The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-03)

E2 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, APRIL 3 , 2022

is too late.

With a few dozen active partic-

ipants, Signerbusters includes

engineers, health-care workers,

scholars, artists and musicians —

many of them immigrants from

Ukraine, Russia and other former

Soviet states. They mobilize

around specific events to protest

signers they say serve Russian

state interests both abroad,

where they distract from Russian

aggression and present them-

selves as messengers of peace,

and at home, where they bolster

the government’s image.

Critics of the March 2014 letter

say it harks back to Soviet times,

when artists had to publicly sup-

port the Kremlin. But if, back

then, an artist’s livelihood — and

even life — depended on fidelity

to the state, today, it is a question

of lifestyle — the perks that come

with being pro-Putin. “They can

be used as tools of soft power and

propaganda, and they’re willing

to do it,” says Valentina Bardako-

va, a native of Chernihiv in north-

ern Ukraine who helped start

Signerbusters. “This is their deci-

sion, and it’s immoral.”

Bardakova recalls their first

protest in 2014. Gergiev had led

the Munich Philharmonic at Car-

negie Hall, and after the show

they stuck around outside the

venue for hours. Gergiev, a close

friend of Putin’s who even con-

ducted a propaganda concert in

Syria in 2016, remained inside,

seemingly hiding from them.

When he suddenly sprinted out,

“it was honestly funny,” says

Bardakova. She recalls shouting,

“You’re a good runner!”

When asked what keeps Sign-

erbusters going, Elena Larchen-

ko, a 52-year-old nurse who came

to the United States from Kyiv in

1989 and has been with the group

since the beginning, says, with a

laugh, “We’re just extremely stub-

born.”

While protesting, Larchenko

has met several concertgoers who

think the war in Donbas is a civil

war, a false theory peddled by the

Russian government. Most know

nothing about the ties between

these artists and the Kremlin. She

sees their protests as an effort to

curb Russian disinformation, one

concertgoer at a time.

Like other Signerbusters,

Larchenko is inspired by the 2013

and 2014 Euromaidan protests,

which successfully removed pro-

Russian President Viktor Yanuk-

ovych but left more than 100

people dead. “I can’t quit,” she

says of protesting. “It’s my war I

took upon myself in 2014, in

memory of those people who

fought for freedom.”

For artists in Signerbusters

who fled the Soviet Union, the

cause can feel personal. New

York-based actress Irina Brovina

emigrated from Moscow in 1990,

leaving an artistic environment

she describes as “too tight” for

the “free spirit inside of me.” She

stumbled upon the letter and a

single name stuck out: Evgeniy

Knyazev, her former theater

teacher at Vakhtangov Theatre

School.

“It’s a very small community,

so you’re very close to your teach-

ers. They actually become like

family for the rest of your life,”

Brovina says. “That really killed

me when I saw his name.”

She imagined hunting him

down and obsessed over what

she’d say to him. In Signer-

busters, she found people who

could share in her rage about the

letter. It was a relief.

Vladimir Davidenko, a visual

artist and early Signerbuster,

worked at an animation company

in Kyiv during the Soviet era. He

faced regular censorship from

Moscow for things like using too

much of the blue and yellow

associated with Ukraine, or de-

picting a girl praying. “You could

make money, but there was no

way you could produce art,” he

says. “And I wasn’t a fighter in

those days. I was just an artist, a

sensitive artist, that’s all, loving

beautiful things.”

Davidenko eventually moved

to the United States, seeking

creative freedom. “The artists

who signed the letter in support

of Putinism and Putin’s war in

Ukraine are a part of exactly what

I was trying to escape,” he says.

When these pro-Putin per-

formers come to the United

States, they’re part of a long

history. “Cultural diplomacy goes

back even before the Soviet peri-

od,” says Peter Rutland, a profes-

sor at Wesleyan University who

studies soft power and the Soviet

Union,“when the czar state was

trying to cover up its atrocities at

home by spending lavishly on

high art and culture to show, ‘We

are leaders of European civiliza-

tion.’ ” Later, culture became an

important weapon in the Cold

War with controversial cultural

exchanges that brought jazz and

rock musicians to the U.S.S.R.

and Soviet dance groups and

symphonies to the United States.

Amy Nelson, a professor of

Soviet history at Virginia Tech

and author of “Music for the

Revolution: Musicians and Pow-

er in Early Soviet Russia,” de-

scribes Russia’s 19th-century

classical music canon as “bound

up with nationalism, national

identity and loyalty.” Russian cul-

ture, she says, has always had

“this distinguishing gap between

incredible brilliance, fertility, in-

novation on the one hand and

suffering, misery, exploitation on

the other.”

