Historian says he expected 'foreign agent' label, cites family past

The American studies historian from Volgograd, Ivan Kurilla, who was added to the foreign agents registry last Friday, has commented on his new status. The post was published on the scholar«s social media several days after his name appeared in the registry of individuals recognized as foreign agents.

«Well, here we go? Thanks to everyone who wrote me and wrote kind words about me over these two days; I had a feeling it was an extra birthday,» Professor Kurilla wrote on social media. «Some might remember that I became a »candidate for foreign agent« in August 2022—as became known from a leak at the beginning of 2023. When dismissing me from the EU (European University), my superiors predicted I would be immediately added to this list. Since then, I»ve repeatedly had to answer the question «why not yet…?», and this Friday several people were surprised, «because they thought he was already on it long ago.»«

«And yes, every Friday during this time I looked with particular interest at the growing list—every Friday for two years is more than a hundred Fridays! So being declared a foreign agent was not unexpected. Pleasant, however, it is not.»

«On substance: as I understand it (I hope to see the details sometime later, for now just from news reports) the status was assigned because I allegedly »disseminated messages from foreign agents and undesirable organizations, acted as a respondent on «information platforms provided by foreign sources,» and also spoke out against the special military operation,« as well as »reside abroad.« If these are all the accusations, then I don»t know what to argue about: I have considered and still consider the so-called «special operation» a crime; I have considered and still consider freedom of speech, which includes the right to express one«s own opinion in conversation with any interlocutor and the freedom to disseminate one»s own thoughts and thoughts that seem interesting to me, an inalienable human right and the duty of anyone engaged in intellectual work. Finally, I live abroad due to a previous decision, obviously, by the same (in a broad sense) people who have now declared me a «foreign agent.»«

«I will try not to write more about this status, but a banner at the beginning of any text will be a reminder. To preempt questions—yes, I still hope to return to Russia, and I still have something to lose there. I will not help anyone accelerate these losses.»

«P.S. On March 8, 1938, Ivan Ivanovich Kurilla was arrested on charges of espionage and counter-revolutionary agitation. My grandfather clearly had it much harder than I do (but the essence of the accusations—as well as their evidentiary basis—is strangely similar).»

«P.P.S. After a year and a half of investigation, during the »Beria thaw« (a brief period of reduced repression), the espionage charge was dropped, and the court acquitted my grandfather on the charge of counter-revolutionary agitation. It happened like that, too.»

Political scientist Alexander Saigin commented very succinctly on the scholar being labeled a foreign agent in his Telegram channel: «Ivan Kurilla, the last adequate American studies historian, has been added to the foreign agents registry. Not that he was oppositional to the authorities in Russia, but he clearly voiced much that our illusion-lost lovers of the States could not accept.»