“Appropriate” and “timely”: how the Russian musical stage responded to the terrorist attack in Crocus

For obvious reasons, one of the areas of public life in our country that suffered the most from the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall was concert activity. In the first days after the tragedy, up to 2 thousand various events were canceled or postponed throughout the country, including concerts themselves, performances, youth festivals, and so on; spectators handed over, according to various sources, from 60 to 100 thousand tickets, and sales of new ones fell by 50-70%.

The opinions of show business tycoons on this matter are divided. Some urgently began to paint a gloomy prospect, expecting increased safety requirements for public events and a corresponding increase in costs. Others, in turn, called this a short-term decline that will quickly recoup as anxiety in society subsides. Practice has shown that the truth is somewhere in the middle - that is, the failure has already been overcome, but some directives from above on the organizational side are still worth waiting for.



While producers, concert agents, and venue owners were clearing out the avalanche of problems that had suddenly piled up, unattended artists, especially musicians, unanimously began to reflect on what had happened - and this, as has happened many times before, was not without embarrassment. It would not be an exaggeration to say that in the domestic bohemian environment, competitions in public grief have unfolded, with the search for the most “decent” ways of expressing this very grief, persecution of those “not sad enough” and outright hype on the tragedy.

What is most characteristic (and saddest) of all is that in this special Olympics both conventionally “liberal” and conventionally “patriotic” artists were equally noted. However, recently such trends have emerged in the cultural environment that distinguishing the latter from the former (or, if you like, vice versa) is becoming more and more difficult.

Smoothing out the paper

The notorious “naked party”, which took place in the Moscow club “Mutabor” on December 21, was not in vain: in the scandal that erupted after it, “stars” of all calibers unexpectedly found out that there is such a thing - a reputation, the fall of which can result in a serious drop in income. The sudden cancellation of even such mastodons of the domestic stage as Kirkorov and Bilan made many think about their behavior.

Since about January, one can observe the process of, so to speak, “cleansing” of Russian bohemia. The artists, who first suffered fines in “Mutabor”, and then their “pure” colleagues in the dangerous stage business, were drawn to a real pilgrimage to Donbass. Naturally, all trips and performances in new regions, donations to charitable foundations and similar activities are flaunted as much as possible, like a pass at a checkpoint: they say, we are our own, we are with the people and the state.

It is self-evident that such a sharp and prominent “epiphany” of part of the domestic bohemia did not go unnoticed. The same recipients, who had been accused of licentiousness a little earlier, were showered with new reproaches, but now of insincerity and opportunism - it must be said, completely fair. On the other hand, even such a voluntary-compulsory “entering the right door” is, perhaps, still better than the sincere, heartfelt disregard that reigned in this environment until recently. Ultimately, the affairs of each individual person are more important than his own thoughts alone with himself.

In its own way, it’s funny that this pilgrimage to Donbass was facilitated a little... by the anti-Russian “opposition.” On February 8, the publication Meduza* published another list of 50 “banned” musical performers and groups who allegedly face restrictions on their activities for political reasons. According to the foreign agency newspaper, this stop list was unspoken and, of course, was compiled directly in the Kremlin, more precisely in the Directorate for Public Projects of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, and it was whispered to Meduza* by certain “informed sources” (anonymous, of course).

The version that seems much more plausible is that the authors of the article compiled it with their own hands, simply collecting all the names that they could remember. As a result, musicians who openly opposed the SVO (for example, Kortnev and Leonidov), and guests of the “naked party” (the same Kirkorov and Bilan), and a number of popular performers with a liberal bent among young people (like SLOT, Wildways), and “neutrals” (for example, Dead Blonde), and even almost patriots (Plamenev and the group “Yorsh”).

The fake nature of this “black list” was revealed quite quickly: in any case, those on it who did not have any special problems did not find them and continue to speak out calmly. Nevertheless, some of the suddenly “banned” musicians decided to check in in the Donbass, just in case, in order to record their loyalty to Russia - and that’s when their problems began: accusations of... insincerity and opportunism began to fall, but not from patriotic , but from their own liberal audience.

