The Russian Constitution guarantees freedom of thought, expression, and information to every citizen, prohibiting propaganda that incites social, racial, or religious hatred, and forbidding censorship. However, the reality in Russia is starkly different: censorship has long been a tool for political control, particularly since the end of the 18th century.

With the war in Ukraine, these evolving mechanisms of censorship have become a penal system for retribution and control over personal freedoms. This book examines this critical moment, while highlighting that censorship in Russia predates Putin's regime. It explores both external and internal forms of censorship, including the actions of individual artists and state-sanctioned protests by far-right groups. Additionally, it looks at the closure of theatre companies due to allegations of mismanaging state funds. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of how state-driven censorship functions within Russian theatre in the 21st century.

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*Yana Meerzon is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She is the author of four books, including Performing Nationalism in Russia (2024). She has co-edited nine volumes, including ThePalgraveHandbook of Theatre and Migration with Steve Wilmer (2023). Former President of Canadian Association for Theatre Research (CATR), she is now a co-editor of the book series Palgrave Studies in Performance and Migration.*

Mikhail Kaluzhsky is a playwright and author. A native of Novosibirsk, he now resides in Berlin. He works in documentary theater, and his plays have been performed in Russia, Germany, Israel, Switzerland, Finland, Latvia and the United Kingdom. Kaluzhsky worked as a curator of documentary projects at the Joseph Beuys Theater in Moscow (2010-2012) and a theater program at Sakharov Center in Moscow (2012-2014). He is the author of several non-fiction books and numerous articles on arts, politics and media.