Adrian Campbell & Elena Denezhkina. Celebrity Studies. Volume 8, Issue 2, 2017.
In 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin was declared the most powerful person in the world (Forbes 2015). However, Russia itself, although once again a major geopolitical player, was experiencing an economic and budgetary crisis. The gap between the image and the reality testifies to the power of Putin’s celebrity status but also hints at a compensatory element in its motivation. Not only was Putin decidedly not a celebrity prior to coming to power in 1999, first as appointed Prime Minister and then as elected president the following year, but his public image, carefully managed from the start, became more extravagantly oriented towards celebrity style after 2005. The timing and significance of this change is the subject of this article.
Politician celebrity
Marsh et al. (2010) distinguish between celebrity politicians (for whom celebrity pre-dates their political career) and politician celebrities, those who become celebrities or acquire elements of ‘celebrityhood’ (Street 2004) in the course of their political career. For this distinction to be meaningful, a further distinction needs to be made between fame and celebrity, because not every well-known politician can be regarded as a celebrity. Rockwell and Giles (2009) distinguish between ‘fame’ as a longstanding historical category, attained through specific deeds, and ‘celebrity’ as a modern category associated through media exposure.
Celebrity status brings power, augmenting the power the politician already has but in an ambiguous fashion. As Marshall (1997) argues, celebrity status can endow discursive power but at the same time may provoke derision; unlike fame, celebrity is under-determined—once in the public domain, it is open to interpretation and can cross the boundary into popular culture where, unlike conventional political celebrities who have to tread a narrow path, all publicity can be potentially good publicity, so long as the icon remains in the public eye. This may be easier to achieve where political competition is dampened—as Street (2012, p. 353) comments, ‘it is in authoritarian regimes that we have witnessed the cult of personality, the “aestheticisation” of politics and the propagandist use of cultural symbolism’. However, as Hearn and Schoenhoff (2016, p. 198) argue, in a different context, ‘recognition by the public is constitutive of celebrity value’.
Politician celebrities are thus more likely to emerge in a quasi-democratic et al.’s (2010) contention that celebrity politics and politician celebrities are phenomena of late modernity. They are, however, referring to a western liberal scenario of hollowed-out states and network governance in which what Redmond (2010) refers to as the ‘liquid’ celebrity of Obama may flourish. In more recent years, however, as Street (2012) comments, there is recognition that the rules of celebrity politics reflect specific country contexts.
Putin’s celebrity persona does not play only for a Russian context, however, but has become an icon for an anti-liberal politics closely associated with the personality of the founder—referred to as ‘putinisation’ by its critics (see, for example, Müller 2011)—that has been seen as influential in the politics of countries as diverse as Hungary, Turkey, Israel, India, China and the USA.
Project Putin
In the 2000 presidential election, Putin, as recently appointed Prime Minister, faced a formidable opponent in the form of the Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, who had powerful allies, immense resources and experience and was widely expected to win. Putin’s campaign was referred to as ‘Project Putin’ (Baker and Glasser 2005, p. 38), the aim being to turn a relatively unknown official (in a country where at that time there were many larger than life ‘oligarchs’) into a nationwide politician. Putin was at that stage supported by Berezovsky (later a bitter enemy) who deployed his influential First Channel TV station against Luzhkov with the same ruthlessness as it had used in the landmark election of 1996. The second Chechen war also benefited Putin as the government’s candidate.
In his early years in power, it was Putin’s undeniable tactical skills obtained during his career as a KGB operative (see Hill and Gaddy 2015) that enabled him to outmanoeuvre the oligarchs, including the once-invincible Berezovsky, and then the regional governors and elites, whose local dominance had also seemed a political fact.
Putin’s task was to create a strong state amid the chaos of post-Soviet reforms (Capelli 2010). The public image associated with this was anything but celebrity oriented and instead emphasised legality, order and stability. Indeed, as late as 2007, conservatives were criticising Putin for not stepping into the role and image of a traditional Russian autocrat, but being too much the technocrat, like a hired public official performing to a contract (Bordiugova and Kasaeva 2007, p. 214). This ‘mistake’ was ascribed to Putin having a contradictory mandate—on the one hand to raise the country’s status through mobilisation, but on the other to deliver the stability needed for prosperity (Bordiugova and Kasaeva 2007, p. 209).
