Only 19 percent saw it as a protest against Putin. According to polls conducted by the respected Levada Center, 42 percent of Russians consider the punk prayer an attack on the Russian Orthodox Church. The lèse majesté argument seems to hold sway outside Russia, but, rightly or wrongly, a plurality of Russians in the country itself disagree.
42 percent of Russians consider the punk prayer an attack on the Russian Orthodox Church.
The publicity outside Russia surrounding the Pussy Riot trial has focused on the band members' kinetic, sock-it-to 'em dance style and mocking prostrations before the altar of Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral, the colorful balaclavas they wore to perform their 'punk prayer,' their erudite, eloquent statements in court, and the sentencing of three of them, in August, to two years in a penal colony for 'hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.' (One sentence has since been overturned on appeal and a band member freed.) That the punk prayer began with the choral refrain that translates as 'Birth-giver of God, drive away Putin!' has also been reported, of course, which words would seem to explain their conviction, if we assume their real offence was not 'hooliganism' of one sort or another, but a brazen act of lèse majesté - of insulting the ruler - against Russian president Vladimir Putin.
