St. Petersburg Leftist Populism and Sasha Skochilenko’s Protest against the Invasion of Ukraine

• In Event: Russian Opposition and Anti-War Movement(s) and Its Intellectual Legacy

Abstract

In March 2022, the St. Petersburg-based artist Sasha Skochilenko was arrested for attaching labels to food items in a supermarket that indicated “[y]ou are buying a product that is sold in a country that is invading Ukraine and destroying its population, particularly in cities such as Mariupol, resulting in catastrophic civilian death.” In this paper, I will explore Skochilenko’s protest in the context of the leftist populism that is distinctive of oppositional artist collectives in St. Petersburg.

Author

• Alexandar Mihailovic, Hofstra U