Russia’s Republic of Grief | The New Yorker

The Moscow-based photographer Nanna Heitmann recently travelled to Dagestan to talk with families and friends of the deceased. She found people who were deeply traumatized by loss, but who for the most part kept up a patriotic front. Parents, in particular, were adamant that their sons had died in a heroic cause. They spoke, as the Kremlin has done, about Ukrainian fascism and decadence—to some extent, perhaps, authentically, as Dagestan is a deeply religious and conservative society. More than one family mentioned Stalin as a man who could have handled this situation properly.