Ekaterina Samutsevich: biography of an interesting woman

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Ekaterina Samutsevich is a Russian musician, engineer and public and political figure who gained worldwide fame thanks to her participation in the actions of the punk band Pussy Riot. In 2013, Samutsevich was officially recognized as a “prisoner of conscience” by the Solidarity Union and Amnesty International.

Biography

Samutsevich Ekaterina Stanislavovna was born on August 9, 1982 in an ordinary Moscow family. When the girl was only nineteen years old, her mother died from a serious illness. Katya's father, Stanislav Samutsevich, recalled in various interviews that her daughter endured the loss steadfastly and raised herself, constantly being alone with mental pain.

Samutsevich's socialization process was extremely painful: the closed and serious girl did not interest her peers, did not arouse sympathy in adults, and Katya had to organize her leisure time herself. It is known that Samutsevich highly appreciated Russian classical music, foreign cinema, and was also well versed in computer technology.

At that time, Katya Samutsevich, whose biography is yet to be replenishedvarious painful deeds, led a relatively carefree life, devoting her free time to playing music and learning to play the bass guitar, as well as composing songs.

Early years

Studying at school was easy for Ekaterina. Teachers noted the girl's incredible abilities in mathematics, physics, and the exact sciences. While studying at school, Ekaterina won prizes at various competitions, conferences and olympiads more than once. After graduating from school with a gold medal, the girl enters the Moscow Power Engineering Institute on a budgetary basis, and two years later, having completed her studies with honors, she gets a job as a software engineer at the Morinformsystem-Agat closed defense enterprise. Here Katya takes part in the creation of a large number of operating and information systems for various types of weapons.

Work

Two years later, Ekaterina Samutsevich resigns of her own free will and enters the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia, which allows her to acquire the skills of a graphic designer, layout designer, photographer and visual artist.

Having received a diploma, the girl decides to work as a freelancer, actively creating websites to order and promoting copyright software.

One of her most famous programming projects is the unique Subverse Web Browser program, which allows you to edit text in real time, achieving an increase in its uniqueness.

Anti-governmentpromotions

In 2007, Ekaterina Samutsevich joined the ranks of the Voina art group, which aims to fight against the existing regime through art manifestos and performances.

In 2010, members of the group threw three thousand Madagascar cockroaches into the building of the Tagansky court, giving this action the sonorous name "Cockroach Court".

A year later, the members of the association held an action called "Kissing garbage or kissing training", which consisted of violent harassment of girls from the "War" to female police officers in the subway.

Also, Ekaterina Samutsevich, whose biography by that time included more than one illegal act, maintained her campaign blog, in which she published articles aimed at criticizing the government, as well as opposition propaganda.

However, not every publication was related to the activities of the art association "War". Ekaterina also published works devoted to the protection of the environment and cultural monuments of Russia.

One of the high-profile incidents of that time was a rally in defense of the Khimki forest, as well as the creation of a movement to protect women and children from sexual violence.

Pussy Riot

Pussy Riot was founded in 2012. For a long time, almost nothing was known about the project, except that all its participants were women. The name Pussy Riot translates to "Pussy Riot". By choosing a similar name, the participants wanted to emphasize the disagreement of women with the allotted to them in the system of publicvalues of the place, as well as to protest against the arbitrariness of state power by promoting anarchy using the methods of the grotesque. The girls themselves called themselves an art punk group, not agreeing with the definition of "art group" given to them.

At first, the project participants organized unauthorized rallies, held small actions in the city center. For example, one of the well-known actions of that period was a mini-concert on the roof of a trolley bus, during which the project participants performed anti-government songs.

However, the project gained worldwide fame after the action in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, during which the song "Mother of God, drive Putin away" was performed. This event generated a huge amount of discussion in the political sphere of Russia, and also riveted the attention of Western media and European courts.

Foreign representatives of law enforcement agencies considered it possible to interpret the motives of the action as a kind of manifesto and considered that Pussy Riot should not be subjected to criminal prosecution, however, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation qualified the actions of the art project as illegal, under the article of the UKRF "Hooliganism", due to with which all the participants received real prison terms, with the exception of Catherine. Which at the time of the action was not in the church.

Political views

Ekaterina Samutsevich's political beliefs on many issues differ greatly from the official position of the government, but sheis not a supporter of radical revolutionary methods, considering creative anarchy and art performance as one of the most convincing tools for influencing political state structures.

Katerina sees the oppositional context in her convictions not in calls for a change of power, but in calls for a change in the behavior of state structures, in a change in the relationship between the elected government and voters.

Legal Trouble

On August 17, 2012, Ekaterina Samutsevich, whose photos began to appear more and more often on the Web, was found guilty of participating in various anti-government actions and sentenced to two years in prison. However, due to the fact that Ekaterina Samutsevich was not near the organizers at the time of the actions, the real term was replaced by a conditional one.

The human rights organization Amnesty International recognized Samutsevich and other members of the Voina and Pussy Riot associations as prisoners of conscience, the case against which was fabricated solely for political reasons.

The Pussy Riot case has become a textbook case in the history of legal proceedings, becoming an example of political persecution of a group of people who make up a creative association with a pronounced informal activity.

Private life

Ekaterina Samutsevich prefers not to talk about her personal life. The girl began her political career too early, leaving her no opportunity to build her personal life, start a family orenter into a romantic relationship. During her youth, Samutsevich also could not find a life partner, since none of the young people met her ideas about the ideal man.

However, Katya Samutsevich, whose personal life is far from being as good as it might seem, does not regret her choice, considering the public good a disproportionately higher goal than her own well-being.