Last Words: Speeches of the Accused and Political Prisoners

In modern Russia, the courtroom cage remains perhaps the only place where free speech can still be heard. From there, defendants deliver their final statements, using this singular opportunity to express what matters most: to condemn war, to resist fear, to oppose lies and violence, to support others. Final words are more than a political declaration, more than a testament to personal courage. They create the most poignant portrait of an era. Our collection, "Not Last Words," is the voice of free people in an unfree country. "No one can take away my inner freedom. It lives in words, and it will live on thanks to glasnost, when thousands of people read and hear them. This freedom already continues with every caring person who hears us in this country," Maria Alyokhina said at the Pussy Riot trial in 2012. "I believe that honesty and glasnost, the thirst for truth, will make us all a little freer. We will see it." And the more the space of freedom shrinks, the more precious and weighty is every last word that breaks through the wall of silence. They are our medicine against fear, giving hope for healing.