The Victims’ Voices
On the Handling of Disasters in Russia
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Many cultures know the victim as a religious category. With secularisation, the term retreated into the judicial realm. In Russia, there was hardly any room for a public de-bate and discourse about the victim to unfold. Especially those environmental disasters that could be traced back to natural and social causes were concealed and played down under the tsars and the Soviet regime. Under President Vladimir Putin, this practice continued. But today, the individual voices of disaster victims are making themselves heard through the digital media.
(Osteuropa 4-5/2008, pp. 69–80)