Contradictions
The issue of contradictory mandates is central to the evolution of Putin as politician celebrity. He had been able to gain the support of a very wide cross-section of the electorate, representing quite different views and priorities, and his own agenda contained contradictions. For example, as Sakwa (2007, p. 37) argues, Putin’s reform project of the early 2000s was torn between the need to reconstitute Russia’s system of government on the basis of law and to re-concentrate power within it (away from the private oligarchs and regional elites). The first led to a legal-rational state, and the second to a renewal of the patrimonialism that the former was intended to abolish (see Judah 2013, p. 121, Arutunyan 2014, p. 2).
Putin’s regime has from the start involved a balancing act, meeting the minimum demands of both conservatives and liberals in policy terms while maintaining a tight grip on power. The different sides of the Putin ideology could be seen before he attained power. Rar (2002, pp. 8–9) has described how as early as 1994 Putin, as Deputy to the liberal mayor Sobchak in St Petersburg, had caused consternation at an international conference in the city by declaring the need to support and re-integrate Russians living outside Russia’s border in Crimea and elsewhere. The ‘Eurasianist’ nationalist leader Alexander Dugin (a former Kremlin adviser sidelined for seeking to commit Russia fully to the ‘Novorossiya’ campaign in the Donbass) expressed the duality in terms of the sun and the moon:
We do not have one, Putin but two. ‘Sun’ and ‘moon’ Putin … he operates at two levels. ‘Sun Putin’ acts strictly in the interests of Russia, when in the form of the president the patriotic majority can be consolidated. When ‘Moon Putin’ rules, political technology (spin) begins to dominate politics and with it the shadows of Putin’s entourage. (Dugin 2012, p. 162)
According to this view, Putin remains partly loyal to Europe and his Europe-oriented ‘friends’: ‘[d]espite his Eurasian beliefs, Vladimir Putin is a fan of Europe and the European way of development. But to integrate with Europe, Russia must first become a full-fledged geopolitical subject, not just economic’ (Korovin 2016, p. 236). Critics on the left make a similar point: ‘one of the key opponents of Vladimir Putin is himself’ (Belkovsky 2008, p. 48).
These contradictions were less of a problem in the early 2000s, when the centralised political stability promoted by Putin was associated with rapidly rising living standards. The system was, however, put under strain by the Beslan terrorist crisis, the Orange Revolution of 2005 in Ukraine and the financial crises of 2008 and after, which undermined living standards. To cope with these threats, the Putin regime would have to raise its ‘information warfare’ game. This was not so much a new departure, but an intensification and diversification of existing strategy.
Brand Putin
The changed context after 2005 led to the appointment of Vladislav Surkov as head of ideology, who copied the methods of the Ukrainian Non-Governmental Organizations in reverse, setting up youth movements to lionise the president and face down opposition (Belkovsky 2008, p. 101, Zygar’ 2016, p. 121). Surkov’s elaboration of ‘sovereign democracy’ legitimised Russia’s detour away from western systems of government, and opened the way for a more wholehearted embrace of what were seen as Russian traditions of power (for the ways in which the Putin cult draws on historical traditions, see Arutunyan 2014, p. 211).
The frantic projection of power, internally for external purposes and externally for internal purposes, may be understood in the context of the loss of power in every possible respect that occurred with the fall of the Soviet Union—an emotional shock quite distinct from any attachment to Communism. Putin regretted the fall of the Soviet Union but supported the Democrats against the coup organised by the old guard in August 1991 (Baker and Glasser 2005). Romantics such as Gilchrist (2008, p. 77) see the longstanding tendency to build high fortresses and towers in Russia as part of the need to project force over a great distance—‘a mighty statement in a dark, cold, snowy land’.
