Domed torso surmounted by a religious cross, leather jacket adorned with a white-blue-red armband and peroxide hair slicked down hard, he looks proudly at the horizon, while behind him appear the ramparts of the Kremlin bordering the famous Red Square in Moscow. On April 20, pop singer Yaroslav Dronov – known as Shaman – publishes the clip of his new tube titled “Us”. Selected excerpts:
“The sun that shines above our heads
Who flies proudly with the wind
This land with us is forever free
The day that ignites hearts
As the flag is hoisted high
Faith and love are with us
God is with us
Forever united in our blood
We are our generation
Connected by one sky
No one can ever break this
We’ll never live on our knees
The only truth of this world
This is what we are”
God, Russian blood and fatherland… Yaroslav Dronov has changed a lot. Exit the earrings, the feathers in the Iroquois hair, the large sweatshirts and his characteristic dreadlocks. The former X Factor Russia winner got rid of it in a clip published three months ago where he appeared on his knees, handing a pair of scissors to an Orthodox monk. Shaman has molted.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the 31-year-old singer has chained clips with nationalist overtones and pro-Kremlin rhetoric, tacitly advocating Russia’s superiority over the West. “I am Russian, I will fight until the end […] I am Russian, despite what the world thinks of it”, he sings in the chorus of “I’m Russian”, released last summer. This choice has paid off. For the supporters of Vladimir Putin, most of his songs, such as Vstanem (which can be translated as “Stand up!”), released the day before the invasion of Ukraine, now serve as hymns to war on social networks. so much so that in June the hit was the first song played entirely on “News of the Week”, Vladimir Putin’s favorite show hosted by Dmitry Kiselyov, Russia’s chief propagandist.
But Shaman is far from an isolated case. Even singers who had been knighted by the Kremlin long before the start of the war began to adapt some of their past successes to the geopolitical context. So Oleg Gazmanov, 71, who published in January a new version of his song “Soldiers”, recorded in 2008. Fourteen years later, the hit was renamed “Soldiers of Russia”, to the glory of the Russian fighters engaged in the war against Ukraine. All the themes dear to the Kremlin appear in the clip: a soldier kissing the belly of his pregnant wife on a station platform, another valiantly lifting weights before going into battle, a parade of perfectly synchronized soldiers…
On the same note, in March 2022, Gazmanov, also under European sanctions, resumed in a packed Moscow stadium (and in the presence of Vladimir Putin) his “Made in the USSR” released in 2005 to celebrate the eight years of the annexation of Crimea. “Ukraine, Crimea, Belarus, Moldova. It’s my country,” he chants in the first verse. Atmosphere.
To take a position
Celebrity support for Kremlin politics is nothing new in Russia. But since the invasion of Ukraine, the polarization between liberal celebrities and pro-Kremlin stars has intensified. “For a long time, supporting the Kremlin meant above all supporting the state. Today, it also means approving the action carried out in Ukraine by Vladimir Putin”, explains doctor Daria Mattingly, specialist in Russian history at the cambridge university.
At the start of the war, the president of the lower house of the Russian parliament Vyacheslav Volodin called on all cultural actors to take a stand on the subject. “Today is the moment of truth,” he wrote on Telegram. “Everyone has to understand: either we will rally around the country, we will overcome the challenges, or we will get lost.”
“The Soviet Union lost the Cold War because of the permeation of Russian society with foreign capitalist propaganda – popular Western entertainment products in particular, which encouraged Eastern Bloc citizens to think beyond communist structures,” argues Dr Colin Alexander, a political communications specialist at Nottingham Trent University. In this context, Russia is now ensuring that it has its own pool of popular and attractive artists to ensure that its citizens remain firmly committed to those deemed “acceptable” by the Kremlin, rather than seeking abroad artists who will probably not carry the same pro-Russian voice”.
Leave or stay to fight: the end of their career
Some have chosen to flee, such as the actress of “Good Bye Lenin!” Chulpan Khamatova, exiled since the beginning of the war. Interviewed by a Russian journalistshe pointed to two scenarios in which she could consider returning to her country without risking imprisonment: “stop saying that it is a war” or “ask forgiveness for not having supported the military operation” .
“But not all artists can afford to leave Russia, argues Daria Mattingly. Like everyone else, they have family, friends, ties… Also, for artists who only speak Russian, it can be very complicated to find work elsewhere. Most therefore have the choice between leaving and signing the end of their career, staying and opposing Putin (therefore no longer working, or even worse) or supporting the Kremlin.”
Others believed they could escape this triptych while remaining in Russia, such as the singer Sergei Lazarev, several times a Russian candidate for Eurovision. He was to perform in a series of concerts scheduled for April and May 2022 (“Za Russia”, “For Russia”), and funded by the Russian government to the tune of 100 million rubles ($1.4 million). But after the invasion of Ukraine, the singer posted an anti-war message on his social media. “Please stop everything!”, He asked, before calling to sit down “at the negotiating table”. The artist deleted his post immediately, claiming threats… Too late: 24 hours before the event, Sergei Lazarev was no longer on the poster for the event. He had been replaced by tenor Nikolai Baskov, openly pro-Kremlin.
“I made my choice”
In Russia, even silence can cost a career. In November Vladimir Kiselyov, the head of the Russian Media Group (which aims to promote “patriotic” art) questioned Shaman’s patriotism because he had not performed in occupied Ukraine. At the same time, the group’s radio stations stopped broadcasting their songs. A month later, Shaman said in an interview with Russia 1 that “each of us has to make a choice. People have made their choice – this is their path, and I have made mine – and this is my path “, before going in January to Mariupol and Lugansk, two Ukrainian cities occupied by the Russian army, to play there in front of soldiers.
“But the Kremlin’s strategy is not only based on the threat, nuances Peter Rutland, specialist in contemporary Russian nationalism and professor at Wesleyan University. Vladimir Putin’s administration is betting on the rhetoric of the “stick and the carrot”, in blowing hot and cold, i.e. waving the prospect of sanctions for dissent while dangling rewards for good conduct”.
In December 2022, the power thus drew up a list of artists “of patriotic orientation” to the regions and television channels for the New Year celebrations sponsored by the State. There were some big names from the Russian scene, such as Polina Gagarina, Grigory Leps, Denis Maidanov or Shaman and Oleg Gazmanov. But also some emerging artists, including rapper Akim Apachev, singers Natalia Kachura and Margarita Lisovina, rapper RICH, or the groups Django and Nashi.
The cultural center of the city of Cherepovets thus spent no less than 7.5 million rubles (100,000 dollars) for a concert, including 5.5 million just to afford the presence of Shaman. According to information from BBC Russia10.5 million rubles were also reportedly donated during the “Za Russia” concert tour (the largest envelope) to the group of Sergey Galanin, a singer and poet who said that the state should only help “cultural personalities animated by a patriotic spirit”.
But joining the ranks of the Kremlin is also the promise of long-term professional opportunities – Vladimir Putin having carried on the tradition of rewarding artists for their patriotism with political office. In the 1990s, Iossif Kobzon, the “Russian Frank Sinatra” became a deputy. In 2010, Nikolai Rastorgouev, the singer of Vladimir Putin’s favorite group “Lyube”, also entered the Duma, after being decorated three years earlier for “services rendered to the Fatherland”. Just like the singer Denis Maidanov, who became a deputy in 2021 under the colors of “United Russia”, the party of Vladimir Putin.
“Agitprop”
The Kremlin’s control over patriotic art is, it seems, set to intensify. “Music, cinema and other areas of popular entertainment can be excellent propaganda because of the emotions they can arouse in viewers”, analyzes Colin Alexander. Reconnecting with the tradition inherited from the Cold War of “agit-prop” (truncation of “agitation-propaganda”, a technique for mobilizing public opinion), the Kremlin recently announced that it wanted to create “agitation brigades” new generation, made up of artists of all ages, regions, and genres, with the aim of promoting their art… and spreading Vladimir Putin’s propaganda to all of Russian society.
Still, the strategy of the Russian government vis-à-vis its artists is already showing signs of weakness. On Youtube, Shaman’s clips have accumulated tens of millions of views. But on his social networks, on which he communicates with his fans, some of his posts top out at a few thousand reactions. “We are not immune to the Kremlin using bots to increase the popularity of its stars,” argues Peter Rutland. More detrimental to the master of the Kremlin: After the release of the music video for the song “Us”, Shaman was strongly criticized by pro-Kremlin netizens identifying in the singer’s new style the same Nazi accents that the Kremlin claims to be fighting in Ukraine. Not to mention that the video was posted on April 20, which is Adolf Hitler’s birthday.