Pussy Riot singer describes journey of rebellion in Russia
NADYA Tolokonnikova, 29, is a Russian singer, conceptual artiste, political activist and a founder of the punk rock group Pussy Riot. She served two years in a prison labour camp for performing an illegal protest concert in Moscow in 2012. Her book “Read & Riot” was released in the autumn.
Q: Where did you get your sense of agency, or rebel attitude, I guess, the idea that one single person can change things with action?
A: I feel like it’s really weird to be a Russian person and don’t have a rebellious spirit inside of yourself. Because you start to seriously study history of Russian Revolution in school when you’re 13 or 14 years old. So you start to rebel, and you feel like there should be something more than just my hormones and everybody’s telling me that I’m just a stupid teenager, and I will get calmer when I will grow up.
The Russian Revolution is really controversial thing in Russia. Because it brought us Stalin, it brought us great repressions. It brought us 1937, this year when so many people were killed because of nothing. I loved the art but wasn’t sure of the politics because of consequences. For me, it was the time when Russia really was ahead of everybody else, but not with tanks. Not with media wars. Not with the buying politicians abroad, but with art, poetry — Malevich, Kandinsky, Mayakovsky. Pretty much everything. And (studying that era was) when I decided that I’m a patriot. I am. I really want my country to be ahead. But I want to just use different tools. Not war, but culture and education. It was a promising time, I think. And I wanted to re- create something like that. Because I was just 10 years old when Putin came to power and when freedom started to crack down.
Q: Do you remember the fi rst way you noticed that?
A: You can actually feel it. So many people think that kids don’t notice those things. But I clearly noticed it. Partly because of my father, maybe. Because in ‘ 90s, we would go with him to concerts and to festivals of electronic music, punk rock festivals. And even that started to feel so different after a few years of Vladimir Putin in power. Like, more controlled and just completely different energy. And television, too. As a kid, I liked to watch television and political programs. And I was reading political magazines because of my crazy father. He was, like, “Oh, you shouldn’t read Cosmopolitan. You should read political magazines.” So I could see the difference when I was 12 years old.
Q: When did you start doing protests and illegal performances?
A: I ended up at my fi rst rally when I moved to Moscow from Norilsk. I was just curious and I went by myself. I was nervous. I didn’t want to be arrested. But luckily, they were sexists, and they didn’t arrest me. But they arrested all the guys. ( Laughs.) After the fi rst time, I realised it’s not scary; it feels really amazing to see people who think in the same way as you. Because I was concerned with things like education. It was my fi rst year of studying philosophy at Moscow State University, and I was so excited going there. I was interested in queer politics ever since I was 16. But after a few months, I realised that there is so much bureaucracy, Sovietstyle censorship, if you want to write about things like queer politics. So I was disappointed.
We started our fi rst activist collective that’s called Voina, which means “war,” to make illegal protests all over Moscow. My favourite one was storming of the White House when we projected a skull and bones on their White House of Russia — Russian Federation. I went to the art college in Moscow — I didn’t know anybody and I come with my daughter, who is 6 months old at the time, and start to talk to people. You know, “Come with me and storm the White House tonight” They were like, “Ha, ha, ha.” “No, I’m serious, it’s an art action, and it’s really important.” And then our team just started to climb on this fence, which was six meters long. Basically, the idea was to just show people that even if they surround themselves with a six-metres-long fence, it doesn’t protect them from us. And if three people can do it, then imagine if, like, three millions of people would go there and do the same thing.
Q: Do you have advice that you live by?
A: When I met ( Dmitri) Prigov the poet and artist, he told me, “Don’t live within a lie.” It was initially a phrase of Vaclav Havel. Don’t lie to yourself. And don’t follow lies. — Washington Post.
I feel like it’s really weird to be a Russian person and don’t have a rebellious spirit inside of yourself. Because you start to seriously study history of Russian Revolution in school when you’re 13 or 14 years old. Nadya Tolokonnikova, Russian singer