Artists say Putin’s push for patriotism is killing Russian culture

The Bolshoi is hardly the only iconic Russian institution under pressure. The longtime directors of Moscow’s Tretyakov and Pushkin fine art museums were also replaced.

Musicians, actors and writers who oppose the war are being hounded into exile or driven underground — while artists remaining in Russia are compelled by the government to echo a new nationalist zeal in their work. Those who actively voice support for the war are rewarded with fame and fortune. Movies or music glorifying the army or upholding patriotic values receive hefty government subsidies.

A prominent theater critic said that a Soviet relic — the assignment of a curator from the KGB to control what gets onstage — has made a comeback, and major theaters now have minders from the FSB, the KGB’s main successor.

“Everyone has a curator,” the critic said. “We are fully returning to the 1930s era of control and censorship.”

A department within Russia’s Interior Ministry, known as Center E — named for its official task of countering extremism — plays a crucial role in the state’s control over the arts and often sends agents to sit among spectators at performances, according to musicians and directors.

For this article, The Washington Post interviewed more than a dozen writers and artists whose lives and work have been upended by the sweeping changes. Most who agreed to speak did so on the condition of anonymity because of the risk of retribution.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the state’s grip tightened, with tough laws barring any criticism of the war.

“The theaters themselves all of a sudden rushed to sign nonaggression pacts with the likes of the prosecutor general’s office, seeking immunity, staging plays for the soldiers and their kids,” said Nikita Betekhtin, a prominent Russian director who compiled a list of dozens of theaters that put the military’s Z symbol on their facades and playbills to cater to the authorities.

In 2022, the Yermolova Theater company in Moscow boasted on its website that it had signed an agreement “on mutual creative cooperation” with the Investigative Committee, Russia’s most powerful law enforcement body.

Betekhtin departed Russia in May 2022 after two of his plays were canceled; he now directs plays in Berlin. “Center E and FSB are incompatible with culture, but as they try to control it, we see all these Kafkaesque processes,” he said.

At the Bolshoi, home to the storied ballet company, the longtime director, Vladimir Urin, was replaced by Valery Gergiev, a Putin loyalist who also runs the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Urin had supported Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014 but signed a petition opposing the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Gergiev, by contrast, has long been an unequivocal supporter of Putin and had an engagement at La Scala in Milan cut short when he refused to condemn the war.

Standing with Putin at a Kremlin awards ceremony in May, Gergiev said that while the Bolshoi and Mariinsky perform Mozart and Verdi at times, their emphasis must be on Russian composers: Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Glinka and Tchaikovsky. “The power of these greatest creators — it is absolutely unstoppable, it has no barriers, it has no borders,” Gergiev said, echoing Putin’s expansionist rhetoric.

A few weeks after Tregulova left the Tretyakov, Marina Loshak, who headed the Pushkin Museum for a decade — and whose daughter and nephew are journalists designated as “foreign agents” — announced she was “moving on.” Other museum chiefs, such as Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, publicly support the war.

Theater director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk, who had criticized the war, were arrested in May 2023 for staging a play, “Finist, the Brave Falcon,” that prosecutors alleged “justifies terrorism.” They were convicted this month and each sentenced to six years in prison.

Also in spring 2023, arrest warrants were issued for a Ukrainian Oscar-nominated film producer, Alexander Rodnyansky, who had lived and worked in Russia for decades, and a prominent theater director, Ivan Vyrypaev. By then, Rodnyansky and Vyrypaev were out of Russia.

The Kremlin denied a request to interview Putin for this series. In a statement to The Post, the Culture Ministry confirmed that promoting patriotism is an official goal.

“Today culture is the most important resource for the socio-economic development of the entire country,” the ministry said. “Traditional values of our society are transmitted through the images in cinema, theater, music and other areas of creativity for Russian and foreign audiences. And one of the tasks of the Ministry of Culture is to create conditions for more and more works of art to appear in various genres and forms, which will favorably influence the worldview and life attitudes of the younger generation.”

The statement added: “The Ministry pays special attention to projects that emphasize spiritual, moral and patriotic values, as well as the cultural sovereignty of the peoples of Russia.”

In the country that birthed Leo Tolstoy, Anna Akhmatova and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, literature is gradually being cleaved apart.

Books by well-known authors such as Akunin — whose Erast Fandorin murder mysteries set in imperial Russia have sold nearly 40 million copies worldwide — have been banned, and others deemed too subversive have disappeared from stores.

