Tag Archives: Russia

Russia: Theatre Director Zhenya Berkovich and Playwright Svetlana Petriychuk Arrested

A Moscow court has ruled on Friday, May 5th, that both artists must remain in custody until at least 4 July. Both are accused of “justifying terrorism” in their play “Finist, the Brave Falcon”, an ironic play about Russian women recruited by the Islamic State that Berkovich’s independent theater company, SOSO Daughters, produced. “Finist” premiered in 2020 and was awarded Best Text at the most important Russian theatre festival Golden Mask 2022. Authorities also detained the company’s director, Alexander Andriyevich.  The court thus complied with a request by investigators, as the state agency Tass reported. Authorities raided  the homes of Berkovich’s mother Jelena Efross and her 88-year-old grandmother, the writer Nina Katerli in St. Petersburg the same day. 

The 38-year-old Berkovich is one of the few outstanding theatre directors of her generation who did not go into exile after 24 February 2022 and, despite everything, tried to continue making contemporary theatre in the warring homeland. She studied directing under Kirill Serebrennikov at the Moscow Art Theater School and writes poetry. Berkovich is also known as a translator and librettist. 

The author of “Finist, the Brave Falcon”, Svetlana Petriychuk, studied international journalism and filmmaking in Los Angeles and theater in Moscow under the renowned directors Kama Ginkas and Mikhail Ugarov. Her socially critical plays regularly appear on the shortlists of drama contests and festivals and on the playbills of leading theatres in Russia.

The charge is punishable by up to seven years in prison. 

Novaya Gazeta published a petition (Google Docs, Russian) supporting the two women and calling for their immediate release. The petition has already more than 12,000 signatures. 

Sources: Meduza,  Novaya Gazeta EuropeThe Moscow Times,  

Yulia Tsvetkova Acquitted

The trial against Yulia Tsvetkova was held behind closed doors mid of July. The 29 years old feminist and LGBT activist was facing a maximum of six years in prison and has been acquitted of controversial “pornography” charges (see ACAR’s previous posts 1, 2, 3).  Tsvetkova’s case drew international attention after she was placed under house arrest in 2019 . Amnesty International declared her a prisoner of conscience and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam acquired her works. In June, Tsvetkova was added to the Russian justice ministry’s list of “foreign agents.”

“With regard to the future of the drawings, the court has clearly expressed its findings that the original position and context in which these drawings were included do not allow them to be considered pornographic,” he said. This is important not only for Yulia, but also for the entire artistic, museum, and academic community, which, in the event of a guilty verdict (and given the possibility of an appeal, this risk still remains) may be forced to put underwear on ancient sculptures.” (Aleksandr Pikhovkin, Yulia Tsvetkova’s lawyer)

Sources: The Art NewspaperBBC News, The Moscow Times

Sasha Skochilenko jailed for protesting against the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Алексей Белозёров, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons 

Alexandra (Shasha) Skochilenko, is a russian artist and musician.
She replaced price tags at supermarkets in St Petersburg with news reports about bombings in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. On April 11 she had been detained and accused of carrying out serious actions against public safety and spreading fake news about the Russian military. Her case had been reclassified from a  criminal case to a more severe one of the same article, entailing from 5 to 10 years in prison. The investigation has extended Sasha’s pre-trial detention several times, now until July 1st.

The telegram group for support is: https://t.me/skochilenko_sud.  

 

Sources: severreal.org, telegra.ph, Human Rights online , The Art Newspaper

StayOnStage – Platform for Work or Performance Opportunities in Exile

ITI Germany and the German Theatre and Orchestra Association have launched an online platform with pop up offers of support for refugees from the war in Ukraine. City and state theatres from Germany, Austria and Switzerland are offering theatre jobs, rehearsal rooms, residencies and guest performance opportunities. The offer details are in English, the site is in Englisch, Ukrainian and Russian. The offers are searchable and sortable by category and can be shared directly via social media channels and eMail.

stayonstage.iti-germany.de

Russian Magazine TEATR. Suspended

The Russian Association of Theater Critics (ATK) addressed the Union of Theater Workers of Russia and personally Alexander Kalyagin with a letter in support of the TEATR. magazine, whose activities were suspended for an indefinit period. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, TEATR. had kept (up to and including March 3, 2022) an online chronicle listing effects and reactions to the war in culture. Editor in Chief Marina Davydova already left Russia almost five weeks ago after publishing via Facebook an TEATR. online a statement  against the Russian invasion of the Ukraine:  “We consider Ukraine an independent and autonomous country, …We do not want Russia to become a rogue state. We want the bloodshed to stop immediately.”
ATK reminds that “Magazine TEATR. is one of the very few specialized journals left in the country where there is still room for professional criticism and academic theater studies…The journal invites, in addition to theater critics, prominent scientists, thinkers and publicists to cooperate, and thus enters the theater into a wider circle of humanitarian thought, and articles not only about Russian, but also about foreign events and personalities create an important field of international context.”

Sources: TEATR online, March 29; nachtkritik.de March 30