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Reinventing the Show Trial: Putin and Pussy Riot
Catherine Schuler
TDR: The Drama Review, Volume 57, Number 1, Spring 2013 (T 217),
pp. 7-17 (Article)
Published by The MIT Press
For additional information about this article
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/tdr/summary/v057/57.1.schuler.html
Access provided by The University of Alberta (10 Oct 2013 23:16 GMT)
Comment
Reinventing the
Show Trial
Putin and Pussy Riot
Catherine Schuler
At 9:00 am on 17 August 2012 I arrived at the Khamovnicheskii District Court in Moscow,
where three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot were to be sentenced for “criminal hooliganism.” Although my hotel was within reasonable walking distance of the courthouse,
I was unable to find it (even using Google Maps) until a growing police presence led me to the
site. The geographical puzzle is surely deliberate: located on an obscure cross street in a seemingly upmarket residential neighborhood, the courthouse is visually unexceptional, easily barricaded, and difficult for an uninitiated visitor to discover.
I went to the sentencing knowing that I had little chance of being admitted into the actual
courtroom where Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (age 22), Maria Alekhina (24), and Ekaterina
Samutsevich (30) would sit handcuffed in the infamous glass cage. Thanks to the media c­ ircus
Figure 1. Pussy Riot rehearses at an art studio on the outskirts of Moscow, 16 January 2012. (Photo by Anna Artemeva)
TDR: The Drama Review 57:1 (T217) Spring 2013. ©2013
New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comment
Catherine Schuler, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland, is the
immediate past editor of Theatre Journal. She is the author of Women in Russian Theatre: The Actress
in the Silver Age (Routledge, 1996), which won the Barnard Hewitt Prize from the American Society
for Theatre Research, and Theatre and Identity in Imperial Russia (University of Iowa Press, 2009).
Currently she is working on a study of Vladimir Putin and the performance of politics in post-socialist
Russia. [email protected]
7
surrounding their trial, by 17 August these once anonymous feminist punk performance artists had become international celebrities. During the trial, political activists and journalists
packed the courtroom; by the day of the sentencing, even the Wall Street Journal reporter I met
near one of the barricades couldn’t get into the building. Armed with the foreknowledge that I
could not reach the center ring, I arrived at the Khamovnicheskii District Court hoping to see
the sideshow.
When I reached the courthouse, I found television crews setting up, but surprisingly few
political, religious, or artistic activists. The Journal reporter explained the reason for the small
number of people that morning: the formal reading of the sentence would not happen until
3:00. He also suggested that violence and arrests at recent Free Pussy Riot events might lower
the turnout here, dampen expressions of protest, and restrain spontaneity. Whatever excitement
there was to come wouldn’t happen for several hours, so I hung out, watching the crowd grow
and change, wondering about the conspicuous presence of heavily armed riot police and conspicuous absence of international human rights organizations.1
I am not naive about Vladimir Putin or “Putin’s Russia.” Since 1992, I have been t­ raveling
back and forth to Russia, and although many people and events in that unsettled place have
astonished me over the years, I thought I had finally become desensitized. Then Pussy Riot happened and I was reminded that if much in Russia has changed, much has also stayed the same, or
been retrofitted for Putin-esque neoliberal post-socialism. As I write in September 2012, Putin
has become predictably unpredictable: two weeks ago he suited up to lead orphaned Siberian
cranes on their migration route; last week Prime Minister Dmitrii Medvedev said that maybe
the Pussy Riot sentence was too harsh (perhaps a prelude to a Putin pardon); this week Putin’s
Duma considers strengthening liability for insulting religious feelings. Vlad — the gift that keeps
on giving.2
Although the police presence at the Pussy Riot trial was unsettling, I had anticipated it;
indeed, I assumed that the police and the Pussy Riot supporters were the circus. PR supporters
did not disappoint, showing up with brightly colored dresses and balaclava (worn by young men
and women alike); a variety of newly printed Free Pussy Riot T-shirts; colored, face-painted
balloons floating in groups of three; and a few angry placards. But I did not anticipate the other
performers I saw there: menacing, black-clothed Russian Orthodox skinheads; demure Russian
Orthodox girls singing hymns and holding hand-printed placards; Orthodox priests; and a
string quartet.
