The paradox of the internationally renowned Russian scholar Mikhail Velizhev perfectly illustrates the reasons that inspired the bill presented today in the Chamber by the Pd deputy and vice president of the Foreign Affairs Commission, Lia Quartapelle to help “the Russia of tomorrow”, i.e. who he opposed the regime and fled Putin’s Russia to find refuge in Italy.
Winner of three university competitions in Italy (two as a researcher and one as an associate), he was unable and cannot sign the contracts because he cannot return to Russia to ask for the authorization, as required by current law, and had to leave the Italy after the expiry of the tourist visa with which he landed immediately after the start of the war against Ukraine. A country with which he has a particular bond, for having obtained a doctorate at the Statale di Milano, and then spent periods as a ‘visiting professor’ at Cà Foscari, in Venice, and at the Sapienza University of Rome, as well as, again, at the Statale .
The Italian of Velizhev, professor at the High School of Economics in Moscow, Slavist and historian of Russian and European culture of the eighteenth century, translator into Russian of Carlo Ginzburg’s essays, is perfect. In his speech at the press conference organized today in the Chamber for the presentation of the bill to which the name of “Russian Dissent” has been given, the academic recounts, via video link from Paris, where he has moved in the meantime, thanks to a grant, his story shared at this time by many other Russians. Like Ekaterina Lapina-Kratasyuk, a Russian with a Ukrainian grandfather, also an academic, now with a contract at the University of Tuscia and a tourist visa expiring in October. Lapina-Kratasyuk, in Rome today in the Chamber, arrived in Italy after the start of the war with her forty-year-old husband, and two sons aged 20 and 16, all of whom can therefore be recalled for military service.
Velizhev denounces that “the Russian government has actually started two wars, the first against Ukraine and the second against its own citizens, against those who do not accept Ukraine’s aggression and Putin’s policies”. In fact, there are 20,000 detainees in Russia for political crimes, as the President of Memorial Italia, Andrea Gullotta, denounced today, specifying that the Memorial Center for the Defense of Human Rights (the organization born after the forced closure of the Memorial Human Rights Center ), has recognized more than 500, at the end of a very long procedure and therefore far from being exhaustive.
The sentences are also beginning to be particularly strong, as evidenced by the cases of the journalist Ivan Safronov, sentenced to 22 years in prison, or the Memorial historian Yuri Dmitriev, who at 68 and in poor health is serving 15 years in prison.
“Many are in prison, many have fled the country. I belong to the latter category. I’m not comparing myself to the Ukrainians under the bombs”, adds Velizhev, recalling that he started protesting against Putin in 2011, during the period of the great demonstrations to protest against fraud in the legislative elections of that year and to be one of the signatories of the open letter of academics against aggression.
Velizhev is draftable. “I can be called back at any time. Almost immediately after the start of the war we decided to leave, also because we were against this absolutely terrible aggression. The climate at the university had become very heavy. The students asked for certificates on their academic qualities to be shown in court after being stopped at the protests. It was no longer possible to work as before. The rector also openly supported Putin’s policy”.
In early March, La Sapienza invited Velizhev. To come to Italy he took, like many, like Lapina-Kratasyuk, a tourist visa. “The only way to get out of Russia quickly. Our idea was to leave quickly, given the risks that then materialized in September, with the partial mobilisation”. But “enormous problems” arose when the tourist visa expired.
“We were left without documents, in an embarrassing situation”, adds the scholar, recalling that he had already obtained the national qualification in Italy in 2014 and that he had won two research competitions within a few months. “But I couldn’t transform the tourist visa into a work visa. To do that I would have had to go back to Russia, wait two months and then go back to Italy. I won the competitions, but I wasn’t able to stay in Italy, sign the contract and start work”.
Article three of the bill presented today would resolve this paradox. “Until 30 June 2024, the issuance of the authorization to work will also be allowed when Russian citizens are already present on the national territory and fall into one of the risk categories identified by article 1”, i.e. they can be considered as opponents , people at risk of being sentenced in the name of repressive laws introduced in recent years, or for having withdrawn from military service.