Two days after the complaints were made public on July 21, the theater said it changed the monologue of the character played by Akhedzhakova, eliminating all swear words from it.īut on August 3 the plot thickened, exposing an apparent rift within the Culture Ministry. They sent complaints to the Prosecutor-General's Office, the theater's leadership, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s office. Moscow Theater Probed For Allegedly Insulting War Veterans But the group, Officers of Russia, described it as 'blatant propaganda of same-sex love” and said that expletives included in the script were an affront to those who defended the Soviet Union from fascism in World War II. The “comrades” he cited were apparently members of a pro-Kremlin group who denounced Akhedzhakova’s performance just days earlier.Īkhedzhakova had a lead role in a production of Rinat Tashimov’s play The First Bread, staged by Polish director Benjamin Koc at Sovremennik. Lermontov did not specify when the public discussion would take place, but he told state news agency RIA Novosti that attention will be paid particularly to “the preservation of patriotic and moral-spiritual values.” “A group of comrades approached us about problems with the repertoire policies of theaters, and we decided that the issue had to be publicly discussed,” the chairman of the Culture Ministry’s Public Council, Mikhail Lermontov, told the Interfax news agency. Russian Culture Minister Olga Lyubimova: “One should not attribute to the ministry the ideas and opinions of individual members of its Public Council.' The document, signed by President Vladimir Putin on June 3, asserts that Russia's 'cultural sovereignty' is at risk and that its 'traditional values' are “under active attack” by the West. On August 2, a Culture Ministry advisory board announced it was launching a probe of the country’s leading theaters to check their compliance with Russia’s new National Security Strategy. Those complaints have now led to trouble not only for the celebrated Moscow theater, but potentially for others across the country. Liya Akhedzhakova has for years been one of Russia’s most popular stage actresses, and her latest performance at Moscow’s Sovremennik (Contemporary) theater has garnered plaudits from an audience comprising many members of Russia’s intelligentsia and business elite.Ī minority, however, reacted very differently indeed.ĭecrying her character’s impassioned monologues as an offense to Russia’s war veterans and a promotion of “gay propaganda,” they charged the whole institution with a rejection of the “patriotic values” on which, they say, Russia should be built.

Liya akhedzhakova