As I watched, the more amazed and dismayed I became. Why the overkill? Why all of this
heavy armor and patriarchal rage for three young women who staged a 40-second, nonviolent
political performance expressing their opposition to Putin and the ominously intimate relationship developing between him and Orthodox Patriarch Kirill?3 Why the talk among people
gathered here of blasphemy and hate crimes? Why the string quartet surrounded by anti-­
pornography signs? Why the detachments of husky, heavily armed male militia whose every
­forward movement caused wary Pussy Riot supporters to skitter back?
Catherine Schuler
After the sentencing, I started digging and discovered that the case of Pussy Riot v. the
Russian church and state is considerably more complicated, troubling, and peculiarly Russian
than press accounts suggest. I don’t know whether Putin and the Patriarch conspired with
8
1.Including Amnesty International, which was not present at the event, but offered $29.00 Free Pussy Riot T-shirts
on their website the following day. I questioned their absence, timing, and pricing in an email, but no one from
Amnesty responded.
2.Although not acquitted of the alleged crime, Samutsevich was released in October on a suspended sentence. As of
this writing, the other two women remain in prison and will serve the full two-year sentence.
3.Kirill has called Putin’s regime a “miracle of God,” and during the elections last spring he urged believers to vote
for Putin.
What Does It Mean to Be Pussy Riot?
Translated by Catherine Schuler
The following interview excerpts with participants of the group Pussy Riot on the eve of
the announcement of their friends’ sentencing are from “What does it mean to be Pussy
Riot,” Novaia gazeta, 20 August 2012. www.novayagazeta.ru/society/54023.html
What does it mean to be Pussy Riot?
We’re not individuals, we’re women in masks. We perform anonymously — all of
the attention is on the songs. The artist isn’t the object, his individuality should not
overshadow the creation itself.
It’s an honor. Still...Masha, Katia, and Nadia paid a huge price for this.
The very idea is that every person, every girl can be Pussy Riot. The idea of anonymity,
of mutual interchangeability — the group doesn’t have a constant structure. All you have
to do to become Pussy Riot is to wear a balaclava. You don’t ask anyone’s permission.
You put on the balaclava, at work, in the office, in a store, you go to the theatre in a
balaclava — you organize your own personal rebellion.
But before the wave of support, it wasn’t prestigious, but dangerous. Now, there are
Pussy Riots all over the world.
How have you been living these last 5 months?
At first, after the arrest, it was quiet. Now there are more of us, several tens. Songs are
being written. Rehearsals are going on. The group lives.
I was in the Cathedral. And I now live and understand that at any moment something
can happen. It’s like everything is calm, but they can call or come for you. I can’t know
precisely what they know about me. Naturally, things are very tense. But the real shock, of
course, was when you wake up on Forgiveness Sunday (proshchenoe voskresen’e) — and
they’ve instituted criminal proceedings...
What struck you most in the process?
I discovered how cruel some people are. Insanely cruel. How easily they say: Well, let
them sit there for a year.
Yes, many really believe that the girls danced there naked. On the altar. So, you can
condemn them and wish for prison or death, without verifying anything or even watching
the video. A complete information deficit.
What do you want to say to these people?
Listen to our songs. They say everything we want to say.
Women are men’s equals, they have a voice. We oppose inequality, we support equal
rights for absolutely all citizens — including LGBT. We’re against a system where a
place — beyond the borders of which you cannot go — is assigned by birthright. We’re
against the old world, we’re for the new world. It must become better.
Independent of sex, race, sexual orientation, religious preference, each person should
find a place.
Putin is the real embodiment of sexism. And women should stop working for this
sexist world.
Today, society is in the role of a five-year old child. You can’t eat ice cream until mama
permits it. It’s time to grow a little, even if it’s just to 15. You can eat ice cream. It’s
possible to respect your parents without listening to absolutely everything they say. We
all need to grow up.
Comment
9
Figure 2. Ekaterina Samutsevich, Maria Alekhina, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova
before the announcement of the verdict at Moscow’s Khamovnicheskii Court,
17 August 2012. (Photo by Anna Artemeva)
Judge Marina Syrova on a sentence that is absurd on its face.