In February, a Moscow court charged Akunin with “justifying terrorism” and “spreading false information about the Russian army” and ordered his arrest, though he was already in London.

Akunin described the charges as part of “a purge of the cultural sphere” and said that Russian artists and writers will now be split, as in Soviet times, between those who obey the Kremlin’s rules and those who “shut up or emigrate.”

“There will be the inside zone of controlled culture where censorship and self-censorship will rule,” he said, “and the outside free zone which would exist on the internet, though the latter will be eventually firewalled.”

For many writers, moral questions posed by the war have consumed their lives. Many have fled Russia. Some still in the country risk arrest by chronicling the trials of political prisoners or publishing diaries about the invasion, such as Natalya Klyuchareva’s “Diary of the End of the World.”

Other writers remaining in Russia have conformed and adapted. A few, such as nationalist poet Igor Karaulov, are now the faces of Z literature — which celebrates Russia’s military prowess.

Writers say Russia’s literary scene oddly has become more dynamic since the invasion, as the government infuses funds and seeks influence. “Paradoxically, there’s now more money, more projects, more events, more literary residencies than ever before, and so on,” said Dagestani author Alisa Ganieva, who writes in Russian.

Ganieva, 39, left Russia in March 2022 and has been rootless ever since, never staying in one city for more than a few months. She broke with her publisher of 12 years because they remained silent about the war, and she said she has found herself “in a kind of freeze.”

“I’m in limbo, between heaven and Earth, neither here nor there,” she said.

Ganieva is working on a new, untitled novel but doesn’t know if it will be published. “Given that the censorship screws never stop turning,” she said, “there is certainly no publisher for it in Russia now.”

Some of Russia’s most beloved singers — including legendary pop diva Alla Pugacheva, rock star Zemfira and singer-songwriter Monetochka — have also fled abroad with their families.

Many, not silenced, have found new, devoted audiences in Russian diaspora hubs such as Dubai and Bangkok.

“My audience has dramatically expanded both geographically and in size,” said Ivan Alekseev, known as Noize MC, one of Russia’s most famous rappers. “We have internet, so the geographical aspect doesn’t play such a significant role.” Alekseev now plays sold-out shows in Europe and the United States, and his songs have become unofficial anthems for antiwar Russians.

Filling the gap left by Noize MC and others, the platinum blonde, ultrapatriotic pop star Shaman has experienced a meteoric rise since the invasion and become a face of Russia’s wartime propaganda machine, reaching even North Korean singers who performed his hits during Putin’s recent visit there.

For two hours, grotesque scenes unfolded on the movie screen.

Ukrainian fighters worshiping portraits of Adolf Hitler while forcing a Jewish violinist to play the Luftwaffe’s anthem. Soldiers injecting heroin and dragging women away by their hair before raping them. A commander shooting a child five times in the back for speaking Russian.

The movie, “The Witness,” was Russia’s first full-length feature about the invasion of Ukraine. Presented last fall as based on real events, the film follows an ill-fated Belgian musician as he bears witness to Ukraine’s purported war crimes.

In Russia, unlike Hollywood, the state is the main patron of the arts. Most major film releases, including “The Witness,” are sponsored by the Culture Ministry and the Cinema Foundation. Official decrees outlining “priority topics” this year focused on films that promote traditional values. State funding is greater than ever — about $320 million last year.

Rodnyansky, who produced the 2014 Oscar-nominated film “Leviathan,” called the increase in funding “a way to buy loyalty” from filmmakers. “In turn, they keep silent,” he said. “The government wants the creative class to understand that they should be scared.”

In 2022, the Defense Ministry, at Putin’s request, set up a cinema foundation called Voenkino, headed by the defense minister, to “promote military-patriotic films and programs.”

Voenkino officials consulted on “The Witness,” mobilizing active-duty soldiers as extras and providing props experts to ensure accuracy, according to the foundation’s website. The foundation also produced a TV series about the “heroes of the special military operation,” which it said averaged 2.5 million viewers per episode.

At a screening of “The Witness” attended by a Post reporter, it was quickly evident that mandating movies suited to official sensibilities is easier than getting Russians to like them. Some spectators snickered at the script’s clunky lines. Four people walked out halfway through.

The film flopped, earning about $156,000 — one-tenth of its production cost, according to box office statistics. In contrast, the commercial adaptation of a Soviet cartoon, “Cheburashka,” grossed $78 million.

