Evgenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk after their closed hearing (Photo Alexandra Astakhova, Mediazona)
On International Human Rights Day, the International Federation of Actors (FIA) stands with its global membership to demand the immediate release of Russian theatre director Evgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk, two acclaimed artists imprisoned for their work. Their prosecution highlights the alarming erosion of artistic freedom and democratic space in Russia.
Evgenia Berkovich is an award-winning theatre director, playwright, and poet known for documentary, feminist, and politically engaged productions. A former student of renowned director Kirill Serebrennikov, himself a long-standing target of politically motivated persecution, Berkovich has emerged as a central figure in contemporary Russian theatre. Her work frequently addresses violence, extremism, and women’s experiences under increasingly authoritarian conditions. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she also published anti-war poems, an act that further exposed her to state retaliation.
Svetlana Petriychuk, an accomplished playwright and screenwriter, works extensively in documentary and interview-based theatre. Her writing scrutinizes psychological, social, and political inequalities in modern Russia. She and Berkovich developed a close artistic partnership over the past decade, culminating in several acclaimed projects, including their 2020 play Finist, the Brave Falcon.
The play draws on interviews with Russian women lured into online relationships and marriages with men connected to ISIS in Syria. It examines manipulation, vulnerability, and patriarchal violence. Audiences and critics widely understood the work as a cautionary exploration of radicalization, not a justification of it.
Nevertheless, in May 2023, Berkovich and Petriychuk were arrested and charged with “justifying terrorism,” in a move widely condemned as politically motivated. In July 2024, they were sentenced to six years in a penal colony. Their sentences were slightly reduced on appeal (5 years and 7 months for Berkovich and 5 years and 10 months for Petriychuk) but a further appeal was rejected, leaving the verdict in force.
Their case is now one of the most cited examples of the Kremlin’s misuse of anti-terrorism legislation to silence independent artists, censor critical perspectives, and intimidate cultural figures who challenge state narratives or oppose the war.
FIA stresses that freedom of artistic expression is a cornerstone of democracy. When artists are punished for exploring difficult truths, societies lose essential spaces for reflection, contestation, and dialogue. The imprisonment of Berkovich and Petriychuk represents not only a grave injustice against two individuals but also a direct assault on the democratic values that International Human Rights Day seeks to uphold.
Today, FIA calls on governments, cultural institutions, and the international community to stand in solidarity with all artists facing persecution, and to demand the immediate and unconditional release of Evgenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk. Protecting artistic freedom is essential to protecting human rights and ensuring that democracy can survive and flourish.
