February 23, Defender of the Fatherland Day (formerly Soviet Army Day), is a military holiday celebrated across Russia, from kindergartens to the State Kremlin Palace. This year, the day before, it was announced that Russia “recognizes” two regions of Ukraine as its territories. The next day, the Russian army invaded Ukraine. The cultural scene’s Facebook channels exploded.
The first reaction is shock, pain and shame; many have friends and relatives in Ukraine. And it is perfectly clear that these events mean “civilian death” in all spheres (arts, education, economy) for every individual labeled as “Russian”. Anti-war posts here and there become open letters and petitions. Critics, directors, actors, artists and curators sign dozens of them. The first actions will soon follow.
Elena Kowalskaja, who has been the artistic director of the Meyerhold Theater Center since 2013, announces her resignation. Kovalskaya was born in Kerch, Ukraine, has lived and worked in Moscow since the early 1990s, is a theater critic and co-founder and director of the Lyubimovka New Writing Festival. In her farewell letter she writes: “The Meyerhold Theater Center is a state theater and I will not work for the state of the criminal Putin … I will complete my projects where I have personal obligations as an independent curator.” She also invites them to do so invite you to see the recent premiere at the Meyerhold Center – the story of Carola Neher, a German actress who fell victim to repressions in the USSR in the 1930s (the performance was realized with the support of Memorial, now funded by the Russian government referred to as a “foreign agent”). Insiders report that Elena is being pressured by Moscow’s culture department and is now receiving hate mail from the pro-war side.
Sasha Denisova was born in Kyiv and has lived and worked in Moscow since the mid-2000s. The prolific playwright and director, who works with some major state institutions (her recent productions premiered at the Theater of Nations in Moscow and the Bolshoi Theater in St. Petersburg), shares the nightmare unfolding in Kyiv on her Facebook page goes where her mother lives.
Dmitry Volkostrelov, founder of the independent Teatr Post in St. Petersburg and deputy director of the Meyerhold Theater Center, arrives at work on March 1 to find that he has been fired “without reason” at the behest of Moscow’s culture department. He supported Elena Kovalskaya. In St. Petersburg he had a play entitled The white ribbons staged – in Russia a sign of protest.
The signers? “Traitor!”
Zhenya Berkovich, 35, freelance theater director, interpreter, playwright and feminist activist, walks alone on February 24 on Pushkin Square in Moscow with a protest sign (“Stop the war”). She is arrested immediately and spends a night in prison.
Mindaugas Karbauskis, 50, a Lithuanian-born theater director who has lived and worked in Moscow since the late 1990s, announces his resignation; since 2011 he has held a senior post as artistic director of the Mayakovsky Theater in Moscow and has been recognized for his professionalism.
Rimas Tuminas, 70, the executive director of the Vakhtangov State Academic Theater in Moscow (one of the five federal theaters in Russia that receives 540 million rubles a year from the state budget), has been suspended from his post at a theater in Lithuania. Lithuanian Minister of Culture Simonas Kairys called on the administration of the Maly Theater in Vilnius to sack Tuminas due to the recent events. Tuminas reacted calmly and showed understanding. The Vakhtangov Theater recently hosted a five-hour production of war and peace performed by Leo Tolstoy, a production of the highest quality – and a bitter reflection on the current situation. Its protagonists are Russian émigrés in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, and the original’s Napoleon is outdone by another 20th-century “superman”.
The major state theaters are under the control of both the Ministry of Culture and the Moscow Department of Culture. Their leaders do not have the right to speak openly, lest they lose their jobs, grants and even their freedom – the prosecution of Kirill Serebrennikov two years ago was staged as a lesson for the others. It may seem like a drop in the bucket, but it’s still a gesture of protest that they’ve placed a dove on their logos on Instagram and their websites.
