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http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-new-russian-censors Last week, Boris Mezdrich, the executive director of Novosibirsk State Academy Opera and Ballet Theatre, the largest opera theatre in Russia, was fired by the Ministry of Culture “for unwillingness to take social values into account in his work, for disrespect for citizens’ opinions, and for failure to fulfill the founder’s recommendations.” Mezdrich’s transgression was his theatre’s production of Richard Wagner’s “Tannhauser,” conceived and directed by Timofey Kuliabin, which appeared offensive to local Orthodox Christian activists. The head of the Novosibirsk diocese, who had not seen the opera, claimed in a letter to the local prosecutor’s office that the production violated laws against offending the feelings of religious believers and inciting religious discord, but a justice’s court in Novosibirsk found nothing wrong with the production. Then the Ministry of Culture stepped in and organized what they described as public hearings, in which prominent clergy members, cultural figures, and ministry officials condemned Kuliabin’s interpretation of the opera. None of the participants mentioned the orchestra, the performers, or the sets. The “hearings” were fully focussed on the “insulting” quality of the production. The Novosibirsk “Tannhauser” imagines Wagner’s hero, a minstrel who vacillates between Venus and the Church, as a contemporary film director who makes a movie about Jesus Christ. The production speaks directly to the clash between art and the commerce of art festivals; there are clear parallels to the director Lars von Trier and his controversial conduct. The production’s opening-night performance, in December, was met by a full house and a standing ovation. Some of the most prominent opera critics in Russia praised the production; one predicted that Novosibirsk would become a “site of pilgrimage” for the world’s opera lovers. The production’s detractors were most outraged by a prop, a poster for the hero’s film that showed the crucifixion of Jesus between the legs of a naked woman. The poster appeared on stage for just a few seconds, and after objections emerged, in March, it was covered with a gray cloth. This was not enough for the Ministry of Culture, which demanded that “necessary changes” be made to the production and that the director “convey public apologies to all those whose religious feelings were offended.” Mezdrich refused, and was fired. One of his most zealous persecutors, a fellow theatre director named Vladimir Kekhman, had called the production “blasphemous” and “a demonstration of inner ungodliness.” The Ministry of Culture rewarded Kekhman by appointing him as Mezdrich’s replacement. During Putin’s first decade in power, he focussed largely on consolidating control of the legislature, political parties, national TV networks, and other entities that could conceivably threaten his authority, but since his return to the Presidency, in 2012, the Kremlin has cracked down on individual civil liberties. More recently, artistic expression has become a target of what the Russian theatre critic Marina Davydova has called a “total conservative revolution.” The Orthodox Church has been an active participant (and possibly an instigator) of several notable persecutions of artists, including the Pussy Riot trial and the campaign against the film “Leviathan.” The day after Mezdrich’s dismissal, Magomedsalam Magomedov, the deputy head of the Kremlin Administration, proposed that theatrical productions be subject to “inspections” before they are presented to the public. Though Magomedov did not use the word “censorship” (which is explicitly prohibited by the Russian constitution), this would represent a return to the Soviet system of preliminary censorship, in which no work of literature, theatre, or film could appear without the approval of government censors. Writers who would not adjust to the state’s ideological constraints were forced to write v stol—“into the desk,” not for publication. Theatre and film directors had to submit their work to repertkom (repertory commissions) and khudsovet (artistic councils), and either make the cuts and changes these censors demanded or see their work barred from distribution (the term for that was “put on the shelf”). In fact, the latest government guidelines for controlling the cultural realm sound somewhat similar to those of the Soviet era. According to “Foundations of the State Cultural Policy,” a document produced by the Ministry of Culture and signed last year by Putin, the purpose of these policies includes the “consolidation of the unity of Russian society,” “creating conditions for educating citizens,” and “transmission, from one generation to the next, of the values and norms, traditions, customs, and models of behavior traditional to Russian civilization.” Ministry officials and loyalists now cite this document as the ultimate truth. During the so-called public hearings on the “Tannhauser” production, one of the many objections was its failure to comply with the “Foundations.” Unlike their Soviet predecessors, who relied on strictly atheistic Marxist-Leninist doctrine to identify unwelcome works of art, the current proponents of cultural propriety emphasize the “special role of Orthodox Christianity” in the Russian “system of values,” in the words of the “Foundations.” This makes little practical difference. What the current authorities share with the Soviet ideological masters is the sense that intellectual and creative freedom are a threat to the absolute political power of the government. Today, just as in the nineteen-seventies and eighties, innovative and provocative art is seen as political disloyalty. And, just as it was then, an artist who is willing to make public demonstrations of political allegiance and to defame less coöperative peers stands to gain in career opportunities. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
