By Oleg Kusov

Even before her death, Anna Politkovskaya and her work were regularly denigrated by authorities eager to create an image of a commercial journalist whose reports bore little importance for readers.

The Federal Security Service (FSB), for example, publicly alleged that Politkovskaya used her trips to Chechnya to resolve the "financial problems" of her newspaper, "Novaya gazeta" -- suggesting that she was paid by unknown sources to write pieces critical of the government.

People who knew Politkovskaya, however, take offense at such pronouncements. Marina Kondratyeva, the widow of a Russian soldier who received a Hero of Russia medal after dying in a counterterrorism operation in Chechnya, met Politkovskaya in the summer of 2001.

"Society is so corruptible and rotten, honestly speaking, that it doesn't even occur to many people that it's possible to honestly honor one's duty, honestly fulfill one's obligations," she says. "To work not just honestly, but with conscience. She not only fulfilled her journalistic duty, she fulfilled her human obligation, sensing and understanding that the country is in a chasm. And even our civil self-awareness is completely absent. Stimulating civil self-awareness is exactly what she tried to do."

A Person Of Principle

Veronika Shakhova, a journalist from Bashkortostan, helped Politkovskaya gather materials about police brutality following a series of raids targeting young men in the city of Blagoveshchensk in December 2004. She, too, says it is impossible not to resent official accusations made against Politkovskaya's character.

"When such ugliness is directed toward her, it's probably just banal jealousy -- toward a person, of a journalist, or maybe just to a beautiful woman, who will never submit to anyone," she says. "Anyone who spent five minutes with Anna even once in their lives would never believe such things. I never believed them. It's enough for me that I know her. Whatever they say about her, that she worked for grants or not for grants, I'll never believe it. She did everything according to her principles."

Movladi Soipov of Daghestan says Politkovskaya was a person of unique honor and conscientiousness. "The truth is that she could have gotten those grants by other means. It's not a difficult thing in our country to receive grants. But I don't think that she put herself in the line of fire to get a grant," Soipov says.

"This is a person of a unique composition, this was in her soul, in her consciousness. She was brought up so that she could not tolerate any injustice or lawlessness in the world, she could not endure it and actively interfered in it. And she fought it in any way she could," he says. "It's rare that someone would risk her safety and make herself vulnerable like that."

Not Taking Sides, Just Defending People

Officials in Russia often insisted that Politkovskaya's articles bore an overtly pro-Chechen position. But Ella Kesayeva, who lost several family members in the terrorist siege at Beslan carried out primarily by Chechens, rejects such characterizations outright.

"All of this is false. She did not defend a military side, she defended specific people. She took names, studied their history, investigated the tragedy of each person. That was unique about her, that she never made any assumptions, but supported everything with evidence. And we, the readers, drew conclusions ourselves," Kesayeva says.

"She did her job honestly, openly, like a real journalist should. Her death is a great loss for the Chechen people and for the entire Caucasus," she continues. "If she were alive, she would not rest until the end of her life, and she would do her job, and many in the government of our country would suffer from her testimonial evidence, including the evidence from Beslan."

Politkovskaya's journalistic opinions were shared by relatively few reporters and politicians. But people like Marina Kondratyeva who benefited from her work speak about her differently.

"Many people just cannot understand that it's possible to selflessly perform acts of kindness, to selflessly sacrifice oneself, to selflessly give one's own life. Society is atrophied and money-centered; it's forgotten about conscience, honor, the right to life and to health," Kondratyeva says.

"The president said that her articles went unnoticed in the Russian Federation. I don't think that that's the case," she says. "Of course, who could imagine that a woman would go to war willingly, that a woman would get involved in these frightening situations in 'Nord-Ost' and Beslan? Of course everything that is said about Anna Stepanovna is nonsense."