俄羅斯藝術家自我審查壓力越來越大

MOSCOW — After a law went into effect last summer banning obscenities in public performances, the playwright and director Ivan Vyrypaev excised the curse words from one of his plays, “The Drunks,” for its Russian debut at the prestigious Moscow Art Theater. Some actors played the new version straight, he said, while others winked to make clear what was cut.

莫斯科——去年夏天，俄羅斯開始實施一項禁止公共表演中出現髒話的法律。爲了自己的劇作《酒鬼》(The Drunks)能在著名的莫斯科藝術劇院舉行俄羅斯首演，編劇兼導演伊萬·維裏帕夫(Ivan Vyrypaev)也刪除了劇中的髒話。他說，新版本上演時，有些演員不動聲色，也有些演員在髒話被刪除的地方擠眼示意。

A quiet man of 40, Mr. Vyrypaev was circumspect about the law. “Of course my plays lost something, but my artistic life hasn’t been ruined,” he said in an interview, adding that he also had to pull three plays by other playwrights from the Praktika Theater here, where he is artistic director.

40歲的維裏帕夫生性溫和，他對這項法律極爲慎重。“當然，我的劇本失去了某種味道，但我的藝術生命還沒被毀掉，”他在採訪中說。維裏帕夫是莫斯科普拉克提卡劇院(Praktika Theater)的藝術總監。他補充說，他還不得不撤掉該劇院其他編劇創作的三部話劇。

Later, Mr. Vyrypaev said, Praktika presented other plays with curse words after President Vladimir V. Putin said in a meeting with writers that while Tolstoy and Chekhov didn’t need cursing, “You, the writers, know best.”

維裏帕夫說，弗拉基米爾·V·普京總統(Vladimir V. Putin)在一次與編劇的座談會上說，托爾斯泰和契訶夫不需要使用髒話，“你們這些編劇最瞭解這一點”。不過，在那之後，普拉克提卡劇院還是上演了其他一些含有髒話的劇目。

The advance and retreat was telling. Cultural figures in Russia today describe a climate of confusion and anxiety in which the law banning obscenities, as well as a 2013 law that criminalizes acts offending religious believers, are often ignored unless someone wants them applied. Critics say the new laws are stifling free expression and pulling the country backward.

這種時進時退的做法很說明問題。俄羅斯的文化名人們認爲當前的文化氣候令人困惑和憂慮。2013年，俄羅斯一項法律宣佈冒犯宗教信徒的行爲屬於違法，然而這項法律以及這項禁止使用髒話的法律經常被民衆忽視，除非有人想要執行。批評者認爲，這些新法律扼殺自由言論，導致國家走向倒退。

During Soviet times, “At least we knew the rules,” said Irina Prokhorova, a publisher and vocal critic of the government. “This is a little bit different, because there are no rules, no official censorship.” Ms. Prokhorova likened the climate to the 1930s, when the Nazis labeled art degenerate. “This is aesthetic fundamentalism,” she said. The law on religious believers is particularly slippery. “Who are those believers? What do they believe in? No one talks about this,” she added.

出版人伊琳娜·普羅霍羅娃(Irina Prokhorova)經常直言不諱地批評政府。她說，在蘇聯時期，“至少我們知道有哪些規定”，“現在這種情況有點不同，因爲沒有規定，沒有官方審查”。普羅霍羅娃把目前的文化氣候比作20世紀30年代，當時納粹認爲藝術是墮落的。“這是審美上的原教旨主義，”她說。她補充說，關於宗教信徒的那項法律尤其模糊。“那些信徒是誰？他們信奉的是什麼？沒人說明這些。”

This week, a debate has been raging after it emerged on Sunday that Russia’s culture minister had ousted the director of a state-run theater in Siberia on the grounds that a production of Wagner’s “Tannhäuser,” with a backdrop in which an image of Christ was placed in the crotch of a naked woman, had run afoul of the law against offending religious believers — even after a judge last month dropped the case as groundless.