Over the past few years, wheth-

er those extremes — moral fail-

ings and good art — can coexist in

one institution or one person has

been a heated debate in the arts,

including museums and movies.

For Signerbusters, the answer is

obvious.

Larchenko sees a direct tie

between what is happening in

her home country and these pro-

Putin performers. “I would like

[concertgoers] to know that the

hundred dollars that they spent

on tickets is now falling in the

form of bombs on the children

and women of Ukraine,” she says.

Ukraine-born pianist Pavel

Gintov, who studied in Moscow

and now lives in New York, dis-

misses ideas about separating art

from the artist. In his view, an

immoral person simply cannot be

a good artist.

“Music is a reflection of the

human soul,” he says. “Some peo-

ple think I participate in these

protests because I’m Ukrainian.

But I would say, first of all, it’s

because I’m a musician.”

BY KELSEY ABLES

When Igor and Sasha Yarmak
set out for Carnegie Hall on
Father’s Day 2014, they expected
to spend the evening listening to
Russian pianist Denis Matsuev.
They were regulars at New York’s
major music venues and bought
tickets without thinking much
about who was performing.
But that night, they noticed
about 20 people gathered outside
the concert hall with Ukrainian
flags. In the 1980s, the Yarmaks,
who are Jewish and originally
from Kyiv, were some of the final
“refuseniks” — people barred
from leaving the Soviet Union,
typically because of antisemi-
tism. In 1990, along with their
young daughter Olga, they finally
managed to flee.
Before heading inside the hall,
they approached the group and
read their leaflets, which ex-
plained that Matsuev openly sup-
ported Russian President Vladi-
mir Putin and had signed a letter
in favor of the annexation of
Crimea. Igor and his wife were
shocked. They hadn’t even heard
of such a letter. Posted in Russian
on the Cultural Ministry’s web-
site, the March 11, 2014, missive
had signatures from 511 Russian
cultural figures “firmly” declar-
ing support for Putin’s recent
invasion of Ukraine.
The couple didn’t hesitate.
They threw out their tickets and,
dressed in their concert clothes,
joined the protesters outside. For
Igor, who doesn’t have much of
an artistic background himself,
music is all about emotion. While
some might be able to appreciate
the technical skill of a musician
separate from their morality, “for
me, it’s the feeling, and the feel-
ing is the whole thing,” he says.
“You cannot split it.”
Nearly a decade later, the Yar-
maks are still standing with the
protesters, who call themselves
Signerbusters (a play on “Ghost-
busters”), making it their mission
to rally against the Russian art-
ists who signed the March 2014
letter. When Matsuev, conductor
Valery Gergiev, jazz musician
Igor Butman or another signer
performs in New York, they write
letters to the host venue and
protest outside the show. Signer-
busters is based in New York, but
protests targeting the same per-
formers have appeared else-
where, with similar groups in
cities including Chicago, Boston
and even Bordeaux, France.
Even as the annexation of
Crimea faded from the media,
Signerbusters kept showing up to
concerts, draped in Ukrainian
flags, equipped with signs and
spirit. Sometimes there were just
two or three of them present.
Often, they were harassed by
concertgoers, even attacked. Still,
for eight years, Signerbusters say
they have never missed a show.
Now, as Russia’s war in
Ukraine escalates, the perform-
ers they’ve long protested are
facing consequences. In Febru-
ary, Carnegie Hall removed Ger-
giev and Matsuev from several
scheduled shows. Later, Gergiev
was fired from his posts at the
Munich and Rotterdam philhar-
monics for not speaking out
against the war. Performances
from the Bolshoi ballet, which is
led by Vladimir Urin (another
signer, who recently signed an
antiwar letter), were canceled
across the United States. And
other musicians Signerbusters
has protested — pro-war pianist
Boris Berezovsky and opera sing-
er Anna Netrebko, who refused to
renounce Putin — have been
dropped by their agents. In a time
of tragedy, it’s a small victory —
but one many Signerbusters say

Protesting pro-Putin artists for years, but now being heard

VLADIMIR DAVIDENKO

SERGEY SKORODINSKY

PAVEL GINTOV

“I would like

[concertgoers] to

know that the

hundred d ollars

that they spent on

tickets is now

falling in the form

of bombs on the

children and

women of

Ukraine.”

Elena Larchenko, a Ukraine

native who is part of

Signerbusters

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Signerbusters protesting conductor Valery Gergiev gather outside Lincoln

Center in New York i n March 2020. Pianist Pavel Gintov protests with Signerbusters. Elena

Larchenko, also part of Signerbusters, protests a performance by jazz musician Igor Butman.

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