On February 21, 2012 – ten years ago today – five members of the Russian feminist punk rock group Pussy Riot staged an unauthorized performance on the soleas [so-LAY-us] of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. (For our information, a “soleas” is the sanctuary platform in a Russian Orthodox Church.) The security personnel at the church were not pleased by this impromptu performance and quickly – within a minute – put an end to it. However, following the dictum that “anything worth doing is worth recording,” Pussy Riot recorded their “performance” for posterity; that recording is linked below: Why, oh why would these masked young women so desecrate a Russian Orthodox Cathedral? They had – to their minds – good reason. Vladimir Putin was up for re-election, and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow (who was born Vladimir Mikhailovich in 1946), had thrown the church’s support behind Putin’s re-election. Later that evening of February 21, 2012 – ten years ago today – Pussy Riot released a music video entitled “Punk Prayer – Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!” Thanks to the internet, that video circulated internationally, overnight. That video is linked below. From […]

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