Yana Meerzon. "Performing Censorship: The Russian Case." Thursday, March 26, 7 pm. Elizabeth Hemmerdinger Center, Hunter East Building (7th Floor). Free and open to the public. RSVP required. Co-hosted by Tamizdat Project.
The 1993 Russian Constitution guarantees freedom of expression and prohibits censorship, but in practice censorship has long functioned as a tool of state control. Historically, it has been a central mechanism of state power, dating back to the Tsarist era and continuing through the Soviet period. In the post-Soviet years, censorship took new shape under Boris Yeltsin, particularly during his second term (1996–1999), which marked the rise of conservative ideologies. Since Vladimir Putin’s ascent to power in 2000, the Russian government has enacted numerous laws and constitutional amendments regulating cultural production. These laws target language use, blasphemy, depictions of historical events, and representations of sexuality and gender identity. Their impact has been especially pronounced in the performing arts, where they are enforced not only through legislation but also through grassroots actions, such as protests by nationalist and religious groups, public disruptions, and personal denunciations.
Since the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, censorship in Russia has become even more repressive, with harsh penalties for dissent, including fines, imprisonment, and exile. Performing Censorship: The Russian Case by Yana Meerzon and Mikhail Kaluzhsky traces the evolution of state censorship under Putin and illustrates how his regime has fostered a culture of intimidation, conformity, and violence, perpetuating Russia’s long history of control over artistic expression. In this talk, Prof. Meerzon will outline the book’s major arguments and present several case studies that exemplify these practices.
Yana Meerzon is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She is the author of five books, including Performance, Subjectivity, Cosmopolitanism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000) and, most recently, with Mikhail Kaluzhsky, Performing Censorship: The Russian Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025). She also co-edited nine collections of articles, including Palgrave Handbook on Theatre and Migration with Steve Wilmer (Palgrave 2023). Former President of Canadian Association for Theatre Research (CATR), she is now a co-editor of the book series Palgrave Studies in Performance and Migration.
Mikhail Kaluzhsky is a playwright and author. A native of Novosibirsk, he now resides in Berlin. He works in documentary theater, and his plays have been performed in Russia, Germany, Israel, Switzerland, Finland, Latvia and the United Kingdom. Kaluzhsky worked as a curator of documentary projects at the Joseph Beuys Theater in Moscow (2010–2012) and a theater program at Sakharov Center in Moscow (2012–2014). He is the author of several non-fiction books and numerous articles on arts, politics and media.
Location: Hunter College CUNY (Lexington Avenue & East 68th Street, 6 train). Elizabeth Hemmerdinger Center. Hunter East Building, 7th Floor
Directions: At the reception desk of the Hunter West Building, please present your ID to get a pass. From there, take the escalator to the 3rd floor, turn right and walk across the sky bridge to the Hunter East Building, then take the elevator to the 7th floor. Hemmerdinger Center is at the end of the hallway past the turnstiles.
RSVP: https://www.reechunter.com/current-events.html#Meerzon