PROTEST: IATC Statement on Serebrennikov Detention

Kirill Serebrennikov in court December 4, 2017.
Photo: Artyom Geodakyan/TASS

According to the website of Radio Free Europe, which based its reporting on TASS and Interfax, a Moscow City Court upheld on December 4 an extension of house arrest for Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov. He has been detained on fraud charges, accused of embezzling approximately $1 million in State funds. Serebrennikov was arrested in August. In October, the district court extended his house arrest to January 19. The 48-year-old director has repeatedly stated that the charges are "absurd."

Prior to his arrest, Serebrennikov

clashed with Russia’s Culture Ministry over the staging of a ballet about legendary Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, who defected to the West in 1961. Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky suggested that production might violate a 2013 'gay propaganda' law. (RFE)

As a result of his detention, Serebrennikov was not allowed to attend the Europe Prize for Theatre festivities in Rome, December 12–17, where he was to receive one of the top prizes bestowed in the category of "Theatrical Realities." The International Association of Theatre Critics (AICT-IATC) issued an official protest against the detention of the artist at its meeting in Rome on December 17. The critics' organization noted that despite Serebrennikov's isolation, his Nureyev ballet opened recently at the Bolshoi Theatre. The IATC also noted that the organization "shares the deep worries of the Russian critics, who already launched a protest in August, against the arrest of Serebrennikov. The accusations . . . alleging misuse of funds in his theatre, do not justify his prolonged detainment."

The IATC statement concluded, "the world of the arts and free expression will never accept the maneuvers of any state trying to stop an artist from speaking with a clear voice for freedom."

REPORT: Theater Trouble in Turkey

#DoNotTouch: Protest Against Theatre Faculty Expulsions 

As the political situation tightens in Turkey, members of IATC have shared information with us in an attempt to raise awareness of what is happening to the arts and artists in what was once a society that prized democratic discourse.

We received a declaration from the Theatre Department of Ankara University, disseminated February 12, 2017, which has been edited for clarity:

Exported: Prof. Dr. Beliz Güçbilmez

Ankara University, Theatre Department professors Prof. Dr. Selda Berk Öndül, Prof. Dr. Tülin Sağlam, Prof. Dr. Beliz Güçbilmez, Dr. M. Elif Çongur and the research assistants Ceren Özcan and Şamil Yilmaz have been exported from duty by the new Decree-law No 686. With Assoc. Prof. Dr. Süreyya Karacabey, who had been exported before by the Decree-Law No. 679, seven of our colleagues who form the majority of our department have been expelled from work in government offices. As a result, the undergraduate programs of our department have received an irreparable blow, and the post-graduate programs are almost out of the question.

Exported: Prof. Dr. Selda Berk Öndül

Exported: Dr. M. Elif Çongur

The exportation of our professors—who have created invaluable works and made undeniable contributions to the theatre world of Turkey—by the laws that pertain to only those who “are connected with or are members of or partake in terror organizations, groups, organisms or organizations or other structures which are claimed by the National Security Council as threats to our national security” is inexplicable and wrong as far as justice and conscience are concerned.

Exported: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Süreyya Karacabey

Exported: Prof. Dr. Tülin Sağlam

These exportations spreading in the Higher Education System, i.e., in the majority of universities in Turkey via new decree-laws has turned into a clearance or liquidation operation. Governance of universities, which are supposed to be institutions of freedom of thought and expression, by decree-laws can by no means be accepted. It is undoubtedly obvious that this attitude will bear critical outcomes and give an irredeemable harm to our colleagues’ and to our department’s future, as well as to our university, to the academia in general and to our country. We here resolve to blame the Ankara University rectorate and demand that our colleagues be returned to their posts immediately.  

— Members of the Theatre Department, Faculty of Letters, Ankara University

An update has been received from the Theatre Critics Association of Turkey and will follow.

TURKEY: Letter From Theatre Critics

Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, center, joins artists protesting a move by Istanbul's mayor to take over decision-making in the Istanbul theatres in April 2012. (AP Photo)

The following letter was forwarded to AICT-IATC Secretary General Michel Vaïs by Hasan Anamur of the Turkish section of the International Association of Theatre Critics:

The Executive Committee of the Turkish section of the IATC wishes to inform you of the critical situation facing the theatre and artistic communities in Turkey since the 2000 rise to power of a political party that is trying to create conditions aimed at controlling all kinds of theatrical creations, to close down all state theatres, as well as municipal theatres in order to establish what they refer to as “a conservative art” of which no one knows the real meaning. Oppression from this party on the life of theatre has become more and more stifling. We ask that the following press release be shared with all the sections of the IATC.

Best regards,

Hasan Anamur

Turkish Section, IATC

FROM THE TURKISH SECTION OF IATC

The Turkish Section of the IATC wishes to announce that Turkey is presently undergoing measures taken by the political party in power against artistic events in general, and theatrical activities in particular.

Just to give some examples, we can mention the situation of the Atatürk Cultural Center in Istanbul, which has venues for opera, ballet, concerts and theatre, as well as a gallery for exhibitions. It is closed since June 2008, first under the pretext that it was being restored, then demolished for a reconstruction. But nothing was done to date and the city of Istanbul, among the three cities elected to be a World Cultural Center in 2010 by UNESCO, was deprived of it for all that time. The restoration was recently questioned, and there are still no signs that it will begin.

As for the town council of Istanbul, without any notice, at the end of the 2011–12 theatre season, it imposed a new regulation to the Istanbul Municipal Theatre—which is 98 years old—and cancelled all the rights of the artistic director to transfer them to bureaucrats of the town hall who are incompetent in this field. This decision and its application have caused strong protests and large popular and artistic demonstrations in Istanbul and throughout Turkey.

Recently, the town hall of Beyoglu (Pera) in Istanbul, following the Istanbul town hall and with the same excuse of restoration, has closed down the Karaca (Karadja) Theatre, founded in 1955, just before the opening of the 2012–13 season, without even informing the dozen of companies which were sharing this hall.

Lately, the Ministry of National Education has forbidden the renting of theatre venues in schools to professional theatre companies.

This is the situation in Turkey. We can only add that political power is transient, while theatre is eternal.