A Russian Nobel Prize to help children displaced by war in Ukraine. Dmitry Muratov, Russian editor of the independent investigative newspaper Novaya Gazetasold this Monday the medal he had received by winning the prestigious award in 2021.
The object set a new record for auctions of this kind: the buyer paid 103.5 million dollars (about 98 million euros) to afford it. This sum will be donated to the Unicef program dedicated to Ukrainian children displaced by the conflict, according to Heritage Auctions, which is in charge of the sale.
For Unicef which does not belong “to any government”
Dmitry Muratov had won the Nobel Peace Prize alongside Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, with the committee honoring them “for their efforts to preserve freedom of expression”. He dedicated it to his diary Novaya Gazeta and his collaborators “who died defending people’s right to freedom of expression”.
The sale, which took place in New York, was very animated, punctuated by many applauses and stimulated by the bidders who encouraged each other to drive the sale upwards. The medal was finally acquired by a bidder whose identity has not been revealed. When the final offer fell, increased by tens of millions of dollars over the previous one, the room was taken aback, including Dmitry Muratov himself. His choice of Unicef as the beneficiary of the funds was motivated by the concern “essential for us that this organization does not belong to any government”, but can “work above”, without “borders”.
A newspaper silenced by the war
Dmitry Muratov is one of the founders of the newspaper NOvaia Gazeta in 1993 after the fall of the Soviet Union and has edited it almost continuously ever since. Known in particular for its investigations into corruption and human rights abuses in Chechnya, the tri-weekly became this year the latest major newspaper to criticize President Vladimir Putin and his tactics inside and outside the country.
Novaya Gazeta announced at the end of March that it was suspending its online and print publications in Russia until the end of the intervention in Ukraine, in full hardening of the Kremlin against dissonant voices. ” There is no other solution. For us, and I know for you, this is a terrible and painful decision. But we have to protect each other, ”wrote the Nobel Prize winner in a letter to readers of the newspaper. According to him, his editors had continued their work for 34 days “under the conditions of military censorship”, since the launch of the Russian offensive.
The newspaper has already paid a high price for its commitment: six of its journalists or contributors have been killed since the 1990s, including the famous journalist Anna Politkovskaïa, known for her criticisms of the Kremlin’s bloody war in Chechnya and assassinated on October 7 2006. The sponsors of this crime have never been identified.
“We must help the people who are suffering the most”
Shaken by this murder, Dmitry Muratov had considered closing the newspaper, which seemed to him “dangerous for people’s lives”, he confided in March 2021 to AFP, but had decided to continue in the face of the determination of its editorial staff. On Monday, he praised the perseverance of journalists, who constitute an important obstacle for governments and a means of preventing war. “No matter how many times each of us wants to give notice and resign, we have to stay in our jobs,” he told AFP.
In a video posted by Heritage Auctions, the journalist says that winning the Nobel Prize “gives you an opportunity to be heard”. “The most important message today is that people understand that a conflict is happening and that we must help the people who are suffering the most”, he added, referring in particular to “children in refugee families.