Representing Cultural Diversity in Russia. The Eurovision contest and Manizha’s “Russian Woman” Performance

Representing Cultural Diversity in Russia. The Eurovision contest and Manizha’s “Russian Woman” Performance

with Mark Simon

Photo: MANIZHA on Instagram

The nomination of Manizha Sangin, a Russian singer of Tajik origin, for the Eurovision
Song Contest seems to have come as a surprise to everyone. On the one hand, this concerns the
conservative part of Russian society, which various political forces are trying to mobilize,
condemning Manizha for insulting the image of a Russian woman. On the other hand, this event
contributed to the solidarity of new social and cultural agents advocating the value of diversity
and freedom of self-identification in Russia.

In his presentation, the speaker will focus on the following questions. Why was the
performance of the “Russian Woman” perceived by a significant part of the Russian public as a
violation of the canon of representing “Russianness”? Whom does Manizha herself seek to
represent in her public activities? Can it be argued that the singer’s stage image meets the
demand for public visibility emanating from the migrant communities in Russia? What is the
new discourse of diversity in Russia, and what social actors are transmitting this discourse into
the public sphere?

Speakers

Mark Simon is a leading research fellow at the Centre for Political Theory and Applied Political Science of the Russian Academy of National Economy (RANEPA) and an assistant professor at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSSES). In recent years, he has been studying the artistic practices of migrants in European countries and in Russia. He has
written such articles as “The Oeuvre of Migrants as a Problem of the Sociology of Culture: Newcomers from Tajikistan in Russia” [Neprikosnovenniy zapas 119(3), co-authored by Vladimir Malakhov and Saodat Olimova], “Staging Urban Diversity: Migrants on Theatrical Stages in Berlin and Moscow” [Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research 12(1)], “Soviet in Form, National in Content: Central Asian Migrants in the Cultural Infrastructure of Moscow” [The Journal of Social Policy Studies 18(4)].

Marlene Laruelle, Moderator

Marlene Laruelle, Ph.D., is Director, Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies; Director, Central Asia Program; Co-Director, PONARS-Eurasia; and Research Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University. She works on political, social and cultural changes in the post-Soviet space. Marlene’s research explores the transformations of nationalist and conservative ideologies in Russia, nationhood construction in Central Asia, as well as the development of Russia’s Arctic regions. She has been the Principal Investigator of several grants on Russian nationalism, on Russia’s strategies in the Arctic, and on Central Asia’s domestic and foreign policies from the US State Department, the Defense Department, the National Science Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Henry Luce Foundation, etc.