On Wednesday, Russian academics, authors, publishers, and journalists gathered at the Theatre Center in Moscow to honor the winners of the annual PolitProsvet (or political education) prize, backed by Dmitry Zimin, one of Russia’s most prominent philanthropists. Mikhail Iampolski, an émigré who teaches literature at New York University, was recognized for his political essays on the Web site colta.ru; Vladislav Inozemtsev, an economist, for his columns about the Russian economy. But the festive atmosphere was dampened by an almost funereal tone. Most speakers mentioned “hard times” and expressed hope that this year’s award ceremony would not be the last, even though they knew that it most likely was.

On Monday, two days before the ceremony, the Russian Ministry of Justice put Zimin’s Dynasty Foundation on its list of “foreign agents,” or nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign funding and are engaged in loosely defined “political activity.” (The foreign-agents legislation, aimed at eliminating unwanted Western influence, has been recently enhanced by new regulations around “undesirable organizations.” If a prosecutor decides that a foreign organization presents “a threat to Russia’s constitutional order, defense, and security,” it will be banned from operating in Russia, and Russian individuals and organizations will be prohibited from coöperating with them. Violations are punishable by fines or jail terms.)

N.G.O.s that have been branded as foreign agents are required to put a label with those words on their publications and other materials, or risk fines or closure. The Ministry of Justice has already filed a case to an administrative court requesting that Dynasty be fined up to five hundred thousand rubles, or about ten thousand dollars. Nearly seventy N.G.O.s, specializing in human rights, legal aid, consumer rights, and environmental protection, that receive foreign grants—even if such grants account for just a small fraction of their funding—have been “exposed” as being engaged in political activity and put on the foreign-agents list. Others expect to be added in the near future.

Even in the freest reading of the law, Dynasty is not a foreign agent: it is not a recipient of grants but a donor; Zimin is not a foreigner but a Russian citizen; and his charity is not directly engaged in politics. The formal pretext for the decision is that Dynasty is funded from Zimin’s bank accounts abroad. (“The Russian government also keeps its money abroad,” Zimin noted in an interview, apparently referring to the fact that Russia holds tens of billions of U.S. Treasury bonds.) Reportedly, Dynasty’s graver transgressions were funding a political discussion club and supporting several media outlets that still pursue editorial independence.

The club, called Liberal Mission, which is run by Yevgeny Yasin, the Russian Minister for the Economy under Boris Yeltsin, was declared a foreign agent on the same day as the Dynasty Foundation. Liberal Mission has organized political discussions and lectures, and produced brochures such as “The Law and the Government.” The group plans to appeal the decision, but theirs is most likely a hopeless case. The Ministry of Justice has requested that a large fine be levied on Liberal Mission as well as on the Dynasty Foundation.

On Tuesday, Zimin announced that unless the government revokes its decision to put Dynasty on the foreign-agents list and apologizes to him, he will stop funding his foundation. “Of course, I will not spend my personal money under the trademark of an unnamed foreign country,” he said, referring to the notices he would have to place on all Dynasty materials. Asked in one of many interviews this week whether he supported the “opposition” in Russia, Zimin replied that if “opposition qualifies as activity that does not have the government’s blessing, then, yes, I do.”

Zimin, who is eighty-two, has spent more than a decade supporting scientific research, education, and publishing; he is the largest private donor to these fields in Russia. In the Soviet era, he was a prominent academic specializing in radio engineering and communications and a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he launched what would later become Beeline, one of Russia’s top telecommunications and mobile-phone companies. Unlike most of the other newly rich, Zimin did not make his money due to questionable privatization deals or close ties with the government. He also remained a model of the Russian nauchno-tekhnicheskaya intelligentsia, the term applied to scientists and engineers with broad interests and intellectual curiosity beyond their profession, deep trust in the power of rational knowledge, and a modest and unassuming lifestyle.

In 2001, Zimin launched Dynasty, which has supported the research of young biologists, physicists, and mathematicians; science programs for high-school students in academic institutions; and training for science teachers, among other programs. Dynasty also funded the translation of popular science literature, which inspired many Russian scientists to write for wider audiences. Zimin founded a book award for these writers, and supported lectures and festivals that promoted scientific knowledge. His efforts partly made up for poor government funding for scientific research and prevented many young Russian academics from emigrating. Zimin is loved and revered by many in the Russian intellectual milieu, and even the government recognized his contribution. Just two months before Dynasty became a victim of the unfolding crackdown on independent civic activism, Zimin was awarded a special prize “For the Protection of the Russian Science,” by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science.

The news of Dynasty’s being labelled a foreign agent has prompted bitterness, despair, and anger on the liberal segment of the Russian Web. Yuri Saprykin, a popular blogger, called the prosecutor's decision “an act of pure evil . . . a blow on the cultural milieu equal to several carpet bombings.” The intellectual publisher Corpus posted images of the covers of books produced with Dynasty's support on its Facebook page, saying, “Those who invent a ‘foreign agent’ label and hang it on . . . the largest organization devoted to national enlightenment, sooner or later will be washed away. What Dynasty has already accomplished will remain forever.” On a Russian Web site, Alexander Arkhangelsky, the host of an intellectual TV show, wrote:

What lies ahead is a radicalization across the board. The message sent to academics and the educated community in general is: there's nothing left to lose for you anymore, there's no way to protect yourselves . . . don't hope for any rational development, everything is guided by [the government's] unstoppable desire to control living souls.

But the liberal “educated community” is not a relevant force in Russia. In the eyes of the government and the majority of Russians, these people's attempts to secure even a modicum of autonomy in the public space make them suspicious and unpatriotic.