I don’t know what Pussy Riot
actually said on 21 February
2012 or whether prosecution lawyers coached their witnesses. I don’t know whether
Pussy Riot makes art or whether
the first amendment to the US
Constitution should apply in the
Russian Federation. I can only
try to clarify some of the clamor
and questions that have arisen
around the arrest, trial, and sentencing of Pussy Riot.
Prigovor
Catherine Schuler
For readers unfamiliar with the
alleged crime at the heart of this
case, I offer a brief summary of the action called by Pussy Riot “political art” and by their critics “blasphemy,” “pornography,” and a “hate crime.” At approximately 11:00 am on 21 February
2012, five women entered the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. Shortly after entering the
sanctuary, they dumped their backpacks in a pile, stripped off their outerwear to reveal colorful, short-skirted dresses, pulled balaclavas over their faces, crossed through the gate separating
10
Figure 3. Pussy Riot’s performance at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, 21 February 2012, just as
they are about to be hauled off and arrested. (Photo by Ekaterina Fomina)
the nave from the iconostasis and altar, plugged in an amplifier for an electric guitar, and began
to sing and dance wildly. Witnesses disagree about the lyrics. Members of Pussy Riot claim that
they said only “Holy Mother, drive out Putin”; prosecution witnesses don’t know what exactly
was said, but they’re sure the women cursed God and the Orthodox Church. After less than a
minute, church employees and parishioners rushed to the women, dragged them away from the
raised “stage” in front of the iconostasis and out of the church. Later, three were arrested while
two escaped. The arrested women — Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina, and Ekaterina
Samutsevich — spent five months in jail before coming to trial in July 2012. The court quickly
convicted them of hooliganism, sentencing them to two additional years of confinement in a
medium security labor camp.
The sentence (prigovor) was available online within 72 hours — and a revelatory document
it is, especially for a feminist reader.4 It took Judge Marina Syrova 2 hours, 41 minutes, and 38
seconds to read more than 70 pages of text aloud in the courtroom. The first 14 pages state the
charges and rehearse the details of the Pussy Riot action in the Cathedral; witness testimony
follows — 26 pages for the prosecution and 2 for the defense;
a summary of material evidence found during searches
of Tolokonnikova’s apartment
occupies 6 pages; following this,
the document describes the significance of the Cathedral as
a place of worship and church
business and the psychological state of the defendants during the commission of the crime.
The sentence appears at the very
end of the document.
Partly improbable accusation, Figure 4. The now-iconic Pussy Riot balloons float outside the
partly fantastic logic, and partly
Khamovnicheskii District Court, 17 August 2012. (Photo by
fact, the prigovor must be conCatherine Schuler)
sidered in light of the charges
on which the women were convicted: hooliganism, including the commission of a hate crime. A criminal offense conceived
in the late Tsarist period to discourage opposition to church and state, “hooliganism” covers
a wide spectrum of actions and behavior (Kruhly 2012). The Russian legal code identifies two
types: petty and criminal. Petty hooliganism is to citizens of the Russian Federation as disorderly conduct is to citizens of the United States. Pussy Riot was convicted of criminal hooliganism, a crime characterized by flagrant violation of public order, accomplished using weapons or
objects used as weapons, and allegedly motivated by religious, racial, national, political, or ideological hatred toward a particular social group. The author(s) of the prigovor endeavored to
prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Pussy Riot committed a premeditated hate crime against
the Russian Orthodox faith and more generally against the entire Christian world.
The trial was never really about the facts of the 21 February action because Pussy Riot
largely admitted to them. The trial was about motive and affect. The prosecution (i.e., the state)
described Pussy Riot’s actions in laborious detail in order to show that they weren’t political or
just a punk prank, but were motivated by hatred for Orthodox believers and caused severe emotional and moral damage to the Cathedral employees and parishioners present in the church on
Comment
4.The full text of the prigovor can be accessed at www.snob.ru/selected/entry/51999. Unless otherwise indicated, all
translations are my own.
