The savage purging of independent thought and creativity among Russian intellectuals since Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine continues apace.

In 2020 a play called Finist the Bright Falcon by Svetlana Petriychuk premiered in Moscow. The state-funded production was directed by Evgeniya Berkovich. The play won two awards at Russia’s prestigious Golden Mask theatre festival in 2022. Its title is drawn from a popular Russian folk tale. The tale describes the long and hazardous journey undertaken by a fair maiden in order to find true love with a young prince who had visited her in the guise of a bird with magnificent plumage.

Petriychuk’s play seeks to understand the naive decisions of young women who have been seduced online to go and become brides of Isis fighters, and who are charged with terrorism offences when they return to Russia. It was partly based on court transcripts.

This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.

Several describe their dull lives in Russia and difficulties with Russian men. Their supposed future husbands tempt them to travel to Syria with fantastical and exotic narratives of life as a Muslim bride. None of the women express any awareness of terrorist violence. On the Golden Mask website Petriychuk explains:

We took an extremely complex theme, in which it was exceptionally difficult to connect with the protagonists, to understand them, to have empathy with them, and to understand what happened […] What does a person – a woman – lack, for her to gamble absolutely her entire life,........

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