intimate relationships between text and image is enhanced when author and artist are one and the same person and engage in an inter-art discourse that leads to creations that are truly unified works of art. An artist who achieved equal mastery in more than one medium and made different arts merge in his personality was no doubt Alexey Parygin. His poetic collections <...> represent an attempt to synthesize text and plastic figurative form in books where literary and visual languages are calculated to have a simultaneous effect on the reader/viewer. The work of Alexey Parygin have common features that are not accidental as the books were created at more or less the same time."

"I myself did not want to leave the shop for fear of losing a day or even more perhaps in finding other work. To lose half a dollar meant that it would take so much longer before mother and the children would come. And now I wanted them more than ever before. I longed for my mother and a home where it would be light and warm and she would be waiting when we came from work. Because I longed for them so I lived much in imagination. For so I could have them near me. Often as the hour for going home drew near I would sit stitching and making believe that mother and the children were home waiting."

"I had just time to put away my coat and go over to the table, when the boss shouted gruffly, "Look here, girl, if you want to work here you better come in early. No office hours in my shop." It seemed very still in the room, even the machines stopped. And his voice sounded dreadfully distinct. I hastened into the bit of space between the two men and sat down. He brought me two coats and snapped, "Hurry with these!" From this hour a hard life began for me. He refused to employ me except by the week. He paid me three dollars and for this he hurried me from early until late. He gave me only two coats at a time to do. When I took them over and as he handed me the new work he would say quickly and sharply, "Hurry!" And when he did not say it in words he looked at me and I seemed to hear even more plainly, "Hurry!" I hurried but he was never satisfied. By looks and manner he made me feel that I was not doing enough. Late at night when the people would stand up and begin to fold their work away and I too would rise feeling stiff in every limb and thinking with dread of our cold empty little room and the uncooked rice, he would come over with still another coat."

"Don't dismiss two or three million Chinese soldiers. That's what is needed now. I look at Belgorod region and think how much we lack a Chinese people's liberation army."

"At the same time we, being adequate and normal people, of course, are not capable of enjoying military action, war and each one of us, I am convinced, would like an end to hostilities. We simply understand that this is completely unrealistic and impossible on current terms."

"What should we do to avoid the nuclear war, or is it already a given? It certainly seems that way."

"What are our next actions? [Striking] the decision-making centers? In Kyiv, London, Washington - where?"

"Nobody was expecting such a large, global war."

"Even though we are methodically destroying the weapons that are being delivered [to Ukraine], but the quantities in which the United States are sending them force us to come up with some global conclusions. Perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that maybe Russia’s special operation in Ukraine has come to an end, in a sense that a real war had started: WWIII. We’re forced to conduct the demilitarization not only of Ukraine, but of the entire NATO alliance."

"History doesn't teach people anything. After all, thanks to such self-satisfied and arrogant idiots, Poland has already on several occasions ceased to exist as an independent state."