11
21 February, and to every Christian of every nationality who saw the clip posted on the internet. According to the prosecution, Pussy Riot violated every inviolable Orthodox rule and tradition: wearing immodest clothing as they defiled a sacred space with their blasphemous dancing,
singing, and chanting; cursing God; turning their backs to the altar; and resisting all efforts to
remove them from the space. Several prosecution witnesses were particularly dismayed that
women had violated a sacred space reserved exclusively for men. All claimed that they neither
heard nor saw anything political in Pussy Riot’s music, words, and gestures. This was, they said,
pure, premeditated, malicious blasphemy (koshchunstvo).
If the prigovor reflects the defense’s arguments accurately, I must tell TDR readers that
Pussy Riot never had a chance of acquittal. The defense didn’t offer a defense. Their first witness, Samutsevich’s father, claimed that his daughter was a good girl until she fell under
Tolokonnikova’s baneful feminist influence. Feminism, he argued, was antithetical to Russian
civilization; feminism was for Westerners, not for Russians.5 His most supportive gesture was to
compare Pussy Riot’s action to the pre-Tsarist skomorokhii,6 who regularly mocked church and
state. The second defense witness, an administrator at the journalism institute where Alekhina
was a student, testified as a character witness that Alekhina was a good girl and an excellent student. Two more character witnesses testified on Samutsevich and Alekhina’s behalf. No one testified for Tolokonnikova (a point to which I will return). Endeavoring to show that the women
were not in their right minds at the time of the incident, the defense cited psychiatric evidence
of their allegedly altered state.7 Finally, the defense argued that the prosecution exaggerated the
importance of the Christ the Savior Cathedral, a building destroyed by the Soviets and rebuilt
after 1992. The judge dismissed all of the defense’s evidence.
Comments indicating that the women were making expressive, avantgarde art appear only
twice in the prigovor. In the summary introduction, the women argue that they were not motivated by religious hatred: their objective was to make a political statement in artistic form.
Tolokonnikova, apparently the most articulate of the three, states that she has much to offer
Russia in the form of philosophical research and art. Rather than sit on the sidelines “twiddling her thumbs” as Putin corrupted the election process, she chose to “express her position
through art.” Later in the document, a defense witness calls the court’s attention to Alekhina,
who studied photography and has an avantgarde sensibility and aesthetic. Samutsevich’s identity as a journalism student might also have been intended to establish motives other than religious hatred. Art is never again mentioned in the document and Syrova does not refer to it in
her opinion. Armed with placards decrying “pornography,” the string quartet playing outside
the courthouse on 17 August was the only other sign of art as an issue in the trial. Implicitly or
explicitly, Pussy Riot’s critics agreed that no art had happened at Christ the Savior Cathedral.
Catherine Schuler
And yet it did. Much of the evidence used by the prosecution to prove premeditated criminal intent could just as easily demonstrate artistic intent and process. A search of the apartment
shared by Tolokonnikova and her husband revealed evidence of substantial planning, distribution of roles, and rehearsal in advance of the performance. Indeed, it is the prigovor that uses
this language of theatre and performance to describe the preparation for the action. Computer
files discovered at the apartment also indicate that Pussy Riot didn’t post raw video footage
on YouTube: through editing and overdubbing, they created and posted a work of video art.
Witnesses disagree about what exactly the women chanted in the church in part because the
video rebuts their assertion of blasphemy. No doubt Pussy Riot’s art was rough, but site-­specific
guerilla performances and YouTube videos often are.
12
5.Syrova later acknowledges that feminism isn’t illegal, but argues that the Russian Federation’s constitution, which
guarantees equality, makes feminism irrelevant. By her reasoning, women are already equal, thus feminism could
not have motivated Pussy Riot’s actions.
6.The medieval “skomorokh” was a kind of proto-professional actor, comparable, perhaps, to the European jongleur.
7.Ironically, the state conducted the psychiatric examinations.
Tolokonnikova’s
Final Statement
The more I’ve studied the
Pussy Riot case, the more
curious I’ve become about
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, the
group’s apparent leader — or
perhaps scapegoat.8 At the
end of the trial, she spoke for
Pussy Riot, and because she
is an extraordinarily articulate
speaker and writer, her public
statements and interviews have
been widely disseminated in
Figure 5. A string quartet plays outside the Khamovnicheskii District Court,
print and on the internet. Even
17 August 2012. Placards held by the anti-Pussy Riot protesters surrounding the
before I read her final statequartet read: “this is pornography, not art” and “Coalition for Morality.” (Photo by
ment, Tolokonnikova attracted
Catherine Schuler)
my attention because she seems
to have been the sole defendant
without a character witness or anyone to confirm her identity as an artist, and, if the prigovor
accurately reflects the police’s investigation, only her apartment seems to have been searched.
