Masha Gessen

Self-immolation is not a new form of political protest, but it is by no means a common one. Dozens of Buddhist monks have committed self-immolation, to protest the suppression of Buddhist leaders in Vietnam in the middle of the last century and, more recently, to draw attention to Chinese rule over Tibet, and the exile of the Dalai Lama. In the nineteen-sixties, dozens of people in the United States and Asia died after setting themselves on fire to protest the war in Vietnam. Then the practice s…

Hours after the news of his death broke, his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, addressed the Munich Security Conference. “I don’t know whether to believe the news, the terrible news, which we are only getting from state-controlled sources in Russia,” she said, from the conference’s main stage. “As you all know, for many years we’ve been unable to believe Putin and his government. They always lie. But, if it is true, I want Putin and everyone around him, his friends and his government, to know that they wi…

What Tucker Carlson Saw When He Interviewed Vladimir Putin More than anything else, Carlson seemed surprised: by the fact that he got to interview Putin in the Kremlin and even film himself sharing some post-interview impressions in a room full of lacquer and gold leaf; by what Putin said during the interview; and by the man himself. Putin used the interview to deliver a lengthy lecture on the history of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and its aftermath, meant to convince viewers that Ukra…

Both cases were shocking in the accusation they levelled: that Israel, the state which was born in the aftermath of the carnage that gave the world the word “genocide”—and the Genocide Convention, unanimously adopted by the United Nations in 1948—is itself committing genocide. The trials also had this in common: they gave center stage to statements, descriptions, and interpretations of history that, outside the courtroom, in Western countries, at least, are often relegated to the margins. Whatev…

A few days before the unveiling, I talked with Nayyem in his office. The reconstruction agency occupies part of a stolid late-Soviet government building. Nayyem’s suite looks as though it was renovated ambitiously but on a budget, with vertical blinds, plastic panelling, and vinyl knockoffs of Le Corbusier couches in the waiting area. On the walls he had hung giant prints of the famous “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” photograph and a panoramic view of Manhattan. “New York is my favorite city,” he expl…

A 1995 poem titled “This Is Me” was quickly decipherable as a tour through the author’s family-photo album: 1. This is me. 2. This is also me. 3. Me again. 4. My parents. This must be Kislovodsk. The caption says “1952.” 5. Misha with a volleyball. 6. Me with a sled. More characters appeared, with ever odder captions and details. And then the narrator returned. 113. And this is me. 114. And this is me in shorts and a T-shirt. 115. And this is me in shorts and a T-shirt hiding un…

In the late nineteen-nineties and early two-thousands, when many of these memorials were conceived and installed, I visited Berlin often. It was exhilarating to watch memory culture take shape. Here was a country, or at least a city, that was doing what most cultures cannot: looking at its own crimes, its own worst self. But, at some point, the effort began to feel static, glassed in, as though it were an effort not only to remember history but also to insure that only this particular history is…

Lifton is fascinated by the range and plasticity of the human mind, its ability to contort to the demands of totalitarian control, to find justification for the unimaginable—the Holocaust, war crimes, the atomic bomb—and yet recover, and reconjure hope. In a century when humanity discovered its capacity for mass destruction, Lifton studied the psychology of both the victims and the perpetrators of horror. “We are all survivors of Hiroshima, and, in our imaginations, of future nuclear holocaust,”…

A neighbor approached the crowd to negotiate safe passage for Frey’s family. Before the children left the apartment, Frey covered their faces with scarves so the crowd could not see them. He stayed inside, listening to the sounds of the gathering grow more frantic and rowdy, until the police approached his door at around three in the morning and told him he needed to leave. A firecracker hit the window of Frey’s downstairs neighbor, shattering the glass. As three policemen escorted Frey out, one…

Gvaryahu drafted a statement based on what he knew so far, leading with the events of Saturday morning: “Hamas’s attack and the events unfolding since yesterday are unspeakable. We are heartbroken to watch terrified civilians besieged in their homes, innocent people murdered in cold blood on the streets, at parties, and at home. Dozens taken hostage and dragged into the Gaza Strip. Every one of us knows someone who has been tragically affected.” Then the tone of Gvaryahu’s statement shifted: “We…

The Karabakh conflict dates back to 1988. It prefigured a dozen others that would erupt in what was then the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Nagorno-Karabakh was, legally, an autonomous region within Azerbaijan, a constituent republic of the U.S.S.R. As Mikhail Gorbachev’s government loosened political restrictions, Karabakh Armenians demanded the right, which they argued was guaranteed to them by the Soviet constitution, to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia, also a Soviet constituent republi…

Vaid, a legendary organizer in the L.G.B.T.Q. movement, had an unerring sense of injustice and the overwhelming need to redress it.

A majority of people in Russia get their news from state television, which depicts their country not as the aggressor in Ukraine but as a victim of the West.

In Moscow, the small staff of TV Rain works through another endless night.

A collection of articles about 26 from The New Yorker, including news, in-depth reporting, commentary, and analysis.

With Alexey Navalny in prison, one of his closest aides is carrying on the lonely work of the opposition.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich, have you developed any new illusions as a result of this meeting?” Andrei Kolesnikov, a correspondent for the daily Kommersant, asked. “I never had any old illusions, and here you go talking about new ones,” Putin answered. It was a set piece. Kolesnikov has been on the Putin beat for more than twenty-one years. Long ago, Kommersant was an irreverent newspaper, and Kolesnikov would troll the President mildly in his long, detailed reports. Through the years, Kommersant ca…

Activists refer to a “Palestine exception to free speech” at North American universities.

We got to the cabin after dark and skated on the lake under the stars. My son acknowledged that it had been worth spending five hours in the car. Saturday morning, we went skating again, but now he was cranky. He quit after one loop. After lunch, he said that he felt like taking a nap instead of snowshoeing. He slept for three hours, and then he was fine. I diagnosed oxygen poisoning. On Sunday, we went cross-country skiing and then drove home. Julia fell asleep in the car. When we got to my apa…

The opposition is cast as one between cis-girl athletes on the one hand and a vast liberal conspiracy on the other.