Editorial of the “World”. “The total boycott of Russian culture seems to me to have no future. » Exiled to Vilnius, the Russian director Marina Davydova summarizes in The world a sentiment that is gaining cultural circles as Russia’s war in Ukraine escalates. Since February 24 and the invasion of Vladimir Putin’s tanks, cancellations of works, concerts and operas, evictions from international competitions or summonses to position themselves against the master of the Kremlin have multiplied against Russian artists. Offensive sanctions, concomitant with the economic retaliation measures applied to Russia. They do not only condemn the proven supporters of Putin, like the conductor Valery Gergiev, whose all engagements have been cancelled, but would like to banish an entire culture on the pretext that it emanates from an aggressor country. .
It is the young pianist Alexander Malofeev, whose three concerts with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra were canceled even though the latter publicly denounced the war. It is the Ukrainian cinema community which, in an open letter, protests that Russian directors, not necessarily supporters of power but often financed by the state or oligarchs, can continue to present their films in festivals or halls. These are two scores by Tchaikovsky taken from a concert by the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra or the film by Kirill Sokolov, No Looking Back, deprogrammed in extremis from the Glasgow Festival…
climate of fear
Such zeal raises questions. If it is legitimate to sanction personalities who have publicly or through their works shown their support for Putin, who have taken up the cause of his policy, penalizing all artists does not make sense. This ignores the climate of fear in which the artistic community lives in Russia, where artists sign petitions against the war and fear for their safety and that of their families while continuing to play or work. Some resigned to mark their opposition to Putin’s policy. Others have chosen, like the star ballerina of the Bolshoi, Olga Smirnova, who left to join the troupe of the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam, to flee their country by ” shame “ what he is doing to Ukraine.
In France, major cultural institutions, open to the world, such as the Festival d’Avignon, which will program Kirill Serebrennikov’s new play in the Cour d’honneur, or the Festival de Cannes, have clearly taken a stand against the systematic boycott of Russian artists so as not to blame an entire people for the actions of its president. The Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, also recalled that there was no boycott of Russian culture. So many salutary attitudes at a time when the temptation to erase is seen by some as the right response to the horrors suffered by the Ukrainian people. However, Russian culture is, as Marina Davydova reminds us, an integral part of European culture.
We don’t know when the time for peace will come, but, in Ukraine as in Russia, the sound of bombs and warlike imprecations will eventually be silenced. When the time for re-establishing links will be possible, culture will have a role to play. Today, banishing artists and works from society by assimilating them indiscriminately to the violence committed constitutes a serious prejudice. Not only for Russian artists, but for all artists.