Those searches produced all of the material evidence cited in the prigovor.
Reasons for singling out Tolokonnikova are not hard to locate. First, her husband, Petr
Verzilov, belonged to Voina (war), another action art, guerilla performance group.9 Second,
Tolokonnikova and Verzilov are technically foreigners. Verzilov holds dual Canadian and
Russian citizenship, while Tolokonnikova has the Canadian equivalent of a green card, making them easy targets as “outside agitators”; not surprisingly, the prigovor pays special attention
to Tolokonnikova’s Canadian documents. If her conviction gives notice to Russian avantgardists in general and to Verzilov and Voina in particular that the state will not tolerate further
Pussy Riot–like actions, it also reflects the selective xenophobia of Putin’s Russia. Putin, who
is determined to act as an equal player on global economic and cultural stages, welcomes foreign investment, tourism, and certain conventional genres of cultural exchange: ballet, opera,
museum exhibitions, and so on. But the arrest and conviction of Pussy Riot make clear that he
does not embrace foreign political artist-operatives like Tolokonnikova and Verzilov.
More than 20 years have passed since the NEA defunded four American performance artists,
but that shameful case is, perhaps, as close as the US justice system has come in recent years to
the Pussy Riot litigation in Russia. One important difference is that, whether one agreed or disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision, questions of artistic intention, process, and product remained central.10 Although Tolokonnikova has consistently claimed an artistic identity
for Pussy Riot, during the trial, questions of art were largely absent. Even the press has paid
8.Several witnesses claim that Tolokonnikova seemed to be in charge of the action.
9.Founded in 2006, Voina is a provocative street art group. Tolokonnikova, Verzilov, and Samutsevich were members until 2009.
Comment
10.In 1990, four American performances artists, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, Tim Miller, and Karen Finley, received
NEA grants. Yielding to pressure from conservative pundits and congressmen, the chair of the NEA, John
Frohnmayer, then defunded them. A lawsuit ensued and the artists won all the way to the Supreme Court, which
ruled against them in 1996. TDR coverage of the NEA Four was extensive: in addition to a series of editorials by
Richard Schechner in 1990–91, TDR published a special NEA supplement in its Fall 1991 issue. TDR continued
to cover the NEA Four through 1996. (See Phelan 1990; Schechner 1990; TDR 1991.)
13
Figure 6. A Russian Orthodox priest outside the Khamovnicheskii
District Court, 17 August 2012. (Photo by Catherine Schuler)
scant attention to questions of artistic expression. And although Pussy Riot’s champions
ardently support freedom of political speech,
the fact that the women expressed themselves
through artistic form goes largely unnoticed
(except by the string quartet, which clearly
objected to Pussy Riot’s self-­characterization
as artists). This is not, after all, simply a question of political speech; indeed, prosecution witnesses acknowledge that they don’t
know what the women actually said. Thus,
although the prigovor never mentions artistic form, Pussy Riot’s punk performance
art clearly played a key role in their conviction and sentencing. If 26 pages of prosecution testimony make one thing clear, it is
that the “victims” could not interpret Pussy
Riot’s intentions and actions as anything
except intentional, premeditated, malicious
blasphemy. Tolokonnikova’s final statement
(issued on 9 August) may help to illuminate
the one-dimensional response of state and
church to Pussy Riot’s art.
