As the Russian news site Gazeta.ru reports, the all-female punk protest band Pussy Riot released a new video on Thursday in which they thanked fellow-musicians for their support and burned a huge image of Vladimir Putin.
Three members of the group - Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23; Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30; and Maria Alyokhina, 24 - were sentenced to two-year prison terms last month for an anti-Putin performance in a Moscow cathedral in February, on the eve of the presidential election that returned Mr. Putin to o ffice. A Russian newspaper published an interview with the three jailed members of the group on Friday, in which they denied that their supporters were behind a wave of attacks on symbols of Orthodox Christianity since the verdict.
Ms. Tolokonnikova's husband, Pyotr Verzilov, told Gazeta.ru that the new video was produced by members of the group of about 20 activists who did not take part in the stunt that led to the prosecution of their bandmates, but did play in the group's new single, “Putin Lights the Fires of Revolution†- which was released in a Moscow courtroom last month just as the judge found the three women guilty of “hooliganism†intended to incite religious hatred.
Mr. Verzilov added that the video message, which is in English, was produced in response to a request from MTV for use during its annual Music Video Awards in Los Angeles on Thursday. At the start of the clip, women wearing the band's trademark balacl avas scale the side of a building adorned with a huge Pussy Riot banner and large photographs of Vladimir Putin and his ally, Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian president of Belarus. They then thank Madonna, Bjork, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Green Day for speaking out on their behalf, before lighting the Russian president's image on fire. At the end of the clip they say: “The fight for freedom is an endless battle that is bigger than life!â€
Novya Gazeta, the independent Moscow newspaper that once published the investigative reports of the late Anna Politkovskaya, reported on Friday that the three jailed members of the group had rejected the suggestion that their supporters were responsible for a recent spate of attacks on Orthodox crucifixes across Russia, which has been heavily publicized by state-run media outlets.
In their handwritten responses to questions posed by Novya Gazeta, the three women took issue with a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Chu rch, Archpriest Dmitri Smirnov, who claimed last month that their protest song in the cathedral was a signal to begin attacks on the Church - likening it to a shot fired by a Russian battleship, the Aurora, in 1917, as a signal for the storming of the Winter Palace at the start of the October Revolution.
They also accused the state of an intentional “campaign to portray them as anti-religious activists, to fan the flames of culture war and so blunt the political meaning of the song they performed in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior - an obscenity-laced plea for the Virgin Mary to free Russia from Mr. Putin's grip.
As The Lede reported last week, a group of Orthodox Christian activists has carried out a series of revenge attacks on Pussy Riot supporters in Moscow recently. Last weekend, a message posted on the band's @pussy_riot Twitter feed puckishly suggested that the jailed women were ready to repent their sins against the Church on one condition: that Vladimir Putin repent and imprison himself in a monastery first.
Заключенные учаÑтницы Pussy Riot готовы покаÑÑ‚ÑŒÑÑ Ñ‚Ð¾Ð»ÑŒÐºÐ¾ в одной Ñитуации â€" еÑли Ñперва покаетÑÑ Ð¸ заточит ÑÐµÐ±Ñ Ð² монаÑтырь Ð'ладимир Путин.
- группа Pussy Riot (@pussy_riot) 1 Sep 12
Here is an English translation of the complete Novaya Gazeta interview:
Q. Archpriest Dmitri Smirnov says that “Pussy Riot's stunt was like the attack volley of the Aurora, like a signal to attack the Church - and after their protest the attack commenced.†Do you agree with this statement?
Yekaterina Samutsevich: No, I do not agree. Archpriest Smirnov is highly disingenuous when he says that our protest was “a signal to attack the church.†Perhaps he expects that the target audience of his statements will not and cannot read anything that we say about our performance in the Christ the Savior Cathedral and our motivations. If the archpriest himself could hear, for example, our closing statements in court, he would be forced to admit that, unlike us, he is an active inciter of religious hatred, by way of propagating a biased distortion of the meaning of our performance in the catherdal. If we, by way of our actions in the cathedral, were giving a volley like the Aurora, it was a volley of attack against the uncivil politics of authoritarian powers, of which Putin and his friend Patriarch Kirill have become symbols - the latter who used his status as a holy man for wholly unholy purposes. And it would be wonderful if this attack really began.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova: “The hatred and religious hostility of the defendants was revealed during the trial, as seen by their reactions, emotions and remarks,†that is what's written in the verdict. But this is not a verdict, it is a school ess ay on a free theme. Where are the specific reaction and remarks? You don't have them? Well, that means you have no proof. The sentence is invalid and illegitimate. People feel the truth. And there are many of those who understood that the truth is on our side.
Maria Alyokhina: Obviously, the statements of D. Smirnov are a provocation and incitement of hatred against us and our supporters. This is cowardly and deceitful. We never called to attack the church. Listen to us, our language, our words, and do not corrupt their meaning!
