Women on the Fault Lines of Faith: Pussy Riot and the Insider/Outsider Challenge to Post-Soviet Orthodoxy

Abstract

This article examines the explosive reaction to ‘Punk Prayer’ as a religious act. It argues that the power of the performance as iconoclash resulted from the fact that it tapped, resonated with and disturbed Russia’s Orthodox culture through its appropriation of Orthodox sound, space and symbols – namely, the image of Mary, the Mother of God. The perceived position of its performers as insiders or outsiders to Orthodoxy, the evaluation of the sincerity of Punk Prayer as prayer and the paradoxical role that gender played in shaping these perceptions contributed to the tumultuous response.