Russia’s LifeNews reports that Aleksei Devotchenko, a celebrated film and theatre actor, has been found murdered in Moscow.

Devotchenko’s body was found “lying near his front door in a pool of his own blood” by a close friend, the report says.

The Russkaya Planeta news site reports that a source in law enforcement has said that the main scenario being considered at the moment is murder. All of the windows in Devotchenko’s apartment were broken and traces of blood were found in his room.

LifeNews, which is widely suspected of close ties to Russia’s security services and often has the first reports from the scenes of terrorist incidents and accidents, reported that Devotchenko’s friend had told them that the last time he had seen the actor, he had been drunk. Devotchenko’s friend helped him to recover and visited the next day, only to find him dead.

Devotchenko had been an active figure in political opposition to the Putin government. In March this year, he signed an open letter by the film union KinoSoyuz in support of Ukraine, titled “We are with you!“

The actor had, in fact, been attacked beforehand.

On January 30, 2012, Devotchenko was beaten, “almost killed” in his own words, by two Dagestani men in the Shabolovskaya metro station in Moscow. According to Devotchenko, neither the police nor station attendants intervened to help him. The men, he wrote, were offended by his earring.

In 2010, Devotchenko wrote an appeal to Russian artists to cease accepting money from the state, calling for them to protest against the government.

Here is a translation by RFE/RL’s Robert Coalson:

Can We Do Anything?

Dear friends and colleagues, actors, musicians, artists! On March 20 in many Russian cities there will be a national protest action against the criminal, deeply depraved, and cynical regime that was established in our country 10 years ago. Many of us, I think, support the demands and arguments that will be voiced on March 20. But at the same time we are shrugging our shoulders: “Can we do anything? Should we also go out into the streets?”

I believe it is a personal choice for everyone whether to go out or not. After all, doing so is by no means obligatory. Some will feel the urge to do so and others won’t. We are all different in terms of our convictions, our temperaments, our psychological and physical makeup. But there are things that can unite us in our drive to resist the shameful situation that has taken shape in Russia. Understanding fully the naivety of my suggestions, I nonetheless present them here. What can people who have tied their fates to art and culture do?

Refuse to take part in scenes in ultra-patriotic, propagandistic, chauvinistic, anti-Semitic, or pro-Stalinist feature films and television projects;

Refuse to take part in recording soundtracks for semi-official, agitprop documentaries and clips;

Refuse to participate in any theatricized celebrations organized by the Kremlin, St. Petersburg’s city hall, the United Russia party, and so on;

Refuse to participate in any broadcasts by the lying and tendentious television channels Channel One, Rossiya, NTV, or Moscow’s TV Tsentr;

Refuse to show up at high-society receptions and banquets attended by “public servants”;

Refuse to take part in government shows at all levels and, even more importantly, in the corporate celebrations of such monsters as the Federal Security Service, the Interior Ministry, LUKoil, Gazprom, and so on;

Refuse to participate in ceremonies to congratulate governors and mayors on their birthdays, anniversaries, on the births of grandchildren, and so on;

Refuse to give interviews to pro-Putin/Medvedev print media.

This list, of course, could go on. Of course, many of you will ask: “How are we going to earn a living? You know what they pay in theaters that aren’t servile to the authorities.” I know – 7,000 to 10,000 rubles a month maximum. I also know that for 10 minutes at some sort of Kremlin party you can earn as much as you’d make working in a theater for a year. I also know that many of you will shrug and say, “Money doesn’t stink.” Well, I think this money DOES stink – it smells of dank prison cells, of neglected hospitals and homeless shelters, of the acrid smoke of burnt-out architectural monuments and historical buildings and night clubs and homes for the elderly. It smells of the boots of the OMON riot police.

As for earning money…. There are many honest, professional means and this isn’t a secret to anyone. You can earn your way with solo concert programs; you can create original plays based on high dramaturgy that has been tested by time; you can appear in films that have no ideological or propagandistic subtext; you can take part in radio productions or the dubbing of foreign films, although this work is getting scarce.

Excuse me, please, for taking the liberty of writing all this, but God knows it is not a declaration or a manual for action. It is just my (and only my) personal appeal to everyone among us in the cultural sphere.

And maybe we can answer the banal and trite Soviet-era question, “Whose side are you on, Mr. Master of Culture?” A master of culture is always on the side of his audience, of his culture, and of his conscience. Thank you for your attention. For Your Freedom; For Our Freedom.