Q. Many people believe that the sawing of crosses is to support Pussy Riot and simultaneously protest against the church. Thеse are the actions of the people [tough to translate], and occur spontaneously in waves. Gleb Pavlovsky [a political scientist] believes that the sawing of crosses was invented in Kremlin offices as a way of riling up Russians. Your opinion?
Yekaterina Samutsevich: I do not know who “invented†this form o f protest, but it was certainly not our supporters; we have never called for and will not call for such actions. We are against any physical destruction of cultural objects and symbols, including the symbols of the Orthodox religion. “Sawing of crosses†may be a continuation of the campaign to highlight the religious component of our case, which was originally hastily invented by the authorities to have at least something to cover up the politically repressive nature of both our case, and now our verdict.
Maria Alyokhina: The authorities are trying to make us scapegoats, at any cost necessary. Their goal is to gather all that is negative in media spotlight and identify it with Pussy Riot - banal mudslinging by way of cheap stories on the [main state-owned] TV channel Russia-1. This was done not to antagonize the Russians. This is done to prevent the unification of civil society, to prevent it by any means available - even the most distasteful. Only petrified power can lie so blatantly (Putin, to speak correctly, is frightened, and more than that - he's terrified; Pussy Riot was supported by the whole world).
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova: We need to take over state TV for a day (even better, a week), and broadcast the true position of Pussy Riot to the people of Russia (which, remember, is not only of Putin and Patriarch), as well as our political views and suggestions. When the people (who are now being held hostage by Putin-TV) discover the truth, the most traumatic thing of all will happen with the regime - it will lose the support of the people who are currently hypnotized by the magic of state media.
Q. After the announcement of your verdict, graffiti in support of Pussy Riot began appearing on the walls of some churches. Orthodox guards have even been formed to defend churches (their creation was supported by Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin). Memos on how to counter heresy have been circulated, where, in particular, it is writt en that “the shedding of blood in the church and the inside the church fence should be avoided, but in the event of an insult of God's temple from outside the fence of the church, you should give a fitting rebuff to their deeds.†What is your attitude to these protest in your support and what you think of this reaction by the Church and organizations close to it?
Yekaterina Samutsevich: I have not seen the graffiti, I can not comment on it; we end up with only a very small amount of information “from the street.†The reaction of the Church, or rather, the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which, most likely, is the initiator of these memos, is to be expected in our situation. It is necessary for them to depict the situation as endless attacks on religion and the Church as an institution that defends religious freedoms. It looks like they are trying to divert public attention from the problems raised by our performance in the cathedral, namely the merger of elite of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and the elite of the Putin regime. But the error of such a strategy is that our criminal case has managed to touch upon a far wider range of issues than the ones it was originally intended to. For example, issues such as the monopoly of the state in federal media, which creates the distortion of political events in the country, the issue of the judicial system, the problem of the cultural policy of our country, which leads to a low level of critical thinking among our population, and the problem of an ineffective penal system with its degrading conditions of detention. News reports of felled crosses cannot cover all their problems. And it is here that the Russian Orthodox Church faces an impossible task.
Maria Alyokhina: We believe that the church buildings are our architectural and historical heritage. It's not worth writing on their walls. There are so many other places where you can speak for our freedom. Our protest is political, we are not enemies of the church - it is important to understand this. Creating Orthodox guards and the words of V. Chaplin is undoubtedly inadequate political posturing. We come in peace and await peace, and hope for the same kind of peaceful, creative support.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova: On balaclavas. The miserable Russian system, which only knows how to ban, managed to sit in a puddle even here by banning the wearing of balaclavas. They accepted that balaclavas pose a danger to them. It's flattering.
Q. Many people genuinely want to support you. How should they do it?
Yekaterina Samutsevich: Support should be primarily peaceful. For example, we go crazy for creative forms of expression such as contemporary music and media art, they seem to us far more interesting than chauvinistic ways of expression.
Maria Alyokhina: The most important thing that we are waiting and hoping for is an association. An association of civil society groups fighting for their rights. I know it does not sound new, but in a country with a dying power structure that continually spreads violence and lawlessness, anybody could be in our place. We need to remember this and defend our freedom together. Our trial showed the world the face of the judicial system and the current government, which is afraid of truth and smiles. I think only in this way - with truth and smiles - can we get rid of it, and I hope that when we come out of prison, we will step into a different Russia.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova: Actually, we are already free, because they cannot take away our mental ability to laugh. My daughter Gera knows that Putin put her mother in a cage. The only thing she cannot understand is why I have not been able to escape. Gera sends me detailed plans.
The band's latest song, “Putin Lights the Fires of Revolution,†can be heard at the end of a discussion of the ongoing Pussy Riot sag a on WNYC's Soundcheck, recorded on Thursday.
Ilya Mouzykantskii reported from Moscow, and prepared the English translation of the Novaya Gazeta interview; Robert Mackey reported from New York.
Ilya Mouzykantskii is a freelance journalist and a New York Times intern in Moscow. Follow him on Twitter @ilyamuz.
