Alla Pugacheva and Maxim Galkin against the Kremlin

Alla Pugacheva has not had a solo performance in twelve and a half years, with the exception of her 70th birthday. However, the pop singer has not disappeared from the stage. She is a living, cross-generational legend of the Soviet-Russian dais, of what is hit in the German-speaking world. As in Schlager, her career was not about politics, but about love and world pain. “A Million Crimson Roses” is one of her most famous catchy tunes. She is also a symbol of Soviet culture: her solo career began in Kharkiv in 1976.

Cross-generational idol

The war that Russia is waging against Ukraine has also caught up with Pugacheva. A publication of her on Instagram with a clear political orientation provoked violent reactions at the weekend – at least among the officials and propagandists as well as the intellectual opponents of the regime. The latter are counting on the effect that Pugacheva, the idol of generations of those who grew up in the Soviet Union, is still having on the otherwise politically apathetic population.

Instagram is blocked in Russia and can only be reached via detours; the parent company Meta is classified as an extremist organization. But the singer has over three million followers, and several hundred thousand users wrote comments – often in agreement – ​​or gave a heart.

After February 24, Pugacheva traveled to Israel with her husband, the singer, comedian and actor Maxim Galkin. In early September, she returned to Russia with her minor children. Her husband, who was 27 years her junior, did not mince words. He openly condemned the Russian attack on Ukraine and in a short video at Easter he criticized the hypocrisy of the powerful. Although employed by state television until the outbreak of war, he had always made jokes at the expense of political celebrities – right up to President Vladimir Putin.

Branded by the state

Galkin is also the trigger for the headlines that Pugacheva has been making with her publication since Sunday. On Friday, Russia’s Justice Ministry declared Galkin a “foreign agent,” a stigma that is now being foisted on people who the regime sees as “wrong” positions. He was said to have been politically active in favor of Ukraine.

Pugacheva wrote to the Ministry of Justice asking her to be included in the ranks of “foreign agents”. For she agrees with her husband, an honest and righteous man. He wished his homeland peace, freedom of speech and that the Russian “guys” didn’t have to die for illusory goals. These made the country a pariah and made life difficult for the citizens.

Pugacheva indirectly referred to Galkin’s reaction to the Justice Department’s decision: he was not politically active; political satire falls under the constitutional freedom of expression.

Pugacheva and Galkin’s statements might be taken for granted, but they are not. Both artists never positioned themselves as oppositional, even if Pugacheva occasionally offended in Soviet times. She later got involved in Boris Yeltsin’s re-election campaign and in Putin’s “Public Chamber,” an institution imitating civil society. In 2011 she supported the – initially tolerated – presidential candidacy of liberal entrepreneur and patron Mikhail Prokhorov. Galkin cultivates a satire that is directed against everyone and thus does not separate the regime from its opponents.

A Russian Zelensky?

The opponents of the war therefore see Pugacheva’s statement in particular as a sign of the break between the popular culture world, which has been pampered by the Kremlin for years, and the regime. Events are slipping away more and more – on the battlefield, but also on the “home front”. In recent months, politicians have repeatedly complained about the lack of interest in the cultural world for the “special operation”. In contrast, the classification of popular artists like Galkin as “agents of foreign countries” seems helpless and ridiculous.

Officials like the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma and former TV journalist Pyotr Tolstoy dismissed the excitement surrounding Pugacheva: He was sorry that the once most popular singer had lost touch with reality and was collaborating with those who wished Russia defeat. Now you will win without their songs. Others interpreted her statements as an expression of her attachment to her husband, nothing more. Criticism also came from opponents of the regime, who failed to mention the Ukrainian victims. However, Pugacheva was addressing an audience for whom the very words she chose are very far-reaching.

The attention paid to the two stars encouraged some commentators to think even more far-reaching: In Galkin they see a possible future Russian president – and negotiating partner of the Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The two know each other: At the turn of the year 2013/14, shortly before Russia and Ukraine definitely fell out, the comedians shared the New Year’s program on Russian television.