Religion and Repression

Worries about Democracy and Free Speech and Free Art In Russia

Director of an Art Museum Faces Charges

After pressure from the Church, church ativists and nationalists in Government, Samodurov and others associated with the show have recently been indicted for inciting religious hatred. They face up to five years in prison.

The case began in January 2003, when Russian Orthodox activists vandalized an exhibition in the Sakharov Museum titled "Caution! Religion." One work showed the image of Christ on a Coca-Cola advertisement that included the words "Coca-Cola: This is my blood." Another showed human figures nailed to crosses and a swastika. Still another showed a church made of vodka bottles.

The activists, who spray-painted some works and broke others, were charged but later acquitted. Church officials condemned the art show, and the lower house of the parliament, up in arms, overwhelmingly passed a decree ordering the state prosecutor to act against the exhibit's organizers. A commission of art historians, asked by the prosecutor's office to evaluate the exhibition, did not find it to have incited religious hatred -- to the consternation of Orthodox officials and nationalists. Another commission, this time including a psychologist and a sociologist, was appointed. It found unanimously that the exhibition had indeed incited religious hatred.

In its second decade after the fall of communism, Russia is showing worrisome anti-democratic signs. Most troubling is probably the state's increasing control of media organizations, resulting in the government's ever-greater influence over, and manipulation of, television and radio, especially evident during recent elections. But increasing nationalism, favoring the Orthodox Church at the expense of other churches and religions, is no less troubling.

Before the 1917 revolution, nationalism and the Orthodox Church were dominant. After the revolution, the church and personal liberties were repressed. In both periods, democratic freedoms were unknown. Now that the Soviet era has ended and those freedoms have entered Russian national life, it would be a pity if Russia were to lose them and end up combining the worst of both worlds.