The co-founder of the Free University was fined for her lecture
The court in Moscow fined the co-founder of the Free University, Elena Lukyanova, 15,000 rubles for participating in an undesirable organization. “Mediazona” learned about this.
The occasion was Lukyanova’s lecture “Tragedy of 1993”, in which she talked about the consequences of the events of that year – the conflict between the president and the parliament and the adoption of the Constitution – for the political history of Russia. The video was released on the YouTube channel of the Free University in October 2023.
“The Russian authorities consider the lectures to be a violation of the law, but we do not, and we will continue to work,” the Free University commented on the news. In August 2024, the Russian authorities also named Lukyanova a foreign agent.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia declared the Free University undesirable in March 2023. According to the department, during the training of the students of the Free University, “permanent hostility towards Russia is formed and the ultra-liberal model of European democracy is imposed.”
The Free University was founded in August 2020 by former HSE teachers, education takes place online and mainly in semesters. At the university, they teach courses in various disciplines: from the basics of sociology and physics to codification and queer theory.
