ABSTRACT

This chapter analyses the configurations of belief, critique and religious freedom in Russia in the wake of the 2012 performance of the Russian group “Pussy Riot”. The authors show that the “punk prayer” and its legal and political aftermath have had a decisive impact on the way in which religion, critique and the human rights to religious freedom have been defined in the present Russian context. In response to Pussy Riot, the Russian legislator turned offending religious feelings into a crime. The article also investigates two more recent cases where offended feelings of believers were involved: the opera “Tannhäuser” in Ekaterinburg in 2015, and the movie “Matilda” in 2017. The chapter analyses how the initial power-conforming configuration that emerged as a reply to the “punk-prayer” has revealed a “power-disturbing” potential as conservative Orthodox groups have started to challenge the authority of the state and the church leadership.