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Copyright by Brian Elliot Selman 2017 The Thesis Committee for Brian Elliot Selman Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: Power Flows to Rap Flows: Power Dynamics within the Cultural Sphere of Putin’s Russia APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Thomas J. Garza Vladislav Beronja Power Flows to Rap Flows: Power Dynamics within the Cultural Sphere of Putin’s Russia by Brian Elliot Selman, B.A. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2017 Dedication To my grandmother, Louise Jetton, for always believing in me and my dreams. Acknowledgements I would like to thank my longtime mentor, supervisor, professor, and the man who taught me Russian, Prof. Thomas J. Garza, for his continued guidance throughout this, the most recent of the many projects I have completed under his supervision. I would surely not be where I am today without him, and I will never forget that fact. I also am grateful to Prof. Vladislav Beronja for his expertise, fresh perspective, and encouragement throughout the course of my thesis writing. He came along at a crucial point in the project, and I am thankful to him for all of his many contributions. Lastly, I would like to thank the many faculty members at the University of Texas at Austin with whom I consulted for this project including: Prof. Mary Neuburger, Prof. Robert Moser, Dr. Michael Anderson, Prof. Jürgen Streeck, and Prof. Mark Lawrence. The wide range of views, opinions, and suggested readings allowed me to make this thesis all it could be. v Abstract Power Flows to Rap Flows: Power Dynamics within the Cultural Sphere of Putin’s Russia Brian Elliot Selman, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2017 Supervisor: Thomas J. Garza In the weeks after Novaya Gazeta published a petition retaliating against the Russian government’s annexation of Crimea in early 2014, cultural leaders who had signed this petition began to find themselves labelled across the majority of Russian media as “Nazi sympathizers” and “traitors.” As these slanders in the media worsened, venues all over Russia began to cancel these same artists’ public appearances. This phenomenon of apparent repression that swept throughout Russia following the publication of this anti-intervention petition is what I term the “blacklist effect.” In the same way that a blacklist denies those whose names appear on it access to services, recognition, work, or other privileges depending on the context, these Russian artists who oppose Russian military intervention in Ukraine are repeatedly and systematically barred from appearing publicly before large crowds, painted as “traitors” by the majority of Russian press, and as a consequence are ostracized from large swathes of Russian society, especially amongst those who support the government and its foreign policy. This study provides a detailed analysis of the “blacklist effect” using Russian hip-hop as a case study, relates the “blacklist effect” to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s use of soft power, and considers the consequences of this pattern of repression for the future of Russia. vi Table of Contents Chapter 1 The Dynamics of Power .........................................................................1 Defining Power ...............................................................................................3 Hard, Soft, and Smart Power ........................................................................11 Culture—the Key to Smart Power ................................................................14 Russia's Smart Power ....................................................................................18 The Blacklist Effect ......................................................................................22 The Blacklist Effect and Russian Hip-hop ....................................................24 Chapter 2 Putin's Russia ........................................................................................35 Chechen Wars ...............................................................................................36 Consolidation of Power .................................................................................39 Politics: Vertical of Power ...................................................................40 Press: NTV Takeover ...........................................................................41 Oligarchs: The Khordorkovsky Affair .................................................46 Economy: Seizing Gazprom ................................................................49 Conclusion: The House that Putin has Built .................................................52 Chapter 3 Russia of the Others ..............................................................................54 The Snow Revolution ...................................................................................56 Shaping a Russian World ..............................................................................63 Internet "Security" ...............................................................................65 Sochi Olympics ....................................................................................75 Start of the Ukrainian Crisis .........................................................................83 Chapter 4 The Blacklist Effect ...............................................................................88 Overview of Putin's Approval Rating ...........................................................91 Societal Dependence on State-Supported Media .................................96 Blacklist Background ..................................................................................102 In-depth Study of Blacklisted .....................................................................105 Blacklisted in Music: Andrei Makarevich ........................................106 vii Blacklisted in Literature: Lyudmila Ulitskaya ..................................110 Blacklisted in Radio/Television: Victor Shenderovich .....................115 Conclusion: Clamping Down on Culture ....................................................121 Chapter 5 Noize MC vs. Timati—Rap Battling on a National Stage .................124 Hip-hop and Politics ...................................................................................124 Hip-hop Propagandists ...............................................................................128 Mr. Black Star: Timati ......................................................................131 Hip-hop Blacklisted ....................................................................................137 Making Too Much Noize: The Suppression of Ivan Alekseev .........137 Conclusion: The Future of Speech in Russia .............................................141 Bibliography ........................................................................................................144 viii Chapter 1: The Dynamics of Power In the weeks following his performance at a music festival in Lviv, Ukraine, popular Russian hip-hop artist Ivan Alekseev, better known by his stage name Noize MC, received calls from venue owners cancelling sixty percent of his upcoming Russian tour, including almost every scheduled show for Siberia and Russia’s Far East (Demirjian 2014b). According to Alekseev, most of the venue owners who cancelled his live shows did so under pressure from authorities (Polunchukova 2015). Federal drug officials and bomb squads raided many of the venues that did not cancel on the young artist responding to alleged tips of criminal activity. In an interview with The Washington Post, Alekseev attempted to relate these incidents in terms that an American audience would understand, “It was [like] if you were doing a three-day tour of gigs in Ohio and you have guys from the CIA, FBI and local police coming and telling you to go [to vacate the venue]” (Demirjian 2014b). As Alekseev’s choice of words seems to exemplify, this show of force against the young rapper is unjustifiably massive; extends to all levels of authority, from local to international Russian security forces; and follows the performer to all parts of the country, even provinces far-removed from the nation’s capital. The explanation for this concert’s far-reaching effects revolves around the location and political climate where this music festival occurred. The music festival in Lviv took place in August 2014, a time when Ukrainian officials were openly accusing Russia of sending troops and aid to rebels fighting a separatist war in Eastern Ukraine. Many of the Russian headliners scheduled to perform concerts at the festival pulled out 1 prior to its scheduled opening day. Andreev was one of the few big-name Russian acts to remain in the festival’s lineup. During Andreev’s set in Lviv, he performed his song “Tanzy,” his remixed cover of a Ukrainian song by Vopli Vidoplyasova that the young rapper has been performing since 2012. While Noize MC rapped in Ukrainian, he accepted a Ukrainian flag offered to him by a young female fan and proceeded to wear it for the remainder of the song (Demirjian 2014b). Just as revolutionary female rocker Zemfira would learn nearly a year later after performing a similar act at her concert in Tblisi, Georgia (Republic 2015), the Kremlin will not tolerate Russian musicians hoisting the Ukrainian flag.1 Once photos of this concert surfaced in Russia, the concert