Okategoriserade Revolution: An Unpleasant Memory

Comment on Pussy Riot: Reflections on Receptions Pussy Riot awakened public memory to a recollection of an alternative history that […]

Published on balticworlds.com on December 20, 2012

Comment on Pussy Riot: Reflections on Receptions

Pussy Riot awakened public memory to a recollection of an alternative history that in the present-day commercial capitalist Russia is too embarrassing to remember:  the history of the 19^th and 20^th centuries under the sign of women’s terrorism. Commentators immediately associated their action with revolution, which in the present-day public vocabulary stands for unrestricted violence, chaos, political terror, and unending social disasters. This is a history no one in contemporary Russia openly and fully identifies with. During the Moscow protests following the rigged 2011-2012 parliamentary and presidential election – a series of events closest to what is nowadays understood by revolution either on the left or on the right – even its most outspoken participants were doing their best to distance themselves from mere talk about revolution. By making history return in the guise of a 30-second long music act in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Pussy Riot reminded Russia about its origins in terror – and were punished, among other things, for that, too.

Irina Sandomirskaja