The Birth of Pussy Riot: Six Early SongsMain MenuIntroductionAbout These Sources“Kill the Sexist” (2011)“Free the Cobblestones” (2011)“Kropotkin-Vodka” (2011)“Death to Prison, Freedom to Protest” (2011)“Putin’s Pissed Himself” (2012)“Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Chase Putin Away” (2012)SupplementsAbout This EditionBibliographyCredits and AcknowledgementsAbout SourceLabJamie Hendrickson58134f757f2bbc39a2ba13e95075be4a3d374f84
Stjepan Stevo Filipović
12022-06-01T09:09:58+00:00Alex Drydenbb5ccf4591af9a1e2b579ecc283a321fc7a7d87d1621Standing beneath the gallows where he will be hanged momentarily, Stjepan Filipovic, commander of the Tomnasko-Kolubarski partisan detachment, calls upon the people of Serbia to fight the "traitors of the Serbian people."plain2022-06-01T09:09:58+00:00United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Photograph #89846Probably Slobodanka VasićNovember 12, 2019May 22, 1942Alex Drydenbb5ccf4591af9a1e2b579ecc283a321fc7a7d87d
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12022-06-01T09:09:58+00:00Death to prison, freedom to protest (chorus)1plain2022-06-01T09:09:58+00:00This verse is a play on words of the Soviet World War II Yugoslav Partisan battle cry and motto “Death to Fascism, freedom to the people!” (Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian: Smrt fašizmu, sloboda narodu!). It was popularized as a phrase after the execution of Yugoslav Partisan Stjepan Filipović (1916-1942), immediately before which he yelled the words to the crowd with his arms raised in the air. The photo of him doing so (provided down below) was then circulated and reproduced widely, thereafter becoming a symbol of anti-fascist resistance and eventually the official slogan of the Yugoslav resistance movement that fought against fascist German occupiers. Pussy Riot is therefore condemning how the Russian prison system is used to put away those who speak out against the state, particularly with political activists like Alexei Navalny and Ilya Yashin. The group is also promoting the rights of freedom of speech and of assembly, which are frequently violated and have been further restricted in Russia over the past decade.