Despite ‘Generous State Funding,’ Patriotic Productions in Putin’s Russia having ‘Little Commercial Success,” Barabash Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 21 – “Generous state funding” for films, plays and books that promote Putin and his policies often result in much ballyhooed rollouts, but most subsequently enjoy little commercial success as Russians display their reaction to such “artificial patriotism,” according to Yekaterina Barabash.

            The Russian film critic notes that before the Soviet Union collapsed, movies about World War II were common in Soviet theaters; but after 1991, they more or less disappeared because society was tired of such obvious falsifications, censorship had ended, and the government was funding them any more (theins.ru/opinions/ekaterina-barabash/283184).

            But since Putin returned to power and especially since he launched his expanded war in Ukraine in 2022, the situation has changed, with his government providing ever more money for the same kind of films and removing directors and producers who are not prepared to tow the line.

            The patriotic films, plays and books are now returning in great numbers, Barabash says; but they aren’t attracting viewers or readers. Indeed, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the government is spending ten times or more on their production than is being recovered at the box office or bookstore.

            Barabash documents her claims as well as points out that in the case of theater directors in particular, the Kremlin has driven out creative people, many of whom have now fled abroad, and replaced them with timeservers who are prepared to put on whatever those in the Presidential Administration want.

             But the Russian people aren’t buying this output any more than they were in the 1990s, something those who have been deceived by the lavish rollouts of such productions should remember when they talk about some kind of patriotic upsurge among the residents of the Russian Federation today.