I was reading Navalny’s new memoir “Patriot” while flying to New York to see the world premiere of Erika Sheffer’s “Vladimir,” directed by Daniel Sullivan for the Manhattan Theatre Club. Killed in a Siberian prison, Navalny defiantly speaks beyond the grave in this posthumously published book about his life bounded by Russian corruption, escalating press censorship and the cruel prison and legal systems. Based loosely on independent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya assassinated in 2006, “Vladimir” portrays the efforts of a few individuals who won’t be silenced amidst rising corruption, deceit, violence and press suppression in Putin’s Russia.
Both works appear just as the Washington Post suppressed an editorial board piece endorsing Kamala Harris. Two days earlier, political dissident and freed Russian political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza arrived in New York to receive the Pulitzer Prize for his articles published from Putin’s prison, in – you guessed it – the Washington Post. He dedicated the award to the journalists imprisoned in Russia.
As a theatre historian who has written about dissident theatre and performance in Russia and Belarus, I have been banned from Russia for my writing. I find the rise of censorship, self-censorship and performances of complicity in the United States very concerning. I watched as Putin’s regime overtook the information environment and increasingly suppressed independent press and artistic expressions. While I was in Yekaterinburg on a Fulbright in 2014, there was still a space for independent artistic and political expression in spite of increasing corruption and propaganda, territorial expansionist invasions, capitulation and the re-emergence of nationalist fervor played out through Victory Day parades and other events. A decade later, free expression has all but disappeared.
Performances of complicity often precede a full-scale authoritarian take-over of the press and other mechanisms of free expression. Sheffer’s play depicts this through the character Kostya (Norbert Leo Butz’s character in the production), an independent newspaper publisher who pre-emptively becomes a TV producer for a Russian State-supported station under advisement of his Kremlin-connected friend. In his memoir, Navalny wrote about similar historical figures who from through phases of liberalism to silent to full-throated supporters of Putin. “It seems incredible to believe that most of these people, who were at the wellspring of free speech in Russia,” he wrote, “did not just hold their tongues after giving into the temptation of easy money, but brought the same energy and initiative in their early days to bear as active propagandists…”
Had the Post made the decision to withdraw its tradition since 1976 of making an endorsement months earlier, it might have been less troubling. Making it in late October is almost too theatrical in its timing and impact. It’s not just complicity; it’s complicity likely meant to be seen as such, as a symbolic gesture that would garner attention. Inaction becomes action on a grand scale in an era when running a story or not running a story, using a certain inflammatory word or not shapes public discourse and decision-making in a democracy.
In Russia, state control of the media, arts and other information spaces didn’t happen overnight. Independent newspapers like Novaya Gazeta, which often published Politkovskaya’s investigative reports under the editorship of Dmitry Muratov, who won the Nobel Prize Peace Prize in 2021, tried to hold out even after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine led to a full-scale crack-down on independent media.
The Washington Post’s late-breaking non-endorsement erodes trust in our journalistic institutions, which certainly pleases some who have been charging legitimate media as fake news and journalists as “enemies of the people.” Misinformation fuels the erosion of this trust. The Post’s newly announced policy reinforces an autocratic desire to dismantle trust in the free press and other instruments of democracy. We must resist the threats that create a media environment that encourages further performances of complicity.
Such performances, meant to garner favor for a candidate who has demonstrated admiration for dictators, lead to further needs for show to remain in favor. Since the start of Vladimir Putin’s second presidency in 2012, increasingly extravagant Victory Day Parades, Kremlin organized flash mobs and show trials characterize the theatricalization of life under his regime. Highly choreographed and staged events drawing large numbers of complicit participants spread across social media to further create an illusion of reality of support for an autocratic state.
To be sure, our countries are very different, and American institutions supporting democracy may continue to prove resilient and secure. I certainly hope so. I love a good show, just not at the cost of democracy.
