Or is it just the other way around? With Donald Trump’s and Vladimir Putin’s governing methods so closely mirroring one another lately, it’s nearly impossible to determine who is inspiring whom.

I’ve been to the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. It was in February of 1993, and it was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I’ve also been to the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, back when it was still known as the Kirov and the city was called Leningrad. And I’ve spent countless hours at Washington’s Kennedy Center, National Theater and others, immersing myself in all sorts of entertainment, from ballet and opera to musical comedy to drama to jazz and pop music to . . . well, you name it. It’s all art, and it’s all wonderfully enriching and soul-satisfying.

To see it politicized is, to my mind, the ultimate degradation of the best that humanity has to offer: music, literature, drama, painting and sculpture. But it has happened in the past, and it is happening again.

Back in the days of the Cold War, when Russian artists from the Bolshoi, the Kirov and others performed outside of their country, they were accompanied by a cadre of KGB minders whose job it was to keep the performers from defecting. Sometimes they failed, as with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev and Natalia Makarova. But for the most part, they were able to keep their charges in line.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it became possible for Russian citizens simply to move to another country if they so desired . . . though there seemed to be less reason for them to do so as restrictions were lifted.

But I wonder how long that will last. News has now been received that employees of the Bolshoi will hereafter be judged and monitored — not only for their artistry and technical excellence, as always — but also for their interest in, and views on, Russia’s war in Ukraine, which it still refers to as its “special military operation.”

In accordance with a contract between the Bolshoi and a Russian software company called Andek, the company’s “InfoWatch Traffic Monitor” software is being installed to examine email correspondence for obscene content and discussions about theater management. But it will also include filters to detect “political views” and “interest in the SVO” (the Russian acronym for “special military operation”). [RFE/RL, August 22, 2025.]

In addition, the Bolshoi’s general director, Vladimir Urin, was fired after signing a petition in 2022 expressing his opposition to the war. In his place, the theater’s operations are now under the direction of famed conductor Valery Gergiev, who — because of his vehement support of Vladimir Putin — has been shunned in a number of Western countries, the most recent being Italy. (See my post, “7/13/25: The Politicization of Culture.”)

This being the Putin era in Russia — a regime of ever-increasing repression and persecution — these developments are not especially surprising. But what do they have to do with Donald Trump or the Kennedy Center?

Everything. Because Trump, less than a month after re-ascending the throne in the newly-gilded Oval Office, fired several Kennedy Center board members deemed not sufficiently subservient to him, replaced them with his own loyalists, and installed himself as chairman of the board. At the time, he wrote on Truth Social:

“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN.” [Alexandra Marquez and Nnamdi Egwuonwu, NBC News, August 13, 2025.]

(Washington theatergoers have always been of the opinion that it was already great, but that’s obviously of no interest to the new chairman.)

Since then, he has made personnel changes, stricken programs that he considered too “woke,” and talked about renaming it after his wife Melania — which would be a violation of the Act of Congress that created the Center in 1964. [Id.]

And earlier this month, he announced that he would host this year’s Kennedy Center Honors ceremony — a glittering event that has always been emceed by show business headliners such as Queen Latifah and David Letterman. He claims he was reluctant to host when first asked to do so, saying:

“It’s going to be a big evening. I’ve been asked to host. I said, ‘I don’t care. I’m president of the United States. I won’t do it.’ They said, ‘please.’ I didn’t want to do it? OK? They’re going to say, ‘He insisted.’ I did not insist. But I think it will be quite successful.” [Id.]

Right . . . suddenly he’s reluctant to take center stage. And the moon is made of cheese.

Since Trump’s changes have been instituted, the Kennedy Center has lost numerous long-time subscribers, and a number of performers have refused to appear there. Washington, D.C. — the nation’s capital — is in danger of losing its preeminent cultural center.

Taken alongside his alterations to the revered Smithsonian Institution’s exhibits and programs in his frenzy to eliminate any indication of DEI — even, in fact, attempting to rewrite history by erasing any mention of the negative aspects of our past and present — it is not difficult to draw a comparison between Trump’s and Putin’s actions.

It’s all about control and personal satisfaction. Because that’s what autocrats do.

And it’s scaring me to death.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
8/22/25