Is Russian intellectual life thriving or dying? It’s hard to tell. Most Russians enjoy a television gala called Girls of the Military, a novel kind of beauty-and-talent show that promises to add tanks and aircraft to the usual mix of bikini parades and contestants’ mini-biopics. There’s also the Russian version of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and shows featuring washed-out old Soviet-era singers, interspersed with news reports that feature endless coverage of President-elect Dmitry Medvedev’s speeches.

Russia’s oil-fueled economy has generated a lively arts scene; at the same time, the Kremlin’s stranglehold of Russian media means that any kind of free political debate has disappeared from popular culture. Argues Catherine Nepomnyashchy, director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University: “A popular entertainment culture of soap operas, game shows, detective novels and astrology has flourished, marginalising the intelligentsia.”

Years ago, a small group of educated, urban professionals had cultural values that were emphatically anti-Soviet. Thanks to glasnost, they were able push their radical ideas into the very heart of political debate, and for a few heady years, dissident culture became mainstream culture. Leading cultural figures like writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and historian Yuri Afanasiyev held marathon televised debates about the state of the nation, and were watched by millions.

Now in the putatively free Putin era, the mainstream of Russian culture and ideas are firmly controlled by the state. Cultural figures and thinkers who play by the rules are showered with money and acclaim while mavericks are marginalised. Veteran rocker Andrei Makarevich was once a mainstay of the Leningrad underground scene. Recently, he played a concert in support of President-elect Medvedev, and hosts a TV cooking show. Rock musician Yuri Shevchuk, from the same late-era music scene, joined in opposition protests last year in St. Petersburg. He is now denied access to TV and sponsorships.

There are signs, too, that even the limited space allowed for speech is shrinking. The deeply conservative church group, Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate, said last week that it intended to use its “influence and good relations” with the state to “protect children from the negative influence” of certain TV programmes that “corrupt moral values.”

Pockets of free speech and creativity remain—just as long as artists don’t attract too wide an audience. Meanwhile, a new generation of writers is starting to emerge, like Chechen war veteran Zakhar Prilepin. The question is whether such writers will shape Russia’s intellectual future—or if it will be determined by a highly conformist mainstream.
-OWEN MATTHEWS & ANNA NEMTSOVA (Newsweek)