週日，俄羅斯文化部長罷黜了西伯利亞一個國營劇院的經理，理由是該劇院排演的瓦格納(Wagner)作品《唐懷瑟》(Tannhäuser)的佈景將耶穌形象放在一個裸體女人的胯部。文化部長認爲這冒犯了宗教信徒，觸犯了法律。不過上個月，一位法官判定該案理由不足。該案引發熱烈爭論。

Russia has a thriving theater scene and a constitution that bans top-down, Soviet-style censorship. But in a time of economic turmoil and growing nationalism, with society polarized in unpredictable and emotional ways over the new laws and the war in Ukraine, cultural figures say the message from the government is clear: Fall in line with the emphasis on family and religious values, or lose funding, or worse.

俄羅斯的舞臺藝術蓬勃發展，憲法禁止自上而下的蘇聯式審查制度。但是如今俄羅斯經濟動盪，民族主義情緒高漲。面對新法律和烏克蘭戰爭，整個社會出現不可預料的分化情緒。文化名人們說，政府的信號很明確：文化界要與政府強調家庭和宗教價值觀的政策保持一致，否則會失去資金支持，甚至遇到更糟的狀況。

“It’s about betrayal — those who betray are put in the Ninth Circle of Hell, like in Dante,” Kirill Serebrennikov, a prominent theater and film director and the director of the Gogol Center, a cornerstone of Moscow’s theater scene, said in a recent interview here. The result, he said, was to put writers and directors “between Scylla and Charybdis — between censorship or self-censorship.”

“這其實是在懲罰背叛，就像但丁(Dante)的《神曲》那樣，背叛者被打入第九層地獄，”著名戲劇和電影導演、果戈裏中心(Gogol Center)主管、莫斯科戲劇界巨擘基里爾·謝列布連尼科夫(Kirill Serebrennikov)前不久在莫斯科接受採訪時說。他說，結果是將劇作家和導演們置於“腹背受敵的境地，既要接受審查，又要自我審查”。

That day, Mr. Serebrennikov was puzzling over a report in Izvestia, a newspaper seen as close to the Kremlin, that scholars from a research institute were evaluating whether recent theater productions had “distorted” classic Russian texts. They included his production of Gogol’s “Dead Souls” at the Gogol Center and productions of “Boris Godunov” and “The Karamazovs,” based on the Dostoyevsky novel, both mounted by the popular director Konstantin Bogomolov at other theaters.

接受採訪當天，謝列布連尼科夫正爲《消息報》（Izvestia，該報被認爲與政府關係密切）上的一則報道感到迷惑：一家研究機構的學者們正在評估近期的上演的戲劇是否“歪曲”了俄羅斯經典文學著作。遭到評估的作品包括謝列布連尼科夫在果戈裏中心排演的果戈裏《死魂靈》(Dead Souls)，以及著名導演康斯坦丁·博戈莫洛夫(Konstantin Bogomolov在其他劇院排演的《鮑里斯·戈杜諾夫》(Boris Godunov)和根據陀思妥耶夫斯基(Dostoyevsky)的同名小說改編的《卡拉馬佐夫兄弟》(The Karamazovs) 。

“The goal is to show us that we can’t interpret classical Russian literature at all, or to say that it’s not Russian literature, it’s Kirill Serebrennikov’s fantasy,” Mr. Serebrennikov said. He added that if theaters were to lose public funding, they would be unlikely to find it from private sources.

“這項研究的目的是向我們表明，我們完全不能闡釋經典俄羅斯文學，或者是說這些作品不是俄羅斯文學，而是基里爾·謝列布連尼科夫的幻想，”謝列布連尼科夫說。他補充說，如果劇院失去公共資金支持，也不可能得到私人資助。

In an interview last month in his office here, Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s culture minister, said it was the prerogative of experts at the research institute to look into Russian culture, such as the plays in question. “Maybe, that’s their right to do this,” Mr. Medinsky said. But he said the academics’ findings wouldn’t have repercussions for the theaters.

