From Pussy Riot to Maria Peszek: The Re-Articulation of National and Gender Identities in 21st-Century Eastern European Protest Song

Employing multimodal textual analysis and online anthropology/discourse analysis, this article introduces the protest strategies and domestic receptions in the work of a popular Polish protest singer-songwriter Maria Peszek. By comparisons with the previously researched underwhelming domestic receptions of Pussy Riot – a Russian protest band posing similar social critiques – potential prerequisites for effective Eastern European protest songs are explored. I argue that the “effectiveness,” by Serge Denisoff and Mark Levine’s criteria, of Peszek’s protest songs was achieved through careful negotiations between ‘radical’ and ‘popular’ within a “Third Space.” More specifically: ‘self-Othering’ while still promoting the peacemaking ‘we’re all the same’ rhetoric; calling for action and pacifistic alleviation; employing shock tactics in her performance; and using a catchy pop sound, all combined in an audiovisual interplay that balanced the words sung. This paradoxical but well-functioning blend, tailor-made for the cultural context it emerged from, allowed Peszek’s music and message to become immensely popular within Poland – an effect which Pussy Riot’s Western-inspired protest style did not achieve within its own domestic sphere. As such, I suggest that there can be no universal protest, as both its rhetoric and its audiovisual style need to be context-bound, grounded, and emerging locally, especially within ‘post-worlds.’