You must register by 5pm on November 18, 2024 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Harriman Institute for a lecture by Sergey Konaev. Moderated by Lynn Garafola.
In his talk, Dr. Konaev considers the shift in Russia’s cultural politics in 2008-2012 from a pro-European, liberal position supportive of contemporary art to its obscurantist opposite–part of Putin’s survival strategy after the 2011 Bolotnaya protests and especially after the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity in 2014. Indeed, it was just after the annexation of Crimea that the Kremlin introduced “Fundamentals of State Cultural Policy” and determined to build it on the statement “Russia is not Europe.” To facilitate implementation of the new state values (isolationism, militarism, antifeminism, and homophobia), Putin cultural officials started replacing the post-Soviet conception of state funding as an unconditional obligation of the state and reparation for the damage caused in Soviet times with the idea that all funding implies loyalty, thereby making funding a tool used to threaten those perceived as disloyal with imprisonment.
Nevertheless, the decade 2012-22 was marked by intense experimentation with forms, genres, and techniques in Russian ballet, contemporary dance, and opera; rethinking the notion of theatre and the role of the audience; the conceptualization, decentralization, and introduction of performative and site-specific practices; implementing and expanding inclusivity; and resisting official attempts to impose new state values on the theater community or devalue the professional standing of groups like the Golden Mask National Theatre Award. Dr Konaev analyzes the most significant trends and achievements of this period, as well as the forces of resistance, which the Putin state never underestimated and ultimately treated as an existential threat equating artists with radical terrorists.
Dr. Sergey Konaev received his PhD in 2005 from the Institute of Art Research in Moscow. In 2015 he published a book on Swan Lake based on new archival discoveries that was covered by the New York Times. He taught a course at Princeton University in 2020 and has received fellowships from the Houghton Library/Harvard University, New York Public Library, and Harry Ransom Center. Dr. Konaev worked as an archivist at the Bolshoi Theatre Music Archive from 2008-22. At the same time he remained in contact with contemporary theater trends both as a critic and, from 2016-21, as an expert advisor to the Golden Mask Performing Arts Festival and Award. In this capacity he represented the Russian Association of Theater Critics, an organization founded in 2015 in response to Putin’s oppressive state cultural politics.
