The long-anticipated opening of the renovated Bolshoi Theater in Moscow last month was another sign that the country has transitioned from post-socialism to post-post-socialism. As one scholar observed, the post-Soviet Russia of the 1990s (not unlike its Soviet predecessor, I should add) was founded on a metaphor of “historical rupture and social rebirth,” of rejection of the past and construction of the new social, political, and economic realities. However, in the new millennium, which more or less coincided with political ascent of Vladimir Putin, a new metaphor, that of “civilizational continuity,” has emerged and the current Russian “vision of political history and social identity [is] based in continuities, at various historical depths, linking [its] present with the Soviet and pre-Soviet eras.” Such reconceptualizaiton of the distant and more recent pasts is “coupled with the reappearance of particularist ideologies that set Russia in explicit opposition to Western states, social norms, and geopolitical interests,” which no doubt is a reaction to the post-Soviet import of Western “experts” and their economic wisdom and political counsel backed by NATO troops encroaching on the Russian space.

At the theater’s opening ceremony, Russian President Dmitrii Medvedev pronounced the theater to be “one of our grandest national brands” (bolshoi translates as big or great). The six-year-long and nearly 700-million-dollar renovation resulted in extensive upgrades to stage technology (it now has 3D and multimedia capability) and at the same time in the return to the 19th-century look of the theater’s décor. Frescoes, tapestries, chandeliers, mosaic floors were restored, while the Soviet hammer and sickle throughout the theater were replaced with a double-headed eagle, the symbol of both the tsarist and contemporary Russia.

The restoration and the opening performance attest more to Russia’s recent movement toward reconciliation with its various pasts. Guests at the invitation-only gala consisted of Russian beau monde: haute couture designers and television personalities, artists and designers, bankers and industrialists. But it seemed that whoever was issuing invitations wanted or, likely, was instructed to put together a guest list showing that whatever momentary political disagreements Russians might have, they can be . . .

Read more: Big Is Beautiful Again in Russia: The Return of the Bolshoi Theater