Power, Victimhood, and Moral Reversal

This flow traces the recurring reversals in which yesterday’s victim becomes a persecutor and political power rewrites its own violence.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

Romania’s New Masters

The Old Regime Survives A new name for authority The National Salvation Front presented itself as the revolutionary successor to the old regime, while many of its figures had emerged from the same political world. Elections gave the new leadership popular legitimacy without resolving the country’s history. Victims and beneficiaries overlap Carrère’s reporting encountered people whose claims of inner resistance coexisted with possible collaboration. The uncertainty made moral judgment difficult but also exposed how authoritarian systems blur the boundary between survivor, informer, and official.

Serbs as Victims and Aggressors

A Changing Position Fears rooted in history Serbs in Croatia faced real fears of exclusion and nationalist symbolism that recalled past persecution. These concerns made some early comparisons to vulnerable minorities understandable. Power changes the picture As Serbian forces besieged cities and committed atrocities, the claim of victimhood could no longer describe the whole conflict. Carrère follows the need to recognize earlier vulnerability without overlooking the violence exercised by Serbian power.

The Prisoner and the Guard

Ordinary Crime and State Authority Prisoners with violent pasts Limonov shared cells with men convicted of murder and other serious crimes. He listened to their stories without treating their suffering as proof that they were innocent. The state’s unequal judgment He contrasted the severe punishment of individual crime with the impunity often enjoyed by state officials after mass violence. The contrast did not absolve prisoners; it questioned why public authority could commit harms that ordinary people would be punished for.

The Hostage Crisis

State Violence in the Name of Rescue A mass hostage-taking Chechen militants seized the audience at the Dubrovka Theater, creating a terrifying emergency for hostages and families. The government chose a forceful operation using an incapacitating gas. The cost and the official story Many hostages died, and questions about the operation were treated as hostile to the state. Limonov, watching from prison, recognized a familiar pattern: private crimes brought punishment, while state decisions that killed civilians were defended as necessary.

Opposition and the State’s Mirror

The Dissident’s Reversal A new alliance of convenience Limonov stood with human-rights activists and democratic opposition figures against the Kremlin. Their shared experience of state pressure did not erase their disagreements about nationalism, democracy, or the Soviet past. Victimhood does not settle virtue Being persecuted by the state did not automatically make Limonov a liberal or a moral authority. Carrère’s portrait insists that the role of victim can coexist with authoritarian desires and that political position alone cannot decide character.

1990, after the fall of Nicolae Ceaușescu

1991–1992, during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia

2001–2003, during Limonov’s imprisonment

October 2002, during the Moscow theater hostage crisis

2006–2009, during public protests in Moscow