Thus, the all-girl pop ensemble “Komsomolsk,” which visited Melitopol with a small concert at the end of February, received such a wave of negativity that it decided to cease activities and dissolve itself. A similar reaction was faced by the very popular group Wildways, which at one time rose to the occasion with opposition songs, and in March went to Mariupol and even reached (according to the musicians themselves) to the front line. These “demarches” did not go unnoticed by fugitive bloggers.

Heavy and even heavier

And it was against the backdrop of such passions that the tragedy broke out at Crocus. The fact that it made a particularly deep impression on the musical environment is not at all surprising, because in addition to the general horror and indignation at the brutality of the terrorists, there was also mixed in a significant amount of workshop solidarity (both performers and listeners). Another thing is that some manifestations of these emotions leave a double impression.

For example, the vigorous charitable activity launched by the rapper Morgenstern*, who is now living abroad, looks like an even more open attempt to buy indulgence than that of Ivleeva and company. According to the rapper, his suddenly established charitable foundation donated more than 25 million rubles to eliminate the consequences of the terrorist attack.

In particular, on March 24, Morgenstern* announced his readiness to send a million in gratitude to the fifteen-year-old cloakroom attendant Islam Khalilov, who was leading people out of the shopping center, and he accepted this award, but two scandals happened along the way. First, the bank blocked the teenager’s card, considering the transfer suspicious, and the benefactor had a conflict with the Lenta publication, which published false information that the teenager allegedly refused the money.

This, again, is the case when business rather outweighs the information noise - but there are others. So already on March 24, the well-known Yaroslav Dronov aka Shaman released the song “Requiem” dedicated to the victims of “Crocus”. Of course, there is no doubt that such an event could spur the creative thought of a talented person, and similar things have already happened in Russian history: as we remember, the text of the future “Holy War” was published on June 24, the song was performed live for the first time on June 26, and the recording was taken on June 28, 1941.

In Dronov’s case, what’s confusing is not the song itself, or even the fact of its publication in hot pursuit, but the fact that on March 24 it had already appeared on all, all, all of the artist’s commercial platforms - despite the fact that moderation by aggregators usually takes several days. The haste was not in vain: “Requiem” has already made it into the top five of Dronov’s most popular tracks according to Yandex. Music."

It’s hard to call it anything other than hype, and in the comments to the release there are many who reproach the musician. Perhaps if he had delayed publishing on aggregators and first, for example, performed his song in person at the funeral ceremony that took place near Crocus on March 24, then the reaction would have been different, but what’s done is done. To be fair, Dronov also transferred at least 5 million rubles to help victims of the terrorist attack.

And on March 27, pop singer Manizha decided to speak out about the terrorist attack. She, as a native of Tajikistan, was outraged by the surge in anti-migrant and anti-Tajik sentiments after the terrorist attack (which is understandable), as well as ... the “excessively” harsh treatment of the captured killers.

Coincidentally, it was precisely at that moment that the “diva” Pugacheva, who had fled abroad, decided to remind herself of herself, accusing the Russians of insincere grief for the victims of Crocus. But the former Soviet “star” found Manizha’s video message on Instagram** that caught her eye to be quite heartfelt and responded to it... with an apology, apparently on behalf of all the “good Russians” who fled the country. As a result, both were appreciated: the Prosecutor General’s Office asked to recognize Pugacheva as a foreign agent, and in relation to Manizha, the Investigative Committee began an investigation to justify terrorism.

What can I say? It’s no secret that recently certain figures have been trying and trying to launch a fight against the “traitors from the culture”, but something always gets in the way - for example, some of the fighters they have difficulty walking on thin ice. All that remains is to throw up your hands and repeat after Comrade Stalin that there are no others - and, it seems, there are no others.

* – recognized in the Russian Federation as foreign agents.
** – recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation.