Russia’s Standup Comedians Now Hiring Lawyers to Advise Them about Jokes that Could Land them in Jail, ‘The Insider’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 2 – Today, Russia’s standup comedians are hiring lawyers to review their material in advance lest they cross some as yet poorly defined line of the permissible and land in jail, Valentina Matryonina says. And audiences too want these comedians to avoid political jokes as well lest they be recorded and those listening get in trouble too.

            While many Russian standup comedians left in 2022, others did not and some who went abroad have returned, the Insider journalist says. The world they live in now resembles that of humorists at the end of Soviet times but the rules are less clear and constantly changing (theins.ru/confession/296457).

            As these humorists note, “there is no concept of ‘a sense of humor’” in the Russian criminal code; and so they need help in figuring out what will offend some group or officials and avoid those things just as they now avoid any criticism of Putin or his war in Ukraine because those are very dangerous things to speak about.

            Audiences generally accept that as they are there to be entertained more than anything else. Consequently, the demand for political humor has fallen as well, even when it is expressed by hints or Aesopian language as was the case before glasnost, standup comedians with whom Matyonina spoke say.

            In many cases, the organizer of the sessions insist on reading the standup comedians’ texts and “delete everything that is impossible.” Sometimes this leads to absurdities. One comedian had to drop a joke about “the services of women on call for money.” He meant nurses but the bosses said he had to “reformulate it so there is no hint of prostitutes.”

            One group of standup comedians gets away with things none of the others can: those who are still in their teens. “Because they are not taken seriously,” one older comedian says, “they get away with a lot.” But if they continue to use the same jokes when they are over 18, “the consequences can be quite different.”

            As a result of increasing repression, what the comedians say and what audiences want is narrowing. All this recalls a joke that was widespread among Russians at the very end of the USSR: When things are bad, the joke ran, they told political jokes; but when things got worse, they stopped.