Remarkable for its complexity, sophistication, and (perhaps paradoxically) naiveté,
the statement alludes to or cites, among others, Foucault, the Oberiu poets, Solzhenitsyn,
Dostoevsky, Montaigne, Socrates, Pythagoras, Saint Stephen, and Madonna (for many Russians,
a problematic celebrity whose public advocacy of Pussy Riot, which apparently included stomping on an Orthodox cross, did not help their case internally). Relying on the language of philosophy, a more fluid theology, and avantgarde art, Tolokonnikova appeals to listeners and readers
through a critique of Russia’s “disciplinary structures” (Tolokonnikova 2012). The members
of Pussy Riot, she argues, are unapologetic critics of a politically motivated collusion between
the Russian state and the Orthodox Church to deprive Russian citizens of their rights. Art is
their medium and here Tolokonnikova cites Pussy Riot’s models: punk performance art and the
Oberiu poets, a group of avantgardists purged by Stalin in 1937.11
Catherine Schuler
Pussy Riot’s self-identification with punk requires no further explanation;12 for Russians,
however, Tolokonnikova’s allusion to the Oberiu poets may have been both more illuminating
and more poignant. She calls the poets proudly “incomprehensible and inexplicable right up to
the very end.” Their leader, Aleskandr Vvedenskii, wrote: “we like what we can’t understand, the
inexplicable is our friend” (in Tolokonnikova 2012). Pussy Riot, she continues, are Vvedenskii’s
“students,” the “inheritors” of his legacy. The metaphor is clear: Oberiu’s art cost the poets their
lives; Pussy Riot’s art costs three Pussy Riot performers their freedom. In one of her most moving moments, Tolokonnikova said:
14
11.Oddly, the document acknowledges neither Western punk nor feminism as influences, although such references
abound in other documents by Pussy Riot. Their absence from the document surprised me, but Pussy Riot’s associations with the West (notice that even their name is in Roman rather than Cyrillic letters) were troublesome for
them during the trial. I speculate that the choice to omit references to Western cultural influences was deliberate
and strategic.
12.Tolokonnikova: “We sought genuine sincerity and simplicity and found them in punk performance” (2012).
Who could have supposed that history, in particular the still recent history of Stalin’s
terror, would not be taught at all? It makes you want to weep, looking at how methods of the medieval inquisition reign over security and judicial systems in the Russian
Federation, which is our country. From the moment of our arrest we could not weep anymore, we have forgotten how to cry; we shouted in despair at our punk concerts, as we
could and as we knew how, about the lawlessness of bosses and of power, but now they’ve
stolen our voices. (2012)13
The statement is simple and profoundly affective, and I wish the Pussy Riot case were so
clear-cut, but it’s not: if the prosecution distorted Pussy Riot’s intentions, actions, and words,
Pussy Riot and its supporters have oversimplified the case against them. Tolokonnikova’s statement is simultaneously impressive, touching, patronizing, and naïve. As an academic, I embrace
the theoretical sophistication of Pussy Riot’s practice, but I also understand that whether or not
the prosecution coached its witnesses, the church employees and parishioners present at the
21 February action were not informed spectators and they didn’t get it. Tolokonnikova could
talk all day and all night about disciplinary structures and avantgarde art to prosecution witness Solokogorskaia, who counted candlesticks, lit lamps, and cleaned icons in the church, but
Solokogorskaia still wouldn’t get it. The Russian Orthodox Church has never been a progressive institution and the recent Orthodox revival has created a new crop of atavistic fundamentalists. I have no doubt that the “victims” ( poterpevshie) of Pussy Riot’s crime were deeply offended
and may even have experienced some sort of trauma. Seen thusly, Tolokonnikova’s intention to
provoke useful dialogue through a highly abstract genre of confrontational avantgarde performance was not only naive, but also doomed.
There is no doubt that Pussy Riot disturbed the peace, but did their action rise to the level
of “criminal” hooliganism? The group’s offense, if any, seems so small in comparison with the
rampant criminality and corruption in Russia today. That art was the only weapon used may
seem obvious, but the court refused to take the case in that direction. So what harm was actually
done? Prosecutors claim that the victims suffered severe moral and emotional trauma, but how
these were manifested and measured remains unclear.14 The assertion of a hate crime is transparently cynical: Russian Orthodox believers hardly fit the profile of an oppressed minority.
Why, while turning its back on so many real hate crimes, did the state devote massive resources
to prosecuting three punk performance artists?