上個月，俄羅斯文化部長弗拉基米爾·梅金斯基(Vladimir Medinsky)在自己的辦公室接受採訪時說，那所研究院的專家們有天然的權利研究俄羅斯文化，包括大家討論的這些戲劇。“也許那是他們的權利，”梅金斯基說。不過，他說學者們的發現不會對劇院造成影響。

Holding a mobile phone whose case had a picture of Mr. Putin in sunglasses and a camouflage parka above the pop song lyrics “they can’t catch us,” Mr. Medinsky dismissed criticism that the ministry was effectively stifling free expression by funding only projects that it believes meet family- and religious-values standards or that portray Putin’s Russia in a positive light.

當時梅金斯基手上拿着一部手機，外殼上印有普京戴墨鏡、穿迷彩大衣的照片，下面還有一句流行歌曲歌詞“他們抓不到我們”。有人批評說，文化部只資助那些它認爲符合家庭和宗教價值觀標準、或者正面歌頌普京統治下的俄羅斯的項目，因此嚴重扼制了自由言論。梅金斯基否定了這種批評。

“The less they spend their life on Facebook, the less garbage they will have in their heads,” he said of government critics. (Anti-government dissent has been concentrated on social media after the Duma passed a law in 2012 restricting public rallies.)

“他們在Facebook上花的時間越少，頭腦中的垃圾就越少，”在提到政府批評者時，他這樣說（從2012年俄議會下院杜馬通過了限制公開集會的法律後，反政府異見主要集中出現在社交媒體上）。

In the interview, which took place before he ousted the Siberian theater director, Mr. Medinsky was already highly critical of the “Tannhäuser” production. It played four performances to sold-out houses of 1,700 at the Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater before representatives of the local Russian Orthodox Church complained in February.

接受採訪時，梅金斯基尚未罷黜西伯利亞劇院經理，不過對《唐懷瑟》演出非常不滿。該劇在新西伯利亞國家學術劇院(Novosibirsk State Academic Opera)和芭蕾舞劇院(Ballet Theater)共演出四場，場場滿座，共有1700名觀衆觀看了演出。2月份，當地的俄羅斯東正教教會代表提出抗議。

This week, Mr. Medinsky replaced the theater’s director with a loyalist, Vladimir Kekhman, who said he would remove “Tannhäuser” from the repertory. (Before becoming the director of a theater he renovated in St. Petersburg, Mr. Kekhman was a business magnate who imported bananas to Russia.)

本週，梅金斯基任命忠於政府的弗拉基米爾·凱科曼(Vladimir Kekhman)擔任西伯利亞劇院的新主管。凱科曼稱，他將把《唐懷瑟》從演出劇目中除去（凱科曼曾在聖彼得堡修復一家劇院，擔任主管，之前是往俄羅斯香蕉進口行業的巨頭）。

While that case has resonated, with supporters rallying around the theater and critics rallying in support of the Russian Orthodox Church, the law banning obscenities has had a more concrete effect on theater and film. Introduced by a group of lawmakers including Stanislav Govorukhin, a member of Parliament and a popular film and television director during the Soviet period, the law sets fines and 90-day suspensions for violations.

這起事件引起了很大反響，該劇的支持者在劇院外集會，而該劇的批評者們也集會支持俄羅斯東正教教會。不過，禁止髒話的法律對劇院和電影業有更切實的影響。這項法律規定，違反者將受到處罰並被勒令停業90天。提出這項法律的立法者包括下議院議員斯坦尼斯拉夫·戈沃魯欣(Stanislav Govorukhin)。他是蘇聯時期的著名電影和電視導演。

In the interview, Mr. Medinsky defended the law and said there were no plans to revise or revoke it.

在採訪中，梅金斯基維護了這項法律，稱沒有計劃修改或廢除它。

Unlike the average English-language expletive thrown into everyday conversation, in Russian, cursing resonates as extremely crude; it has its own grammar and is never used in polite conversation. It is not uncommon for some older theatergoers to gasp when curses are uttered onstage.

