Avant-garde Samodurov under guard

A CONTEMPORARY work of art can provoke outrage disproportionate to its artistic merit. In Russia it can also herald a change in the course of history. In 1962 the then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev famously denounced and banned an exhibition of avant-garde artists in Moscow, saying his grandson could paint better. This marked the end of the short post-Stalinist thaw and ushered in the period of “stagnation”. Khrushchev himself was deposed two years later.

Nearly 50 years on, Russian prosecutors are demanding a three-year jail sentence for the organisers of a contemporary-art exhibition in Moscow. The verdict, expected on July 12th, could have an impact far greater than the exhibition itself and determine the balance of power between ultranationalist religious radicals and secular pragmatists in Russia.

The exhibition, called “Forbidden Art”, was organised three years ago by Andrei Yerofeev, a contemporary-art curator, who put together works barred in recent years from other exhibitions. Symbolically, it was shown at the Sakharov museum and centre, a bastion of human rights named after the late Russian physicist and dissident, Andrei Sakharov. Its director, Yuri Samodurov, is a co-defendant.

To highlight the censored nature of the show, the works were concealed from public view by a fake wall and could be seen only by climbing onto a stool and peering through small holes. Photography was banned to prevent the dissemination of the images and people under the age of 16 were warned to stay away. One picture showed a Russian general raping a soldier with the caption “Glory to Russia”; another placed an Order of Lenin medal in place of Christ's head.

A group of militant religious radicals, who claim to have the support of the Russian Orthodox Church, overcame all the obstacles. They were duly offended, and started a vitriolic campaign against the organisers. More troubling, however, was the response of the state prosecution service, which took up their case and charged the organisers with “debasing the religious beliefs of citizens and inciting religious hatred”. The exhibition, the prosecution alleged, was a continuation of the museum's “anti-state” and “anti-Orthodox” activity, equating the two. A church representative endorsed the prosecution and condemned the exhibition as blasphemous.

In a letter to Kirill, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Mr Yerofeev apologised for inadvertently hurting the feeling of believers, but blasted the church for siding with a group of anti-Semitic, militant radicals. Gleb Yakunin, a liberal cleric, says the campaign against the exhibition is driven by fanatics akin to the revolutionary guards that preserve Iran's Islamic regime. They are seeking to push Kirill into a corner, he says.

It was not the first time that Mr Samodurov's work has got him into trouble. Five years ago he was fined 100,000 Roubles ($3,200) for organising an exhibition called “Caution, Religion”. This time, however, the prosecution is demanding a jail sentence. If the judge grants it, Mr Yerofeev and Mr Samodurov will become the first people since the end of Communism to be jailed for artistic expression.

But they may not be the last. A guilty verdict, says Andrei Zorin, an historian of Russian culture at Oxford University, would send a powerful signal to the ultra-Orthodox radicals and nationalists, who will inevitably seek more repression and control over people's lives. “It is as naive to assume that it would not touch on everyone's lives, as it was naive seven years ago to think that the jailing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky [a former business tycoon] would have no impact on business and politics in Russia,” he argues.

A conviction will hurt Russia's international reputation and undermine any talk of modernisation. This may be why Alexander Avdeev, Russia's minister of culture, has criticised the criminal proceedings. Kirill has not spoken against the prosecution being carried out in the name of the church—even though a conviction could harm its reputation more than any exhibition could ever do.