History tends to generalizations and wars sublimate stereotypes. Those same ones that Hollywood, inspired by the Christian duality between good and evil, transformed into a dogma of secular faith.
What does that creed say? Well, now he points out that all Russians are the bad guys in the movie that a dictator like Vladimir Putin has made for his ambitions to occupy Ukraine and compare him to Tsar Peter I the Great. It would sound like a joke if it weren’t for the many people who die and suffer.
But just as there were Germans in the resistance fighting against Hitler, there are also good Russians, citizens who, despite risking their freedom and their skin for the repression of Putinism, go on stage to denounce the horror that their government is committing in the country. neighbour. Some are anonymous. Others, thanks to their position, achieve an international echo and discredit the dictator’s imperialist propaganda.
Dimitri Muratov, Nobel Peace Prize winner, is one of those good Russians who also makes a lot of noise. On Monday, the auction of the medal that he received for that distinction closed in New York, at Heritage Auctions, which achieved a record collection of 103.5 million dollars. Muratov, a journalist critical of the Russian regime, immediately allocated the proceeds, through Unicef, to Ukrainian refugee children displaced by the war.
“I was hoping there would be a huge amount of solidarity, but I didn’t expect it to be that big,” he stressed upon learning of the result. The auction started online almost three weeks ago, coinciding with the day of the refugees.
As of early Monday, the highest bid was just $550,000. As the deadline for launching offers approached, it was thought that there would be an upward spiral, although nobody imagined that it would approach 100 million, or that it would exceed it. Muratov left Russia a few days ago for a trip with a first leg in the Big Apple to coincide with the live auction on Monday night. The identity of the buyer was not revealed, although everything indicates that he left Switzerland.
The figure speaks for itself, but it further enhances the achievement when compared to other precedents in which the Nobel Prize was marketed. It breaks all records, since the previous mark was obtained by James Watson, who won the award in 1962 as co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. It went to auction in 2014 and raised 4.76 million.
But Muratov confessed last month that the inspiration to undertake this initiative was found in the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, who in 1922 was distinguished with this prize for his contribution to the understanding of the atom and quantum mechanics. Bohr sold his medal to help the citizens of Finland after the Soviet invasion of 1939.
Once melted down, the 175-gram 23-carat gold medal would retail for $10,000.
Along with the idea of ??the auction, the journalist announced the donation to charity of the 500,000 dollars in cash that accompanied the prize.
Muratov received the award in October 2021 with Filipino journalist Maria Ressa. The two were distinguished for their efforts to preserve freedom of expression in their respective countries, despite being subjected to harassment and threats, including death. Without going any further, the Russian informant was attacked this April with red paint when he was about to catch a train. Muratov contributed to the founding of the independent Russian newspaper Nóvaya Gazeta. He held the position of director until it closed last March. Continuing was impossible with the draconian censorship imposed by the Kremlin to silence dissidents from reporting on the Ukraine invasion.
Since Putin came to power, around 20 journalists have been killed, with at least four working for Muratov’s newspaper.
“I hope that this will serve as an example for other people, so that they auction their valuable possessions, their relics, and help the refugees in Ukraine and around the world,” he said in the intervention from the stage before the final auction and his record.
