The end of Putin’s belle epoque in Moscow: Dr Lola Kantor-Kazovsky on the state of art and culture in Russia

Translated by Eugenia Ellanskaya and Rachel South

Translator’s note: This is a translation of an original Russian text by Dr Lola Kantor-Kazovsky, a Senior Lecturer of Art History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The text offers a timely reflection on the current state of Russia’s arts and culture scene. As an independent cultural centre in London, we are committed to sharing our platform with a diverse range of voices, whether they are based in Russia or anywhere else in the world.

The closure of the "good theatres" in Moscow (I use the label “good” for everything identified with the free thinking public in opposition to the state, following the term "good Russians") is hopeless barbarism. I understand the state of shock that my Moscow friends feel, as if they have literally “lost their home”. For the rashisty [portmanteau of Russians and fascists], among them former intellectuals, the contrary is true: it’s like Christmas has come early. There is nothing more disgusting than this.

Nevertheless, to understand the meaning of any historical event you must not let emotions cloud your judgement. 

So let’s start with the conclusion – we’ll discuss its legitimacy later. 

If we look at it from a historical perspective, the event in question is the end of pre-war culture of the Putin era. One of its most significant features was a rich theatrical life, and the Gogol Centre (forgive the repetition) lay at its very centre.

For some, this conclusion will seem banal (well, yes, we already know that the war has begun); for others, not everything that has occurred under Putin deserves to be sullied by his name. This is “good” culture, they say, meaning that the culture which was fostered by the Gogol Centre was in opposition to the state. It was a “site of freedom”, a “breath of fresh air”.

And that’s how I feel, too. The habit of looking at things in this way emerged during Soviet times, when real culture was typically clandestine. The metaphor “a breath of fresh air” comes from there, and I am aware that “good” pre-war culture grew out of the underground and was fed by its ideas. But this culture was operating under Putin’s oligarchic and authoritarian state – and that means it was something else entirely.

Could theatre flourish only because of this atmosphere of freedom? To understand the cultural and artistic situation inside the state, and not from the outside or from somewhere in the underground, requires the method of “cultural criticism”. It’s no wonder that this type of criticism appeared in another pre-war period, just before the Second World War (a symbolic analogy for this very moment). Even then, intellectuals (among them Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Clement Greenberg) wrote that culture (in particular theatre and cinema) plays an ambiguous role in the state: as a producer of strong emotions, pleasure and social differences, art is an excellent tool for manipulating consciousness and can all too easily become the object of manipulation for authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.

The role of cultural criticism is to point out the co-operation between culture and the state – and it doesn’t have to be intentional. Cultural activity may sprout from neutral or even critical intentions (the Gogol Centre is a prime example of this), but the state will still be interested in it no matter what. Culture, for its part, always requires power and money; without this, its production is impossible in the modern industrialised world. For this reason, co-operation between culture and state (if it is not an openly radical avant-garde culture) is inevitable – and relentless critical work is needed, in the form of both cultural and institutional criticism, in order to not let it slip onto this path of malignant collaboration.

In pre-war Putin’s Russia, this co-operation was not explicitly malevolent, but it was part of the system and was not influenced by any kind of public criticism. The most prominent “good” theatres, good contemporary art and good festivals and events received financial support from the most powerful oligarchs (“pillars” of the Putin regime, who faced no repercussions for their support) as well as funding from the federal budget. In some cases, “good” culture appears to have received no less funding than “bad” culture. In a way, the regime and its supporters took an interest in developing the cultural and artistic worlds of the capitals, rightly considering them a central tenet of the kind of lifestyle they had tirelessly invested in.

If we can judge anything based on social media activity, then in the final pre-war years Moscow achieved new heights in the diversity and quality of its artistic activity. On Facebook, pride in Moscow’s world-class exhibitions and concerts was shouted from the rooftops. There were also those that sang praises of the high level of comfort found there, which is second to no other city in the world. Upon arrival from New York or Berlin, the enlightened Westernised Muscovites couldn’t resist boasting about their round-the-clock shops and food delivery, their advanced banking services, their beautiful urban environment back home. Such public displays of pride, their high self-esteem as a citizen of Putin’s Russia and a resident of Moscow, was actually the real objective of the state’s bottomless investments in urban development and services – investments that were simply out of budget for the mayors of, say, Tel Aviv or Berlin.

But let’s return to the top of the ladder of life satisfaction. Why should the state take an interest in the high-quality development of the creative and cultural spheres? The naïve answer to this question would posit that oligarchs and city authorities, thanks to the cultural institutions flourishing under their watch, have acquired good taste by osmosis; and because of this they founded (or rather, funded) museums and contemporary arts centres, attended performances by controversial directors, and so on. But if we look at this with a more discerning eye, if we look instead at what art gives the regime and its representatives on an institutional level (and not a personal one), then we will stumble upon a paradox marked by cultural criticism of different times. 

