Pussy Riot: Punk on Trial Page 1 of 21 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 05 October 2021 Subject: Music, Musicology and Music History Online Publication Date: Sep 2021 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190859565.013.34 Pussy Riot: Punk on Trial Judith A. Peraino Punk Rock Edited by George McKay and Gina Arnold Abstract and Keywords Pussy Riot emerged in 2011 as an anonymous Russian political activist art collective that impersonated a punk rock band in their staging of protests against the autocratic regime of Vladimir Putin. In 2012, three of its members were tried and imprisoned for nearly two years, which garnered the attention and outrage of the United States and Western Euro pean countries. The illegal punk performance actions of Pussy Riot, disseminated in edit ed videos through the Internet, depended on late capitalism’s global network, which turns DIY underproduction into viral capitalistic overproduction (to use Shane Greene’s terms of analysis). These are the same technological routes and apparatuses of disinfor mation through which Russia attempted to sow social discord to the advantage of Donald Trump in the 2016 election. This essay traces the reconfiguration of punk in the course of the actions and trial of Pussy Riot, from the generic punk music stance of jamming the system with loud noise and mischievous fakery, to an understanding of punk as an ac tivism that works through the court system and champions transparency. In the face the lawless autocracies of Putin and Trump, where shocking disregard for institutions has be come an overproduced political norm, punk rebellion ironically may take the form of a methodical and rigorous investment in the rule of law. Pussy Riot’s post-trial punk does not envision anarchy, but rather a functioning legal system and government institutions that that protect human rights. Keywords: punk, Pussy Riot, Russia, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, political activist art, feminism For me punk … it’s a way of life, but not like a music direction. I should say I’m not a musician. I don’t know how to play any musical instrument…. I’m the last one who can say something relevant about music…. But punk for me, it is a way to express yourself, because you can shout as loud as you can, you can be totally ab normal because I kind of hate norms. —Pussy Riot’s Masha Alyokhina, interviewed by Judith Peraino and Tom McEnaney, Cornell University, November 2, 2016