Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy… Although they have been dead for more than a century, these Russian artists must be boycotted in Ukraine, Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksander Tkachenko told BFMTV as long as Russia continues its invasion of Ukrainian soil.
“Russian culture is a component of the Russian propaganda machine,” he said Monday night.
“official” artists
For him, highlighting Russian works gives the Kremlin strength in the conflict. “Vladimir Putin says that Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leon Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov are the ones thanks to whom we won in the world, because they use their culture as weapons,” he added.
He then gave a concrete example in Ukraine: “When we talk about Pyotr Ilitch Tchaikovsky (a 19th century Russian composer, editor’s note), we only ask to postpone this type of concert, because it is misunderstood.”
Even if “Russian culture uses propaganda”, Oleksander Tkachenko still wanted to make a distinction between Russian artists and “official artists” like Anna Netrebko, the opera singer who caused controversy by refusing to criticize the invasion in Ukraine.
Source: BFM TV
