Pussy Riot documentary

Sun Dec 29 01:37:32 UTC 2013

Could you, please, send the original, since I am curious which
Serebrennikov's words you translated as fucked, fuckoff, etc. 

Also,
out of curiosity - why didn't the organizers choose a different venue?
Why didn't they rent a privately-owned restaurant, concert hall, or
movie theater, instead of a state-sponsored theater? Surely, they could
have even built a marquee somewhere to hold this important event. 

On
Sun, 29 Dec 2013 00:16:00 +0000, Sarah Hurst wrote: 

> Here's my
translation of a reply from the artistic director of the Gogol Theatre:

> 
> Kirill Serebrennikov
> 5 hours ago near Moscow, Russia
> Even
recently in all my interviews I asserted like a mantra: "There's no
censorship in the theatre, there's no censorship in the theatre, in the
theatre there's no..." That's it, we're fucked, there's censorship in
the theatre! Cynical, pointless and idiotic. 
> Now any freedom, any
desire to find sense, any desire to express oneself - it's all stuck in
the impenetrable gloom and hassle which has arrived, filled all the
space around us and controls us. We thought that somewhere - in the
theatre, in the "trendy" cafes, at home, or at the computer - there was
still a little free air. It's like climbing on top of a wardrobe in a
flood and looking for salvation under the ceiling, where there's still
some air. That's it! We're fucked! There's no air! The "overwhelming
majority" got the air. It - this majority - orders a government for
itself, and the government orders the music to amuse and delight this
majority. 
> They've banned us from holding the premiere of the film
"Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer" and a meeting with Nadia Tolokonnikova and
Masha Alyokhina. Maxim Pozdorovkin had flown in specially from New York.
All the work of Irina Prokhorova, who was supposed to host the
conversation, has been cancelled. After a whole day of tense
negotiations a banning document arrived from the department of culture
at my request, which signifies one thing: censorship in action. That's
it, it's over! Who could be so afraid of a peaceful conversation between
a few hundred audience members at the Gogol Centre and some young women
who have been amnestied? Who could be so afraid of the premiere of a
film that has received a pile of prizes and that can't tell us anything
new either about the government or about ourselves, as it was made
rather a long time ago? I don't get it...
> The premiere and the
conversation won't happen. 
> At the Moscow Art Theatre they'd only just
finished the prosecutor's checks on my play The Pillowman, when a whole
series of letters and appeals appeared from "outraged and offended"
citizens about Kostya Bogomolov's play. They demand Tabakov's
resignation. They demand "a lawsuit", "a ban", "a closure"... And it's
clear that this isn't just an increase in seasonal schizophrenia - this
is very real religious censorship. We're fucked! Welcome! We've made it!
Now the fanatics will tell us how to put on plays, what we can do and
say on stage, and what we can't. Everyone knows what's happening at the
Moscow Art Theatre, everyone reads the news. And where are all our
professional societies? Why are you silent? Did you piss yourselves?
Well done! Next time they'll come for you. 
> And finally - an ethical
Charter for the "fuckoff" of cinematographers - who have concluded an
accord by this fucking symphony. Censorship that they're trying to bring
in not by the hands of bureaucrats, not by the clergy, but now by the
hands of our colleagues themselves - the most adroit and nimble students
of "the Dragon". This is what's the most disgusting and odious. Yes, a
weak person, but it's possible even for this weak person just to go
around it, it's possible to try "not to be, not to participate, not to
do it", but it's possible to happily kick down a comrade, help him to
fall, make sure he doesn't get up, and at the same time be happy at the
"elimination of a rival". You're living right, friends! It'll all work
out for you. 
> To sum up, it's a shame that we've had to cancel the
event. For me it's unbelievably repulsive and foul. I never thought
that, to speak in the words of the classics, "I'd fall into such fucking
crap". I call on all people for whom the concepts of honesty and freedom
are alive, for whom the worth and right of an artist to create speak
freely are important, to rally round and oppose the coming Gloom. In
word, in action, in art, whatever you can do. 
> And I hope that when
this shameful bullshit ends, we, remembering all this, will laugh at
ourselves, and will write the truth about this petty little period. If
"the overwhelming majority" doesn't cancel us, the truth and everything
else before then. But experienced people tell me that because of our
cowardice and laziness this "bullshit" will never end.
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--

Galina S. Rylkova
Associate Professor of Russian
Languages,
Literatures, and Cultures
256 Dauer Hall
University of
Florida
Gainesville, FL
32611
USA
grylkova at ufl.edu
http://www.languages.ufl.edu/russian

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