The Dmitriev Affair, on OVID.tv

Being an archivist sounds like it should be a boring job. Unfortunately, such has not been the case for Yuri Dmitriev. He found himself persecuted as an enemy of the state, precisely because he did his job well—too well as far as the Putin regime was concerned. For the crime of discovering and authenticating a mass grave for victims of Stalin’s purges, the mild-mannered archivist stood trial on truly horrific trumped-up sex crime charges, as filmmaker Jessica Gorter documents in The Dmitriev Affair, which premieres tomorrow on OVID.tv.

By pouring through Stalinist era archives and combing through the forestland of Karelia, Dmitriev uncovered the Sandarmokh mass grave site. As part of the Nobel Peace Prize-awarded international NGO, Memorial, which was forced to shutter its Russian constituent organization, Dmitriev helped oversee the excavation of the gravesite and the dedication of a commemoration monument for grieving family members. That did not sit well with the Putin regime, which has fostered a media campaign to rehabilitate Stalin’s historical image.

What happened to Dmitriev is absolutely disgusting. For two years, he was imprisoned and prosecuted on specious child pornography charges. Tragically, the supposed victim, his adopted daughter, became collateral damage, when she was returned to the grandparents who previously abandoned her at the orphanage. Considering the constant presence of Dmitriev’s grown children and other family members, the charges so utterly defied credibility, Dmitriev was initially found not guilty. Yet, the regime simply re-indicted on even more extreme charges.

Gorter was present to record every perverse twist and turn of the Kafkaesque case. It might be a cliché, but this documentary conclusively proves the adage that “those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” This is precisely why Putin and his lackeys are so determined to obscure and re-write Russia’s sinister Soviet history.

Unfortunately, the film also shows just how acutely vulnerable Dmitriev was to the regime’s smear tactics and lawfare. He is clearly an “absent-minded professor” type, whose passionate outrage in the face of injustice often propels him to ill-advisedly take the state-media’s bait. Arguably, his lack of cynical guile directly contributes to his downfall.

Of course, when Putin’s machine has someone in their crosshairs, the results are inevitable. Just look at the examples of the well-heeled Khodorkovsky and Navalny. As an academic with limited resources, Dmitriev hardly stood a chance. Nevertheless, spreading awareness of his persecution is one of the only actions average viewers can take to help the archivist. It raises the likelihood he might be included in future swaps of prisoners of conscience for Russian agents and raises the international PR costs should he conveniently “die of natural causes” while serving his sentence.

The Dmitriev Affair is scrupulously measured and restrained. There is no manipulation, just reality unfolding. That is also why it inspires such righteous anger. Recommended as an example of gutsy filmmaking and an indispensable primary source documenting the abuse of power in Russia, The Dmitriev Affair starts streaming tomorrow (2/19) on OVID.tv.