On 25 February 2022, the same day that Russia's Investigative Committee warned citizens not to organize or participate in illegal protests against the war in Ukraine, the activist Anastasia Nikolaeva was arrested in Rostov-on-Don, for staging a one-woman protest while holding a blank sheet of paper. Nikolaeva’s ‘blank paper’ protest sparked copycat performances across the country and led to many more arrests of dissenting citizens. Later that year, the ‘blank paper’ protests spread to China as rallies were held protesting against Covid-19 restrictions. In this paper I will draw on Jacques Rancière’s idea of ‘dissensus’ (disruption) to analyse the theatrical nature of this kind of political spectacle and its resonance as a form of critique of the authoritarian police state. I will argue that the blank piece of paper is both a symbol of the erasure of dissenting voices and also the fulfilment of the Russian police state’s regulation of the ‘consensus’, in which the very act of standing out, of becoming a political subject, is enough to warrant arrest. Finally, the paper will draw links between Russia’s ‘blank paper’ protests and other examples of public performance protest in China and Turkey.
