Let's talk about faith

by Pavel Rudnev

Moscow, 3. July 2014. Art and the government are in a state of war in today's Russia. The government doesn't know how to control the artists and the artists are incapable of communicating with the government, mostly because there are no proper channels for discourse between the two. The ideological censorship of the final years of perestroika gave way to the lawlessness of the 1990s, throwing the artistic marketplace into chaos. An economic censorship was introduced in the 2000s that will surely be remembered as a gift by theater-makers, being soft and more easily surmountable than aesthetical censorship. However, in the 2010s, it proved to be insufficient; the liberal attitude of the theaters as well as the social criticism of the avant-garde movement began to be perceived by the authorities as an attack on those in power. As a result, culture is now in the crosshairs. It is difficult to foresee where this process will lead us, but today it is important to answer one question: Is there such a thing as aesthetical political theater in Russia in our time?