The State and Fear
Putin, the Church, and the Art of Artless Art
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Russia’s physical state is changing. During the winter, the world gazed on Moscow. Anarchists and monarchists, usually apolitical citizens and democrats had taken to the streets. The power cartel around Vladimir Putin was shocked for a terrifying second. The president-elect’s tears had barely dried before the Kremlin was on the counter-attack. Since then, soldiers from the Ministry of the Interior’s Mobile Unit for Special Purposes and compliant courts, with spiritual and moral support from the church, have been tutoring the contrarians in fear. Patriarch Kirill praises Putin as a “miracle of God”. It is no wonder that, in this climate, Pussy Riot could expose the nature of Putin’s state with a punk prayer utterly void of talent.
(Osteuropa 6-8/2012, pp. 209–218)