The idea of Putin as cult celebrity or cultural icon has attracted increasing attention in recent years (Goscilo 2013, Arutunyan 2014, Rainsford 2015). Although encouraged by state-friendly TV channel coverage, it is not entirely top down. To take a trivial but telling example, the souvenir shops in Moscow that in the past sold ironic retro T-shirts juxtaposing Lenin and McDonalds now sell almost exclusively Putin-themed T-shirts. The designs unashamedly present Putin in James Bond/gangster mode peering through mirror shades or sporting special forces-style uniforms. The slogan is typically ‘the most polite president’, an ironic reference to the way Russian troops entering Crimea had been referred to as ‘polite’. There can be no more graphic example of how the cult of Putin as celebrity icon has attempted to fill the symbolism, ideological and geopolitical vacuum left by the passing of the Soviet Union a generation earlier.
The merchandise looks less like state-promoted propaganda and more like attempts to cash in on an image that has taken root with the public. Interestingly the images present more of a ‘bad boy’ image of Putin than TV propaganda which tends to offer more conservative images—diver, hunter, animal healer, rescue worker and so on. Either way, the Putin celebrity cult has long contained both spontaneous and managed elements. As Arutunyan (2014, p. 216) points out, spontaneous manifestations of a Putin cult—songs, portraits, expressions of devotion—began to appear as early as 2001 and over time blended with images and photo-opportunities generated from above and publicised on state media which by the early 2000s were largely under Putin’s control.
Throughout Putin’s period in office he has appeared to fulfil different roles through different discourses (see Ryazanova-Clark 2013). From the Duma elections of 2007, an even greater emphasis on Putin as a politician could be seen—notably with the movement ‘for Putin’ (Ryazanova-Clark 2013). The official images disseminated via state media became more extravagant in the period from 2008 onwards, when Putin became Prime Minister with Medvedev replacing him as President, and even more so after Putin returned to the Presidency in 2012. What Hill and Gaddy (2015, p. 14) refer to as the Kremlin Special Props Department would prepare ever more diverse scenarios for presidential photo opportunities.
However, there is a simpler view that links the Putin image to the specific context of Russia after the fall of the USSR. Roxburgh (2013), who worked for a period with the presidential PR staff in the mid-2000s, emphasises the influence of Russia’s collapse on the psychology of Putin and his supporters. The appeal of Putin is that he appealed to what in Greece has been termed the ‘underdog culture’, linked to an ideology of anti-western populism (Stavrakakis 2002). A large domineering figure like Boris Yeltsin made Russia look ridiculous in its decade of humiliation in the 1990s. Putin, small in stature and apparently expert at judo, a means of felling larger and more powerful opponents, fitted this role. His job-learned operative’s skills were also ideal for escaping a tight corner and fitted the legend of the bold spy nurtured by generations of Soviet films. His average educational attainment meant that he did not patronise average Russian citizens in the way that liberal gurus were seen to. Putin thus combined both the image and the substance of the underdog strategy. Home audiences were encouraged to see and enjoy the spectacle of the West appearing always to underestimate Putin (as they did Russia, according to this view). Putin’s risky but successful intervention in Syria in 2015 salvaged Russia’s economically and diplomatically damaged position after the Ukraine conflict and could be presented as an example of the underdog apparently outwitting a more powerful opponent.
Conclusion
The Putin celebrity cult (up to the time of writing, in early 2017) has been successful in shoring up support in a more problematic environment than that of the pre-celebrity Putin years. Putin has acquired certain celebrity characteristics—endless media coverage both at home and abroad, with both negative and positive coverage helping to cement the image. As with classic celebrities, there is an element of unresolved contradiction and indeterminacy or Stanislavski-type understatement that, combined with extensive coverage, encourages the audience to see what they want to see. The boldest projections of Putin celebrity cult on the international stage were moulded against the policies of the Bush and Obama administrations in the USA. The celebrity style and unpredictability of Obama’s successor may prove a more complex challenge for the Putin presidency, requiring a change of strategy.
Liberal journalist Zygar’ (2016, p. 403), at the end of a review of the many characters who have passed over the stage of Russian politics since 1991, acknowledges Putin’s celebrity status in the public imagination but also places him in the context of Russian history:
We have all each imagined our own Putin. And the one we have is very likely far from being the last.