Still, “The Witness” resonated with some young people who packed a Moscow theater for the screening. “It was very moving,” said Anastasia, 33, a film producer who declined to give her last name because she was afraid of the potential repercussions.

One spectator who walked out was a young independent film producer who punctuated her dismay over the film with an expletive.

The young producer, who is not being identified because of the risks of criticizing the government, said opportunities for her and her circle of friends — budding filmmakers, producers and scriptwriters — have dwindled. Fledgling producers struggle to get entries accepted by international festivals. Financing is scarce. One remaining outlet, she said, is in fairy tales. “It’s the only way we can address the subjects that worry us,” she said.

The producer said that she, too, was afraid to speak with a journalist and asked not to be identified. “Self-censorship is one of the most terrifying parts of all this — this is why I wanted to talk to you, to break through this barrier,” she said. “I’m deeply depressed and I’m raging. I’m feeling angry and powerless and desperate.”

Artur Smolyaninov was completing his first record when the invasion started. After working successfully as an actor for two decades, he wanted to branch out to music.

Feeling compelled to speak up against the war and support Ukrainians, Smolyaninov recorded a cover of “Obiymy” (meaning “Hug Me,” with opening lyrics that say, “Some day will come/ The war will end”) by Okean Elzy, one of Ukraine’s biggest rock bands. Katerina Gordeeva, a friend and popular interviewer, invited Smolyaninov onto her YouTube show to discuss his stance. The two-hour conversation amassed 9 million views and ended Smolyaninov’s career in Russia.

One after the other, acting roles he was cast in vanished. At auditions, he was rejected repeatedly.

“Then one director whose film was supposed to receive funding from the Ministry of Culture at some point simply called me,” Smolyaninov said. “He was just in the minister’s office, and the minister showed him a paper — my name was already on some black or gray list of people who have been banned.”

A TV show he appeared in, already filmed and cut, was shelved after an official told the showrunner, who in turn informed Smolyaninov, that he could not appear on screens unless he renounced his antiwar stance. Radio stations refused to air his songs, he said, and concert venues declined to let him hold shows.

“I didn’t want to leave,” he said. “But when mobilization was announced, it was a trigger that made me realize this is going to go on for a long time, get worse, and that the only path here is toward prison.”

In addition to restricting financing to patriotic projects, the Russian government also develops blacklists that ban artists from performing live or appearing on TV, according to artists, talent agents and event promoters.

The blacklists are not published or set in stone. Banned artists who cow to state pressure can be removed, as Philipp Kirkorov, the recently disgraced king of Russian pop, discovered.

In February, Kirkorov gave an ad hoc concert in a drab hospital hall in Horlivka, an occupied city in eastern Ukraine, where video of the event showed he toned down his usual fashion choices — Swarovski crystals, feathers, sequins — in favor of an all-black outfit.

For Kirkorov and another pop star, Dima Bilan, who went on an identical tour of the front in June, the visits appeared to be more about saving their careers than supporting the troops. They were among many celebrities caught in a scandal over a raunchy party in December that war hawks denounced as inappropriate debauchery.

Putin publicly voiced outrage that Russian rapper Vacio had attended wearing only a sock over his genitals, and a vicious crackdown on party attendees followed.

Vacio, whose real name is Nikolai Vasiliev, was jailed for two weeks and given a military summons upon release. He quickly fled abroad. Kirkorov and Bilan were among 50 artists on a blacklist sent to producers and promoters, Russian media reported. Nine had upcoming shows canceled.

In its statement to The Post, the Culture Ministry did not respond to a question about blacklists. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, denied “any knowledge” of the lists. But a Russian music agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal, confirmed to The Post that venues and promoters receive logs of artists who are out of favor and that local authorities then take action to revoke show permits.

Kirkorov’s penance worked. Iced out for weeks after the raunchy party, in February he resumed public appearances in Russia, including on state TV, again dressed solemnly in all black.

Reporting by Francesca Ebel and Mary Ilyushina. Robyn Dixon and Natalia Abbakumova contributed to this report. Photography by Philip Cheung, Nanna Heitmann/Magnum Photos, Ksenia Ivanova and Cyril Zannettacci/Agence VU.

Editing by David M. Herszenhorn and Wendy Galietta. Additional editing by Vanessa Larson. Design and development by Yutao Chen and Anna Lefkowitz. Design editing by Christine Ashack. Photo editing by Olivier Laurent. Video editing by Zoeann Murphy. Graphics editing by Samuel Granados.

Additional support from Matt Clough and Jordan Melendrez.