The magazine theater meanwhile publishes an open letter from directors and actors initiated on Facebook by Maria Revyakina, director of the Golden Mask festival, which honors the most important Russian theater productions. The letter is signed by many prominent figures – General Director of the Bolshoi Theater Vladimir Urin, conductor Vladimir Spivakov, actors Alisa Freindlich, Oleg Basilashvili and Yevgeny Mironov, and director Andrey Mogutchi. Some of the signatories are known as Putin’s “faces of trust” – that is, renowned artists who can sometimes approach him directly with concerns. State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin called the signatories “traitors” in the press and suggested denying them the money they receive from the state budget. In the of theater published letter states:
“An open appeal from artistic directors and directors of leading Russian theaters, well-known Russian cultural figures: We are now acting not just as cultural figures, but as ordinary people, as citizens of our country, our fatherland. Among us are the children and grandchildren of those men and women who fought in World War II, who witnessed and participated in the war firsthand.
The genetic memory of war lives on in each of us. We don’t want a new war, we don’t want people to lose their lives. The 20th century has already brought too much heartache and suffering to mankind. We want to believe that the 21st century can be the century of hope, sincerity and dialogue, the century of love, compassion and mercy.
We appeal to all decision-makers, to all parties to the conflict, to stop military action and sit down at the negotiating table. We call to protect human life, which is of the highest value.”
The magazine also publishes an online Time.news of events entitled “Theater at War” – a harrowing account of international cultural projects that are now being canceled overnight and the Russian cultural scene trying to adapt to the to oppose state policies. The Petersburgh Theater Magazin decides to go offline and opens the doors of its editorial offices (a basement in central St. Petersburg) to theater people and students looking for like-minded people, while theater school rectors have to sign a letter of support for the government.
Russian Shakespeare scholars, led by Alexey Bartoshevich, also publish a letter of protest. And the Russian section of the Union of Theater Critics wrote a letter to the Ukrainian section of the International Society of Theater Critics:
“Dear colleagues and friends, we are appalled by the military aggression our government is waging against the Ukrainian people. We feel ashamed and helpless because we cannot stop this aggression. However, we try to express our protest by any means at our disposal – through rallies and signing petitions against the war. Take care of yourselves! May the theater always remain a space of freedom and humanity!”
Also in St. Petersburg, the independent theater project Les (Eng. “Forest”), an initiative of the freelance director Boris Pavlovich, who is known for his social projects and the idea of ”horizontal theater”, is planning a reading for March 1st , dedicated to the current situation:
“We want to talk about the times we live in and the events we are witnessing. Let’s try to find words for it – and stay in touch. We create a space where free thoughts can be expressed and we invite everyone who is interested.”
On February 27, an independent theater from St. Petersburg is showing The Golden Mask 2022 as part of the festival The Tale of the Golden Rooster – a symbolic coincidence, because the fairy tale itself is about the inevitable punishment of the despotic tsar who instigated many wars. During the final applause, the director of the production, Maxim Isaev (known for his work with the group AKHE), shouts from the stage: “Stop the war! Bring Putin before a tribunal!”
The next day, the production is scheduled to go on for a second time, but when the team arrives at the venue, a man appears and tells everyone to leave. The performance is cancelled. Now this independent theater is in serious danger of losing the premises in St. Petersburg that it has rented.
Without pity, without excuse
On February 23, the author of this article watched a production by Konstantin Bogomolov at the chic and trendy Theater of Nations: Alexander Ostrovsky Even the smartest do stupid things. The traditional 19th-century play was deconstructed, rewritten, and set in present-day Russia. Ostrowski at the time mildly poked fun at 1860s society; Bogomolov turned it into a bitter, almost nauseating, Sorokin-style satire. The top officials are perverted and corrupt, the “intelligenzia” is lazy and weak and only dreams of enriching itself and scooping up the crumbs from the table. In a fragment he shows a famous conductor and a director (this role is played by himself – without pity, without excuse) who bow to the “man from Lubyanka” and invite him to see their work.
But the final scene was most impressive: In the year 2025 (as the sign reads), a government official visits his former lover in the penal colony and brings him home-made food from his mother in Kyiv. “How did you end up in Ukraine?” asks the moved prisoner. “There is no Ukraine anymore,” is the reply, “it’s all Russia now, except Lviv – we gave that to Poland.” The text was written as a “fantasy” piece to avoid the dramatic distortion in people’s minds show that seized power and money in Russia – premiered on October 10, 2021. It became reality on February 23, 2022. The audience that night was stunned. Except for a few fits of hysterical laughter, there was dead silence.