In the past days, vigils in memory of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova, who were killed 14 years ago on 19 January by neo-Nazis Tikhonov and Khasis, have been taking place in Russia and other countries. The vigil tradition has been kept alive all these years by the victims’ friends and supporters, who together had founded the 19 January Committee.
Every year, the Committee talks about new signs of fascism engulfing the country. About the anti-migration, racist, militarist rhetoric legalised by media, about the fact that imperialists, nationalists, and ultra-conservators have been taking over science and education, about friends of murderers becoming government officials, about them being helped by repressions carried out against opposition journalists and human rights defenders. But the actual words fascism and anti-fascism, we will admit, have not been considered relevant by many for all those years. Which is why it is even weirder that we are currently seeing events straight from a history textbook develop in front of our eyes.