cullinane
2nd December 2001, 15:33
MOSCOW -- The arrival of market forces in post-Soviet Russia has brought
the same stark inequalities in the world of culture as it has to the
rest of society, with some arts floundering in the new sink-or-swim
realities of open markets.
In areas where Russia has traditionally been strong, such as music and
theatre, performers are continuing to thrive and in some cases rival any
on the world stage, whereas the change from a command to a market
economy has proved a disaster for the film industry.
The decade that has passed since the demise of the Soviet Union has been
cruel to Russian cinema, with the near-total collapse of the
distribution network and a slump in production from more than 150 films
a year to barely 30 at present.
A generation of filmmakers has been reduced to scraping a living, with
only a handful of established names such as Nikita Mikhalkov, Pavel
Lunghin and Alexander Sokurov able to keep working regularly, usually
with foreign backing.
Television has been largely a quality-free zone, favouring imported
Brazilian tele-novelas and western-style variety and game shows over
original production. This autumn bemused viewers were introduced to the
pleasures of voyeurism with "Za Steklom" (Behind the Glass), a Russian
version of the "Big Brother" format.
The loss of state patronage has hit the Bolshoi Theatre hard, and
freedom to travel abroad has allowed many of its stars to succumb to the
temptation of better wages elsewhere.
Russia's reputation as a nation of readers, cultivated during the Soviet
era by massive print runs, has taken a knock with the collapse of the
book distribution system, and publishers now regard sales of 5,000 for
any serious title to be a huge success.
Western literary works of the past 40 years are at last appearing in
Russian translation but are reaching only specialist readerships while
the biggest sales are reserved for thriller-writers such as Alexandra
Marinina or Boris Akunin and the producers of pulp fiction specialising
in violence and sex.
New works by once-revered writers like Alexander Solzhenitsyn gather
dust rather than plaudits.
The loss of seriousness has been such that writer and television
satirist Viktor Shenderovich was moved to comment that Russians are
"like 14-year-olds with mature bodies but without the mental capacities
to work out what is allowable and what is not."
Many cultural critics believe the shackles of the Soviet era were thrown
off too quickly, and some have said they would not be averse to a return
to some form of censorship.
For sociologist Yury Levada, though the urban middle classes have
adopted lifestyles similar to those of their counterparts in New York,
Paris or Berlin, the graft of western culture onto traditional Russian
attitudes has yet to take.
And as for the under-20s, "they have grown up without the old
restrictions, but never having had to fight for their freedoms, they do
not know what to do with them."
the same stark inequalities in the world of culture as it has to the
rest of society, with some arts floundering in the new sink-or-swim
realities of open markets.
In areas where Russia has traditionally been strong, such as music and
theatre, performers are continuing to thrive and in some cases rival any
on the world stage, whereas the change from a command to a market
economy has proved a disaster for the film industry.
The decade that has passed since the demise of the Soviet Union has been
cruel to Russian cinema, with the near-total collapse of the
distribution network and a slump in production from more than 150 films
a year to barely 30 at present.
A generation of filmmakers has been reduced to scraping a living, with
only a handful of established names such as Nikita Mikhalkov, Pavel
Lunghin and Alexander Sokurov able to keep working regularly, usually
with foreign backing.
Television has been largely a quality-free zone, favouring imported
Brazilian tele-novelas and western-style variety and game shows over
original production. This autumn bemused viewers were introduced to the
pleasures of voyeurism with "Za Steklom" (Behind the Glass), a Russian
version of the "Big Brother" format.
The loss of state patronage has hit the Bolshoi Theatre hard, and
freedom to travel abroad has allowed many of its stars to succumb to the
temptation of better wages elsewhere.
Russia's reputation as a nation of readers, cultivated during the Soviet
era by massive print runs, has taken a knock with the collapse of the
book distribution system, and publishers now regard sales of 5,000 for
any serious title to be a huge success.
Western literary works of the past 40 years are at last appearing in
Russian translation but are reaching only specialist readerships while
the biggest sales are reserved for thriller-writers such as Alexandra
Marinina or Boris Akunin and the producers of pulp fiction specialising
in violence and sex.
New works by once-revered writers like Alexander Solzhenitsyn gather
dust rather than plaudits.
The loss of seriousness has been such that writer and television
satirist Viktor Shenderovich was moved to comment that Russians are
"like 14-year-olds with mature bodies but without the mental capacities
to work out what is allowable and what is not."
Many cultural critics believe the shackles of the Soviet era were thrown
off too quickly, and some have said they would not be averse to a return
to some form of censorship.
For sociologist Yury Levada, though the urban middle classes have
adopted lifestyles similar to those of their counterparts in New York,
Paris or Berlin, the graft of western culture onto traditional Russian
attitudes has yet to take.
And as for the under-20s, "they have grown up without the old
restrictions, but never having had to fight for their freedoms, they do
not know what to do with them."