不像英語，髒話在俄語日常對話中極少出現，被認爲極其粗魯。髒話有自己的語法，在禮貌的交談中從不出現。當舞臺上出現髒話時，年長觀衆感到驚訝的情況並不罕見。

Some directors see the anti-obscenity law as a distraction from far more worrisome issues. “Imagine Tony Soprano ruling the country, and Tony Soprano issues a law against obscenities,” said Alexander Zeldovich, the director of the critically acclaimed 2011 dystopian film “Target.”

有些導演認爲，禁止髒話的法律是在轉移人們對其他嚴重問題的關注。“想像一下，如果是託尼·索普拉諾(Tony Soprano)統治這個國家，而他頒佈法律禁止說髒話會是什麼情形，”導演亞歷山大·澤利多維奇(Alexander Zeldovich)說。他2011年的反烏托邦影片《標靶》(Target)廣受好評。

But film professionals are divided. The director Valeria Gai Germanika, 31, known for her coming-of-age films, said she didn’t mind cutting the cursing from her 2014 film “Yes and Yes.”

但是電影專業人士對此意見不一。31歲的導演瓦列裏婭·加伊·(Valeria Gai Germanika)以成長電影聞名。她說，她不介意去除她2014年影片《是的是的》(Yes and Yes)中的髒話。

“We dubbed it again, and I actually think it became even better,” she said in a telephone interview. Asked if such choices should be made by artists themselves or the government, Ms. Gai Germanika said: “There’s a law, and I’m not going to fight against it. Actually, all those great films made in the Soviet era had no swearing, and people learned about the country through them.”

“我們重新配音，實際上我覺得修改之後反而變得更好了，”她在電話採訪中說。當被問及這樣的選擇應該由藝術家還是政府做出時，她說，“有這樣的法律，我不打算對抗法律。實際上，蘇聯時期所有精彩的電影都沒有髒話，人們通過那些電影去了解那個時代。”

Some theaters say they’re simply ignoring the law. “We don’t abide by it, because we think it’s anti-constitutional,” said Yelena Gremina, a co-founder of Moscow’s scrappy , known for its politically charged productions inspired by real-life events.

有些劇院稱，他們不理會這項法律。“我們不遵守它，因爲我們認爲它違反憲法，”敢作敢爲的莫斯科劇團的聯合創始人葉連娜·格里米娜(Yelena Gremina)說。該劇團以上演受真實事件啓發創作的政治劇目聞名。

But there is genuine concern, especially after members of the performance group Pussy Riot were jailed in 2012 on charges of hooliganism after singing an anti-Putin song in a Moscow church.

不過，人們的確感到憂慮，尤其是在2012年表演團隊Pussy Riot在莫斯科一座教堂演唱反普京歌曲被判處流氓罪入獄之後。

“After Pussy Riot, everything is serious; they put those girls in jail for two years,” said Alexander Rodnyansky, a leading film producer, most recently of the Oscar-nominated “Leviathan,” which Mr. Medinsky had criticized for its negative portrayal of Putin’s Russia. (Before it was shown last fall, the film was redubbed to remove the curses.)

“在Pussy Riot事件之後，一切都變得很嚴肅。他們判那些女孩入獄兩年，”著名電影製片人亞歷山大·羅德尼揚斯基(Alexander Rodnyansky)說。他最新制作的影片《利維坦》(Leviathan)獲得了奧斯卡提名。梅金斯基批評該片對普京統治下的俄羅斯的描繪過於負面（去年秋季該片上映前，重新配音，去除了髒話）。

Creative artists say they are deeply worried about the direction of the country, but they find no shortage of material.

創意藝術家們說，他們爲俄羅斯的未來感到極爲擔憂，但他們絕不缺乏素材。

“Putin is a process,” said Mr. Vyrypaev, the director. “I treat him like hydrogen sulfide. If you breathe too much, you’ll die. But it’s still part of nature.”

“普京是一個過程，”導演維裏帕夫說，“我把他看做硫化氫。吸入過多硫化氫，人會死。但它是大自然的一部分。”