Today's terrorist attack at the Krocus City Hall in Moscow, which left at least 143 dead and many injured, has once again raised questions about the Russian government's ability to prevent such attacks and its readiness to exploit them for political gain. While Russian officials claim that the attackers had ties to Ukraine, suggesting a possible foreign involvement, they have also faced criticism for failing to preempt the attack despite allegedly having knowledge of the attackers' plans. This confusion and lack of clarity surrounding the event have resurfaced painful memories of incidents like the "Ryazan sugar" case and the Nord-Ost siege—events that many believe were orchestrated or manipulated by the Russian state to justify war, boost Putin's popularity, and consolidate power through fear. In the Ryazan sugar incident of 1999, FSB agents were caught planting explosives in an apartment building, an event that was used as a pretext to launch the Second Chechen War and boost Putin's popularity before the presidential elections. Similarly, the 2002 Nord-Ost theater siege in Moscow, where Chechen terrorists held over 800 people hostage, ended with the deaths of at least 170 people after Russian security forces pumped a toxic gas into the theater. While the exact circumstances of the recent attack remain murky, the Russian government's response has once again raised concerns about its willingness to prioritize political expediency over transparency and accountability, and its readiness to exploit tragedy to further its own agenda.

These events are part of a larger legacy of state violence and repression in Russia, stretching back to the Soviet era and the horrors of the Gulag. Contemporary artists and journalists like Lida Yusupova and Yuri Dud engage with this traumatic history through the lens of documentary aesthetics, creating works that both archive and defamiliarize the language of state terror. Drawing on Jacques Derrida's concept of "archive fever," we can understand their work as part of a larger impulse to document and preserve the memory of Soviet and post-Soviet violence. For Derrida, the archive is always haunted by what it excludes or forgets, and the desire to create an archive is often motivated by a fear of loss or erasure. In the Russian context, where the state has often sought to suppress or manipulate historical memory, this fear takes on a particular urgency. By creating new archives of resistance and repression, artists like Yusupova and Dud not only document the past but also challenge the state's monopoly on historical truth, ensuring that the voices of the marginalized and oppressed are not forgotten.

Yusupova's "Verdicts" repurposes legal texts to expose the brutality of the Russian legal system, while Dud's "Kolyma" uses archival footage and interviews to excavate the buried history of the Gulag. Both artists engage in a form of "subversive mimesis," to borrow a term from Alexander Etkind, appropriating official language and conventions to undermine the state's authority and challenge dominant narratives. Their work is part of a larger movement in Russian art and activism that seeks to confront the unresolved traumas of the Soviet past and resist the culture of fear perpetuated by the Putin regime. In the face of renewed state repression, their work reminds us of the vital role that art and documentary can play in preserving cultural memory and resisting authoritarianism.

Yet even as these works challenge the state's monopoly on historical truth, they also reveal the ways in which the cultural memory of Soviet repression continues to shape contemporary Russian society. The fear and trauma of the Gulag era, passed down through generations, informs both the state's ongoing suppression of dissent and the resistance to it. The recent attack in Moscow, which some suspect may have been orchestrated by the state to justify further military action in Ukraine or domestic crackdowns, serves as a reminder of how this legacy of fear continues to be weaponized by the Putin regime.

The urgent need for this kind of artistic resistance has only grown in recent years, as the Putin regime has intensified its crackdown on dissent and protest. The imprisonment and death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the brutal suppression of protests in support of his release, and the ongoing harassment and intimidation of activists and journalists all testify to the state's determination to silence any challenge to its authority. In this context, the work of artists like Yusupova and Dud takes on a renewed significance, standing as a testament to the subversive power of cultural memory and the enduring resilience of the Russian people in the face of terror and oppression.