I look for answers in the history of Russian authoritarianism, where the concept of “law” is
fluid and the legal system is easily corrupted. Did Pussy Riot receive a fair trial? It depends on
what laws were being made or enforced that day. Did Putin and Kirill interfere in the legal process? Probably — their hands are not clean. But among an exhausted, complacent majority that
seems to want stability more than democracy, order more than justice, who will call Putin and
Kirill to account?
In her statement, Tolokonnikova asks why Russians don’t learn from their history. I would
turn the question back on her and ask why Pussy Riot ignored two fundamental lessons of
Russian history: heads will roll and artists are not exempt. Pussy Riot’s early performances took
13.Interestingly, the judge postponed Pussy Riot’s sentencing for almost two weeks, which is why I was able to see
it. Having read both the sentence and Tolokonnikova’s statement, I wonder whether Syrova postponed precisely
because she wanted to respond directly to the statement. The defendants were not, after all, allowed to speak during the trial, and Syrova’s opinion seems to respond to several points made by Tolokonnikova.
Comment
14.According to the prigovor victims were damaged once by witnessing the event and again by seeing the event on
YouTube. Citing YouTube and the internet in the prigovor as the secondary means by which witnesses were traumatized has serious implications. Since the March election, the state has been seeking greater control over the
internet: the cover being used for new legislation is “pornography.” A Russian friend chuckled about how definitions of pornography will be broadened to accommodate Putin’s agenda.
15
place in metro stations and on the tops of buses — and even in such spaces they were pushing
a heretofore-invisible envelope. Early in January 2012, an action on Lobnoe mesto, a “sanctified
place” just outside the Kremlin, provoked the police to detain eight members of the group.15
If Putin did not know Pussy Riot before that event, he surely knew of them after. The action
in the Cathedral not only crossed the line, but also gave Putin a powerful ally: the Russian
Orthodox Church. Together, they made an example of the women. The message on a popular T-shirt captures the Putin spirit: featuring a ferocious bear against the red, white, and blue
Russian flag, the caption reads, “Ne budi” — “Don’t wake me!” Pussy Riot defied the warning
and the bear bit off the group’s head.
First They Came for Anna Politkovskaia
and I Was Silent
On 17 August I went back to my hotel to watch television coverage of the sentencing. In 2012,
no television channel is independent and the most widely watched, Channel One, is also the
closest to the Kremlin. I was not optimistic about what I would see. Although I had seen tremendous support for Pussy Riot at the scene and witnessed many reporters interviewing Pussy
Riot supporters, little of that coverage reached Russian television screens. The absence of balanced reporting made me shiver — but why do we liberals still expect Western constitutional
rights to apply in a country that has so little experience of, or investment in them? Does the fact
that I can buy a Mercedes just off Red Square mean that I can stand on top of Lenin’s tomb and
shout that Putin is a thief? Not in Putin’s Russia.
When I first started traveling to the Russian Federation in 1992, I felt like Robert A.
Heinlein’s stranger in a strange land, but in the first decade of the 21st century, as post-­socialist
corporate investment, public relations campaigns, and vast renovation in St. Petersburg and
Moscow changed Russia’s look, I began to feel more comfortable there. That’s why the Pussy
Riot case is so profoundly troubling: it belies the appearance of (post)modernity. That is surely
why, when I returned to my hotel room, I felt once again like Heinlein’s stranger. As I watched
the evening news, I repeatedly asked myself whether Putin’s achievement has been to change
the look, but not the substance of post-Soviet/post-socialist Russia.
Fallout from the trial, conviction, and sentencing continues: Orthodox vigilantes patrol the
streets of Moscow looking for blasphemers; Pussy Riot continues to inspire anti-Putin protests;
members of Femen, a Ukrainian feminist guerilla performance group, bare their breasts on
Pussy Riot’s behalf (Mosbergen 2012); Aung San Suu Kyi expresses her support for the jailed
women (Rein and Wax 2012); and the Duma creates legislation to further suppress expressions
of religious opposition. Like many others, I hope that the state will yield, but I am not optimistic: Putin’s tough guy persona precludes retreat and Pussy Riot refuses to ask him for a pardon
(see Masiuk 2012).
