A resident of Novokuznetsk achieved the termination of an administrative case regarding the publication of a “Red Mold” video with a swastika

The expert opinion of a culturologist helped to terminate the case initiated under Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses.

On October 12, 2018, the Novoilinsky District Court of Novokuznetsk terminated the proceedings on the case of an administrative offense, which was initiated under Part 1 of Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (public demonstration of Nazi symbols) in relation to a local resident Konstantin Ostroukhov. Ostroukhov himself told Sova about this.

The persecution of a resident of Novokuznetsk was due to the fact that back in 2012 he saved in his profile on the social network "VKontakte" an animated video for the song of the group "Red mold" called "Anthem of the punks". There is a swastika in the video: according to the plot, the punks - the founder of the group Pavel Yatsyna and his comrades, the creators of the video - come to grips with the Nazis attacking the country, personifying "pop music", and happily deal with them, so that only Hitler manages to escape by leaving Earth on a rocket. The lyrics of the song do not contain any statements aimed at glorifying or justifying Nazism. However, earlier, in September 2018, another resident of Novokuznetsk, Oleg Astafyev, was fined for publishing this clip .

Ostroukhov decided to prove his innocence in court and enlisted the expert opinion of the culturologist Alexander Zharkikh. The expert analyzed the video clip in detail. He noted that based on sociocultural and historical analysis, it can be argued that the video does not promote Nazi paraphernalia or ideology, as it is a clip of a group whose work belongs to the anarchist direction in punk, and anarchism and Nazism are fundamentally irreconcilable ideologies.

Analyzing the artistic and aesthetic side of the video material, the expert emphasized that, although the clip demonstrates Nazi symbols, it is a work of art (as well as "Seventeen Moments of Spring", "Shield and Sword", "Long Road in the Dunes", "Rome - Open city", "Floreal - the time of flowering", "Night of St. Lawrence", etc.). At the same time, punk art " should be considered from the postmodern standpoint of non-classical aesthetics ," the culturologist noted, pointing out that the visual aesthetics of the clip are influenced by Andy Warhol, Russian avant-garde primitivism and the caricature tradition of the Kukryniksy creative group, and poetry motifs in the way the text is presented. Velimira Khlebnikov and intonations of absurdity inherent in the creative heritage of the OBERIUTs, " which allowed the French researcher of Russian punk, professor of social anthropology Helen Piaget to consider "Red Mold" an absolute phenomenon of Russian and world punk, and compare the leader of the band Pavel Yatsyn with D. Kharms ".

A phenomenological analysis of the lyrics of the song showed that both in the chorus and in the verses we are talking about the victory of punks over pop music and fascists, and the Nazi ideology is discredited through sarcasm and parody (banter). Finally, the expert's detailed analysis of the visuals of the "Punk Anthem" video also showed that it contains graphic images of Nazi paraphernalia and symbols, but " the fact of propaganda of extremist ideas is not confirmed ."

The court took into account the expert's arguments and, as Ostroukhov told us, terminated the proceedings due to the absence of an administrative offense. We welcome this decision, as we believe that the display of Nazi symbols should not be punished in cases where it is not aimed at promoting Nazi ideology.

Sources

• Case card No. 5-392/2018 // Website of the Novoilinsky District Court of Novokuznetsk. 2018. October 12.
  
  
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