EDITORIAL: Neo-Soviet Russia Abolishes Art

EDITORIAL

Neo-Soviet Russia Abolishes Art

Once again, Russia has proven beyond any shadow of doubt that it is a barbaric, uncivilized country.  And that it is utterly bereft of shame.

Last Monday, a Russian court handed down criminal convictions against a pair of artists for doing nothing more than displaying art. The AP reports:  “Art expert Andrei Yerofeyev and former museum director Yury Samodurov were fined respectively 200,000 rubles ($6,483) and 150,000 rubles ($4,862) but escaped jail sentences.”

That’s right: They’re lucky, because while they were fined nearly a year’s average wages they didn’t actually have to go to jail.

Nicola Duckworth of Amnesty International stated:  “These shameful verdicts are yet another blow to freedom of expression in Russia. Such judgements have no place in a state supposedly ruled by law.”

But the Russian Orthodox Church, which had been targeted for commentary by some of the art in the exposition, took the government’s side.  Russian Orthodox Church, Archimandrite Tikhon, praised the verdict, stating:  “Offending religious and national feelings is unacceptable and it’s important that the court handed down a sentence condemning such acts.”

This is barbarism, there’s no other way to describe it. Joining with the Russian Orthodox Church, the Kremlin has made it a crime to hurt people’s feelings!  Well, that is, to hurt the wrong people’s feelings.  Because, of course, Russians are perfectly free to hurt the feelings of Americans, or Chechens, or Georgians — now aren’t they?

We feel sorry for the people of Russia, we genuinely pity them. What must it feel like to live in a country this barbaric, this ready to repeat the obviously failed polices of its recent past?  How pathetically desperate must Russians be to have allowed themselves to be governed by the KGB and to watch as, once again, self-expression becomes a crime?