Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist punk rock protest group based in Moscow. Founded in August 2011, it has a variable membership of approximately 11 women ranging in age from about 20 to 33 (as of 2012). The group has staged unauthorised provocative guerrilla performances in unusual public locations, which were edited into music videos and posted on the Internet. (More from Wikipedia)
Another all-woman rock band that has been in the news lately is the Russian feminist punk/protest rock band Pussy Riot. Along with the provocative name, the band features an ever-changing line-up of musicians and often performs in disguise. In February 2012, Pussy Riot staged a protest at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, which was aimed at the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church who was supporting Vladimir Putin in his bid to be re-elected President of Russia (the band regards Putin as a dictator). After church security officers ejected the bandmembers, Pussy Riot quickly created a music video of their performance entitled “Punk Prayer – Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!”.
In August 2012, the Russian government charged three of the bandmembers in Pussy Riot – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich – with “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”; that’s rich considering that Russia’s government was vehemently atheistic barely two decades ago. While Samutsevich was later freed on appeal, the other two women were sentenced in October 2012 to two years in prison.
Opposition to their unfair imprisonment became a cause célèbre of many Western celebrities plus musicians from every genre imaginable: Bryan Adams, Beastie Boys, the Black Keys, John Cale, Peter Gabriel, Green Day, Nina Hagen, Kathleen Hanna, Paul McCartney, Moby, Yoko Ono, Pet Shop Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Patti Smith, Sting, Pete Townshend, etc. Pussy Riot was featured on 60 Minutes as well.
For their part, the bandmembers in Pussy Riot that were not in prison distanced themselves from all of this attention and were quoted as saying: “We’re flattered, of course, that Madonna and Björk have offered to perform with us. But the only performances we’ll participate in are illegal ones. We refuse to perform as part of the capitalist system, at concerts where they sell tickets.”
A sweeping amnesty law that was passed in Russia in late December 2013 has ended their sentence. Although this law was derided as a publicity stunt in preparation for the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics, it seems to me that we could use some amnesty in this country also.
Say what you want, I think that the culture of independence and individualism that is fostered by immersion in the rock aesthetic – rock music, particularly hard rock had a notable increase in popularity in Russia in the late 1980’s – had as much to do with the fall of the Soviet Union as the posturing by President Ronald Reagan at the Berlin Wall. The influence of music and musicians also hastened the fall of Czechoslovakia from the Iron Curtain ranks in what was known as the Velvet Revolution.
(December 2013)
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Items: Pussy Riot