Catherine Schuler
For several years, I have been gathering material for a study of Putin’s political performance, so I understand the dynamics of that side pretty well. I am honestly more puzzled by
Pussy Riot and its supporters. Two questions are particularly troubling. The first emerged
from Tolokonnikova’s final statement, which caused me to wonder whether Pussy Riot deliberately martyred itself. This eloquent document shows that the five women who danced and sang
in a forbidden area of Christ the Savior Cathedral knew exactly what they were doing. Given
Tolokonnikova’s knowledge of political philosophy and Russian history, she must surely have
anticipated the consequences. Although they have been labeled “girls” (devochki) by the press,
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15.Standing on Lobnoe mesto — the Executioner’s Place — the women shouted (among other things) that Putin
was a thief. According to the article I read, random spectators shouted their support for Pussy Riot’s position
(Kostiuchenko 2012). Novaia gazeta also reported that Pussy Riot was threatening to tour provincial Russia, an
idea that is surely unpopular in the Kremlin (Polikovskii 2011).
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina,
and Ekaterina Samutsevich are not girls:
emphasizing their youth and gender diminishes the seriousness of their action. The
women of Pussy Riot are mature, well-­
educated, thoughtful artists.
My second question concerns Pussy Riot’s
supporters. I hope their outrage will mobilize
effective opposition to Putin-esque authoritarianism, but where was the outrage for Anna
Politkovskaia, Sergei Magnitskii, Natal’ia
Estemirova, and so many others among the
disappeared and murdered? The Pussy Riot
case reminds me of a familiar refrain: First
they came for Mikhail Khordokhovskii and
I said nothing; then they came for Anna
Politikovskaia and I said nothing; then they
came for Natal’ia Estemirova and I said nothing; then they came for Sergei Magnitskii and
I said nothing. Finally they came for Pussy
Riot and I said something, but it was too late
because they had come for me too.
Figure 7. A Pussy Riot supporter outside the Khamovnicheskii
District Court, 17 August 2012. (Photo by Catherine Schuler)
In the best of all possible worlds, the
Pussy Riot case would be exceptional, but
it’s not. Putins, big and small, head nations,
funding agencies, corporations, and corporate universities, and their power to limit freedom of
expression is very great. Are we so different from Putin’s Russia? Freedom in Russia increasingly means the freedom to make money and consume products. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
References
Kostiuchenko, Elena. 2012. “Feministki-khuliganki dali kontsert na Lobnom meste.” Novaia gazeta,
1 January. www.novayagazeta.ru/news/53456.html (22 August).
Kruhly, Madeleine. 2012. “The Strange History of Russian Hooliganism.” The Atlantic, 24 July.
www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/the-strange-history-of-russian-hooliganism
/260255/ (28 August).
Masiuk, Elena. 2012. “My ne budem prosit’ Putina nas pomilovat’.” Novaia gazeta, 17 August:3–5.
Mosbergen, Dominique. 2012. “Pussy Riot Trial: Topless FEMEN Activist Chainsaws Memorial Cross
In Ukraine.” Huffington Post, 17 August 2012. www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/pussy-riot-trial
-femen_n_1798009.html (23 October).
Phelan, Peggy. 1990. “Serrano, Mapplethorpe, the NEA, and You: ‘Money Talks.’” TDR 34, 1 (T125):4–15.
Polikovskii, Aleksei. 2011. “V Elektricheskikh kolgotakh i organzhevom ogne.” Novaia gazeta, 14 December.
www.novayagazeta.ru/arts/50062.html (22 August 2012).
Rein, Lisa, and Emily Wax. 2012. “Suu Kyi’s Common Cause.” Washington Post, 21 September:C1.
Schechner, Richard. 1990. “Political Realities, the Enemy Within, the NEA, and You.” TDR 34, 4
(T128):7–10.
TDR. 1991. Special section on “Offensive Plays.” With Peggy Phelan, Tim Miller, John Fleck, Holly
Hughes, Steven Durland, Linda Frye Burnham, Charles M. Wilmoth. TDR 35, 3 (T131):131–220.
Comment
Tolokonnikova, Nadezhda. 2012. “Polnyi tekst poslednego slova Nadezhdy Tolokonnikovoi.” Station.ru,
9 August 2012. http://station.ru/community/blogs/tolokonnikova/archive/2012/08/09/454134.aspx
(14 September).
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