Before Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Andrei Muravyev, better known as the artist DazBastaDraw, mainly drew drawings and storyboards for himself as a hobby with no particular desire to draw them. general.
He now displays his patriotic artwork supporting the Special Military Operation Moscow (SMO) to over 16,000 Telegram subscribers.
He told Al Jazeera over the phone: “I try to reflect in my works my position or reaction towards certain phenomena or events.”
“Our cause is just. Victory will be ours. I honestly believe that SMO should have started much earlier. My drawings are my feelings. When I find something funny, I want the audience to rejoice with me and vice versa.”
Art and culture have been influenced by war since the earliest cave paintings.
The painting “The Apotheosis of War” by 19th-century painter Vasily Vereshchagin has sparked heated debate about Russia's invasion of Central Asia.
Over the past two years, the Kremlin has enthusiastically promoted the militaristic outlook, including in the art world.
In July, Gosuslugi, the digital platform every Russian citizen needs to access government services, emailed tens of millions of its users a collection of patriotic poetry Z, named after the letter that has come to symbolize pro-war sentiment.
The email included an excerpt of poetry by Donetsk-born poet Anna Revakina: “What will they say about us later? We lived and fought / We fought so that there would be no more war.”
Pop star Shaman, on the other hand, is known for his talent for drawing crowds to Putin's rallies with his song “Vestanim” (Let's Rise) honoring fallen soldiers, for which he is lavished with state-sponsored concerts, including in the occupied territories.
While DazBastaDraw's career has yet to rise to such heights, he admits to aligning himself with official interests.
“A black car arrives and people in tuxedos come out with a suitcase full of cash and say, 'Fellow artist, you're great.' We love what you're doing. Take this, and you'll never be left wanting. Unfortunately, no, maybe that only happens in the movies.”
“But seriously, I received orders several times from parastatals, mostly from the media. I have experience working with law enforcement agencies. I think we are happy with each other and the results of our cooperation.”
In September, the government allocated 1.6 billion rubles (about $17 million) to the winners of a competition to promote patriotic and pro-war projects. Among the winners was a detective series about a young engineer who travels to the occupied Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and confronts saboteurs, as well as a film about the late Donetsk rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko.
However, the promotion of such work has not always met with a receptive audience. Last year, “The Witness,” about a Belgian violinist who ends up in the middle of a “special operation” to “denazify” Ukraine, bombed at the box office.
According to Felix Sandalov, editor-in-chief of Straight Forward, there is not as much appetite for pro-war media as the prevalence of the letter Z in Russian society suggests.
“Judging by the recent statement of the self-proclaimed Union of Russian Conservative Writers, the Union of February 24, Z poets and Z writers remain dissatisfied with their position in society and continue to complain about the privileges enjoyed by the more successful writers who condemned the war,” Sandalov said. “.
“One has to take these claims with a grain of salt, but what is clear is that in terms of cultural consumption, Russian readers are not very enthusiastic about Z-literature. There is a significant rise in the use of coded language and indirect messaging. This is evident, e.g. For example, through the growing popularity of literature about the fall of the Third Reich and how Germans dealt with guilt after World War II, as well as books about the deaths of famous tyrants, etc.
Meanwhile, Alexander Gorbachev, Sandalov's co-editor, said that “everything is more or less directly related to the war in Russia now.”
“Putin’s ideology and propaganda have been renewed to constantly push the war narrative. There are hardly any topics left untouched.”
Although not explicitly pro-war, the first song released by the popular Leningrad rock band since the beginning of the full-scale invasion was titled No Entry, which compared how Russian citizens in Europe were treated with Jews in Germany in the 1940s. The group later released a song singing the praises of Rostec, the state-owned arms manufacturer.
In contrast to Leningrad, the rock band DDT and its singer Yuri Shevchuk were vocal in their opposition to the invasion.
Shevchuk has always been a pacifist since the 1980s war in Afghanistan. In 2022, he was interrogated and fined under wartime censorship laws, and had several concerts canceled due to his vocal stance.
“As for censorship, just look at the recent laws signed by Putin,” Gorbachev said.
“[The] LGBTQ [community] It is now considered an “extremist organisation”. “Even gay house parties are at risk of police raids,” he said. “Independent journalism and blogging are banned. You can go to prison simply by describing a war as a war and not a ‘special military operation’. History is also problematic. Anyone who dares to delve into the complexities of World War II and the role the Soviet Union played in it, risks becoming a criminal.”
He added that women's rights and feminism are “serious topics” in Russia, as are post-colonial studies.
“Reflecting on the history and rights of various territories and states that are part of Russia can be considered a threat to the integrity of the Russian state – which is again a felony. And so on and so on. And no one knows what he will hate tomorrow.
While many artists and creatives remain in Russia, others found such an atmosphere stifling and fled abroad, such as famous film and theater director Kirill Serebrennikov and rapper Morgenstern.
But they were not entirely welcomed abroad.
Last year, a literary discussion panel featuring exiled Russian authors scheduled to be held in New York was canceled after pressure from Ukrainian attendees, prompting journalist Masha Gessen to resign as secretary of the PEN Literary Society. The journalist also attracted controversy as one of the few Russian liberals, and a Jew, to draw a comparison between the Israeli campaign in Gaza and the Holocaust.
Straight Forward Publishing was founded to give this exiled culture a voice.
“This is material that cannot be published in Russia due to censorship,” Sandalov said.
“It is now so common that even printing facilities refuse to print something offensive, and libraries and bookstores quietly dispose of books by banned authors. Ultimately, we support freedom of expression and telling true stories that can change people's minds.”
However, Russian cultural exports have not been completely ostracized.
Last year, Russian crime series The Boy's Word, about teenage street gangs at the end of the Soviet Union, as well as its soundtrack, became a hit in both Russia and Ukraine despite politicians such as former President Petro Poroshenko urging viewers to To boycott everything Russian.
