Canceled concerts and shows, fired theater directors, fines and arrests of artists who demonstrate against the war. Orchestrated by the Kremlin, the retaking of control over the cultural sector since the beginning of the war in Ukraine plunges Russian creators into a dilemma: leave the country to be able to express themselves freely or stay, whatever the cost, to continue resisting from inside?
Since the beginning of the “special operation” in Ukraine – according to the official terminology imposed by the Kremlin – Russian artists have been under intense pressure from the authorities. Faced with the threat of fines and imprisonment, in the vast majority of cases exile has become the only solution to express a dissenting voice.
The latest recent example of this wave of forced exits is that of the electro-pop group Little Big, very popular in Russia. It was quite a surprise when they announced at the end of June that they would settle in the United States. Unaccustomed to getting involved in politics, the quartet formed in Saint Petersburg in 2013 accompanied their announcement with the video for the song ‘Generation Cancellation’, a manifesto against the propaganda of the Russian state.
“We condemn the acts of the Russian government and we dislike the Kremlin’s military propaganda so much that we decided to drop everything to leave the country,” the group explained in a statement quoted by the independent medium Meduza.
Little Big is part of the long list of artists who have decided to leave the country after taking a stand against the war in Ukraine. Such is the case of the rock star Zemfira, who recently took refuge in France; or Boris Grebenchtchikov, the leader of the group Aquarium, formed in 1972, who described the invasion of Ukraine decided by Vladimir Putin as “pure madness”.
For all these artists who have fled Russia, social networks have become an indispensable tool of resistance and opposition against the official discourse of the Russian authorities, according to which it is a war solely aimed at “denazifying Ukraine”.
“Boris Grebenchtchikov left because he thought he could be stronger abroad,” explains Clementine Fujimura, a professor of anthropology at the Annapolis Naval Academy and a Russia specialist. “So he can continue giving concerts and posting new songs on Telegram, Instagram and Facebook.”
The guitarist and singer recently published two pieces that evoke the tragedy of the war in Ukraine: ‘Obidaba’ and ‘Vorozhba’, a somber title in which Boris Grebenchtchikov speaks of spells that make “coffins grow in our hearts” as if not ” there would be a tomorrow.”
those who have stayed
For their part, other musicians who also oppose the war have made the decision to stay in Russia, but they are paying the price. The sacred monster of Russian rock, Iouri Chevtchouk, is one of them. Last May, on a stage in Ufa, a city in the center of Russia, the lead singer of the group DDT caused a stir by declaring that “patriotism is not kissing the president’s ass all the time.”
The 65-year-old star, who has been highly critical of Vladimir Putin’s regime for several years, also lamented the “young people of Ukraine and Russia who die (…) because of the Napoleonic plans of our Caesar.” Since then, all his concerts have been canceled and the singer is persecuted for having discredited the army.
Adopted at the beginning of March, a week after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a particularly repressive law allows for a sentence of up to 15 years in prison for spreading “false information” about the Russian army. Under these charges, the artist and activist Alexandra Skochilenko was arrested. Her crime: having replaced price tags in supermarkets with anti-war messages.
We need your help ❤️ This is our friend Sasha Skochilenko. She is facing 10 years in prison. Her crime of her? Replacing supermarket price labels with anti-war appeals and information on Russian attacks on civilians in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/0DfGVgLM8f
— Soviet Visuals (@sovietvisuals) April 15, 2022
To escape from prison, others have managed to flee in a hurry. Last May, Maria Alekhina, a member of the feminist punk group Pussy Riot, disguised herself as a food delivery woman to evade police surveillance and reach Lithuania, The New York Times reported.
“It sounds like a spy novel.” Maria Alyokhina, leader of the band Pussy Riot, decided it was time to leave Russia after more than a decade of activism — at least temporarily. She and her girlfriend disguised themselves as food couriers to evade the police. https://t.co/FCT7dNyhf0 pic.twitter.com/cAJdzyjfEj
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 10, 2022
“As long as I’m not in danger, I’ll stay here,” said singer Manija, interviewed by RFI. “I think that in Russia there are many people who share my point of view,” explained Russia’s representative at Eurovision 2021. Since she took a stand against the Russian invasion, her concerts have also been canceled one after another.
From the USSR to Putin’s Russia
Leave the country to continue raising your voice or stay to suffer with your loved ones, at the risk of losing everything? The dilemma facing Russian artists today is reminiscent of that of their glorious ancestors persecuted during the Soviet era, particularly under Stalin.
“During the Soviet period some artists left the country, but they were often held back by a sense of guilt because they were leaving their peers and fellow citizens behind,” explains researcher Clementine Fujimura, adding that the Russian population has often questioned the fidelity of some artists in exile. “The writer Alexandre Solzhenitsyne [NDLR: encarcelado durante ocho años en el gulag en 1945] It’s a good example. When he returned from exile in 1994, some reproached him for not having returned sooner.”
In the current context of repression of dissenting voices in Russia, these approaches have resurfaced. After the outbreak of war in Ukraine, singer Diana Arbenina of Night Snipers, an iconic rock group of the 1990s, vowed not to leave the country, quoting a 1922 poem by Anna Akhmatova: “I was with my people, there where were my people and their misfortune”.
“Most of the artists I follow on social media have no intention of leaving. They want to stay, even if they have been fined, banned from concerts or threatened,” says Clementine Fujimura. “Russian power has always been afraid of people who dare to speak through social networks or any other means because they have the ability to make consciousness evolve.”
However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to live as an artist in Russia. Far from being satisfied with silencing dissenting voices, the Kremlin also wants to impose its vision of a culture at the service of the national discourse within the country’s emblematic institutions.
At the end of June, the directors of the Moscow Sovremennik theatre, the School of Contemporary Dramaturgy and the Gogol Center were abruptly dismissed from their posts. “From the point of view of art, it’s not just sabotage, it’s murder,” said Kirill Serebrennikov, the exiled artistic director of the Gogol Center, who helped turn the avant-garde theater into one of the most admired stages in the country.
In recent weeks, a total of twenty theater directors have also been fired. Enough to wonder about the future of a dissident culture in Russia, which seems to be increasingly in danger.
Article adapted from its original in French.
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