In spite of, and even because of, its critical intent, art gives stability to the regime. Yes, even art not engaged by a totalitarian state is affirmative, that is, it gives its consumer the feeling that “you can live” under any circumstances. It compensates him for the shortcomings of society, serving as a kind of sedative. In other words, if it does not call the elite public (the one that produces reflection) immediately and directly to the barricades, then this means that it calls them to the exact opposite: to sit and spend money in a nice café, talk and approve each other as participants in refined cultural consumption.

Furthermore, oppositional tendencies within the aesthetic field benefit the authorities, because so long as the members of a collaboration known as the cultural realm are busy displaying their values and tastes to each other, they stay away from hands-on politics, from exposing the oligarchic economy and from other deeds that can truly harm the regime. At most they will end up taking part in performative actions, that is, in peaceful protests and meetings organised by the more politicised core. Certainly, the closer it got to a state of war, the more the danger of radicalisation forced the authorities to shut down resources, to start gathering blackmailing material for one cultural activist or another or to even exert serious pressure, but then again even controversial producers don’t bite the hand that feeds them, the blood sister of the very hand that punishes (everything that was said in Cannes by Serebrennikov in Abramovich’s defence is a case in point). 

In other words, Putin’s pre-war arts and culture scene – like all pre-war lifestyle that flourished across the numerous perfectly constructed platforms which are so comprehensively outlined in Mikhail Yampolsky’s wonderful book Park of Culture – was a forum for a peculiar kind of alliance rather than a standoff between the society and authorities. Certainly, this alliance was a fragile game built on mutual manipulation. With the transition to the military period it was no longer required: the audience that once represented the brewing intellectual realm and which demanded depoliticisation – namely, distraction from direct political activism – has significantly shrunk, either as a result of repressions, emigration or of being pushed out of the country. At this stage, in accordance with the military situation, the authorities seem to think that society can now be presented with a different, blatantly propagandistic kind of art and culture. Some of the creators of this future content were recruited in advance from within the “good” cultural sphere, while other “bad” kinds of creators have read copious numbers of books and conjured up trendy but ludicrous cultural and ideological constructs back in pre-war times. It is these very constructs that will become the foundation of the encroaching indoctrination, with the help of well-financed stage productions and films. 

What is the significance of all this right now? Here are some lessons from the past. We shouldn’t have ever idealised culture and attributed an existential or especially messianic meaning to it. Neither should we do so now. It should be critiqued. Culture is not a realm of freedom by definition; it doesn’t bring it about in the same way it did with the Soviet underground. It creates illusions and empowers anyone who consumes it with a high self-esteem and a feeling of moral superiority. But this superiority is illusionary. By organising the party of lifetime at a premiere or an art preview or even by participating in it, we make no difference to bringing a better future forward. We gain creative satisfaction, impressions and pleasure, find food for thought and reflection, exchange our impressions in paid-for and unpaid reviews – all of this is very grand indeed. But in today’s world, even with the best intentions, art is deluded in its ability to change the world. 

Those who truly wanted to inflict change had to be professionally involved in social and political activity. The faintest ripples that have affected Russia in any way were not caused by Serebrennikov’s performances but by Navalny. 

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The other thing is that cultural critique never gained popularity in Russia. Culture was much more likely to be revered than criticised. But we finally find ourselves amidst a historical event which can only compare to the one out of which critique was born. Revisit Walter Benjamin, Marcuse, Adorno, Bourdieu and others with new eyes but, rather than reading it with “them” in mind, think of it as being about “us”. It is as if their message is bound to lead us to conclude that “good” art as a form of sophisticated experiences and entertainment is no longer possible. In truth, the audience of today seeks anodynes more than ever before, but it seems that a liberal patron and a responsible artist are both fleeing the scene for reasons of their own. A different kind of art which was described by these authors, like a political anti-war statement, will no doubt be banned. I don’t know what mechanism the new kind of underground will pick and this is truly the most important question.

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There is no denying that I had the guts to write this text as a result of mulling over a dilemma which I couldn’t solve and which many keyboards would have been demolished over in the past: could a voluntary closure of the theatre by its artistic director have been a noble gesture of solidarity with Ukraine? All pro and contra arguments can be found in the comments section of a post by the notorious troublemaker and sower of discord Gasan Guseinov. Seeing as I have no answer to this question and in the absence of an acceptable solution, I suggest that we think of it as what would have been a conscious and critical gesture by culture in relation to itself. 

Like Kharms [the avant-gardist Russian poet] I would like to say: the theatre is closing, we are all sick.