As I attended a small but dignified memorial ceremony in Paris last week in honor of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya – a woman “brave beyond limits,” in the words of her French editor – I was reminded of another posthumous tribute I participated in nearly 17 years ago in Moscow. Unlike Politkovskaya, the great scientist and human right activist Andrei Sakharov had not been murdered, and the tribute given to him then looked like the celebration of a new era. A new page was being turned, one that was full of uncertainty but also of hope that Russia was on its way to becoming a “normal country.”
As I attended a small but dignified memorial ceremony in Paris last week in honor of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya – a woman “brave beyond limits,” in the words of her French editor – I was reminded of another posthumous tribute I participated in nearly 17 years ago in Moscow. Unlike Politkovskaya, the great scientist and human right activist Andrei Sakharov had not been murdered, and the tribute given to him then looked like the celebration of a new era. A new page was being turned, one that was full of uncertainty but also of hope that Russia was on its way to becoming a “normal country.”