[This guest post is by Mark Yoffe, PhD]

Last week, Russian punk rock art collective Pussy Riot was sentenced to two years of correctional labor colony for their guerrilla art performance five months ago in the Temple of Christ the Savior in Moscow. This judgement — for a 45-second unplugged performance mostly consisting of chanting and dancing in front of the church’s altar — seems to be absurdly cruel. Moreover, considering there is no criminal law that these feminist artists have broken.

Nevertheless, there is a strange divide in the reaction to the verdict as well as to the very phenomenon of Pussy Riot in musical and artistic circles, and not only Russian ones. Some in the aforementioned communities refuse to support or dismiss Pussy Riot based on aesthetic preferences, saying things like, “I’d support them if their music was better” or simply claiming that Pussy Riot is not art. Such comments are shocklingly nearsighted, as the Pussy Riot case is first and foremost about freedom of expression and not about subjective artistry. Such a lack of historic and humanistic perspective is distressing.

Music comrades, look back at the history of rock music, or at history of the 20th century culture in its entirety. One can go on ad nauseam citing examples of cultural phenomena which at first were perceived as hooliganism and worthless crap, and which later became classics about which many doctoral dissertations are written. Think of Russian and Italian futurists, think of Dada, and particularly Dada music. Think of the famous scandal around Stravinsky, Diaghilev and Roerich and
their 1913 production of ”The Rite of Spring.” Think of the Velvet Underground, New York Dolls, Sex Pistols and Bad Brains. Think of all “questionable” cultural phenomena that was rejected as offensive, as a nuisance or worse. Consider how so much of this expression was later heralded as harbingers of modernity, of the hippest and most sophisticated icons of contemporary culture.

It may take some time to figure out what Pussy Riot means in the world’s cultural context. In today’s art scene they are notorious, posessing the “it” factor — regardless of one’s opinions of their work. However, they are also in jail for standing openly, consciously and bravely for the right of an artist to express oneself. A right that is so dear to us, and which remains so fragile.

For these reasons alone, Pussy Riot must be supported and not dismissed.

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Mark Yoffe, PhD, founder and curator, International Counterculture Archive, Gelman Library of The George Washington University

Mark Yoffe has a doctorate in Russian Culture from University of Michigan and is a specialist in Soviet/Russian youth counterculture and rock music. He is founder and a curator of International Counterculture Archive at Gelman Library of George Washington University in Washington, DC. He is co-author of RUSSIAN ROCK MUSIC AND NATIONALISM Conceptual Carnival: National Elements in Russian Nationalist Rock Music, and other books on Eastern European and Slavic culture, and a contributor to the Guardian, writing on Russia-related subjects.

More about Mark Yoffe:
History of Soviet and Russian Rock Music - SOFT POWER: Understanding Through Culture
Article about the DC Punk Archive