Anna Politkovskaya: A Voice to the Voiceless

Anna Politkovskaya is a hero. Before researching Politkovskaya’s life, I never expected to be so emotionally shaken by a journalist’s life.

Politkovskaya has many notable awards. She was the first Courage in Journalism Award winner from Russia and was named one of the World Press Freedom Heroes by the IPI (International Press Board). She was also featured as one of the world’s top press freedom figures in CPJ’s (Committee to Protect Journalists) 2006 magazine. However, it is not her honors that make her life so memorable.

Politkovskaya is a Russian reporter famous for her courageous reporting against the Russian government (also known as the Kremlin), especially Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his policies in the Second Chechen War (Chechen: A Republic of Russia). According to a New York Times article by Cassandra Vinograd, Politkovskaya “investigated allegations of abuse on all sides in the war…[She] wrote of torture, mass executions, kidnappings  and the sale by Russian soldiers of Chechen corpses to their families for proper Islamic burial.” Due to her reporting style and critiques, Russian government officials and high military authorities viewed her as unpatriotic. However, that was far from the only problem Politkovskaya faced: an article by CPJ talks about how she was “threatened, jailed, forced into exile, and poisoned during her career.” 

Politkovskaya’s works include “Putin’s Russia,” “A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya,” “A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya,” and many more. In these articles and books, Politkovskaya mainly uses the rhetorical strategy of personal anecdotes to cover human experiences and stories during the Chechen conflict in great detail, even her own experiences and journeys at times. Along with personal anecdotes, she uses photographs that further convey the suffering and hardships ordinary citizens have to endure during war. These strategies allow Politkovskaya to educate an international audience about such events, evoking empathy.

Even though Politkovskaya was viewed as a villain by the Russian government, she continued to be brave and show the power of the press, giving a voice to civilians impacted and suffering. Unfortunately, even though Politkovskaya fought her entire life for justice, she was murdered one day in her apartment in Moscow. What is worse is that even though her murderer was found, he has been pardoned by the Russian government and is fighting for Russia in the Ukraine war without any future punishment (according to an article by BBC News).

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