검열을 넓은 의미에서 바라볼 때, 국가의 지원을 받는 러시아의 국공립극장에 대한 간섭들이 어떤 형태로든 여전히 지속되고 있을 것이라는 짐작과 추측들은 사실상 페레스트로이카를 통해 검열의 종식을 선언했던 시기부터 있었다. 짐작과 추측은 곧 의심이었고, 이것은 검열이 작동되지 않는다는 것이 무엇인지를 경험했던 역사가 없었던지라 검열에 대한 자기 점검 혹은 그것을 쟁점화 해서 논의하자는 문제 제기의 과정이었을 것이다. 이러한 맥락에서 2016년, 러시아 연극인연합(Союза театральных деятелей)총회에서 사티리콘(Сатир икон)극장의 예술감독인 콘스탄틴 라이킨(К. Райкин)이 러시아연극에 있어서의 검열의 귀환을 염려한 발언들은 검열의 종식 이후 다시 러시아연극에 있어 검열의 문제가 수면 위로 떠 오르게 된 발화점이었다. 라이킨을 시작으로 한 검열의 귀환에 대한 논란은 고골센터(Гоголь-центр)예술감독인 키릴 세레브랸니코프(К. Серебренников) 사건으로 연결된다. 특히나 세레브랸니코프가 무대화한 <악동들(Отморозки)>은 포스트소비에트 사회에 검열이 ‘있는가’ ‘없는가’ 하는 질문 사이에서 검열의 존재를 확신하는 결정적 근거가 된 핵심 사건이었다. 세레브랸니코프는 이 사건으로 러시아 사회에 검열기계가 작동되고 있음을 확신한다고 했으며 검열을 정보 제한의 문제가 아니라 인간의 자유와 권리를 억압하는 폭압적 정치의 행태로 봐야 한다고 주장했다. 본고는 포스트소비에트 사반세기, 다시 러시아연극의 쟁점으로 떠 오른 검열의 문제를 연구 대상으로 삼아, 포스트소비에트 사회에서 새롭게 작동되기 시작한 검열기계를 점검하고 그것의 활동방식에 대한 논의를 진행하였다. 이를 통해 신검열 시대를 맞이한 러시아 극장의 새로운 정치학과 함께 창작의 자유를 수호하고자 하는 러시아연극계 전체의 행보를 살펴보았다.

What does it mean that censorship was discussed again in the post-Soviet quarter-century? The theater, where the desire for freedom beginning with the end of the Soviet Union was most clearly captured, made it possible to notice the end of censorship with the 1991 announcement of a Russian Federal Constitution's cultural clause that indicated that government legislations would not allow any interference in theatrical creations. It was a fait accompli that political and religious censorship came to an end, lasting a century after the revolution, although it was a premise that the theater was responsible for drug propaganda, incitement to violence, a creation raising hostility to a race or a nation. The spirit of the perestroika, not confining people in the framework of ideology, led to the end of censorship, and it might have been a barometer to confirm the will and influence of the perestroika. However, there were still questions. Did a century-old custom of censorship completely lose power in the perestroika? When viewing censorship in a broad sense including self-censorship, there were assumptions that interference with state-backed national and public theaters might still persist in some form, from the times when an end to censorship was declared. Doubts about a complete end to censorship may have been a process of self-checking for censorship or raising questions that could dispute and discuss it, as there was no history of what it was that censorship was not working. In this context, Constantine Rykin, artistic director of the Satiricon Theater, made concerned remarks about the return of censorship at the general assembly of the Russian Theater Federation in 2016, and it became the trigger that made the issue of censorship again in the Russian theater after the end of the censorship. Controversy over the return of censorship, starting with Constantine Rykin, leads to the incident by the Kirill Serebrennikov, the artistic director of the Gogol Center. This study will examine the issue of censorship which emerged as that of Russian theater again in the post-Soviet quarter century. The study will check the censoring machines that began to work anew in post-Soviet society, twenty years after the end of the Soviet Union as a huge ideology, and explore what similarities and differences there are in the history of 100 years of censorship in modern Russian theater. Looking at the advent of censorship and its transformation in Russian society, it will research how censorship is being reproduced in contemporary Russian society, with the Gogol Center at the center of the issue of censorship in the contemporary Russian theater as the main text.