Culture Wars: The current online battle to #CancelRussianCulture
March 22, 2022 — ELSA COURT
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24th 2022, has caused such levels of suffering, destruction, and displacement, that companies, as well as governments, have been moved to act. From the UK declaring the phase-out of Russian oil imports, to multi-national groupings like Apple, H&M, and McDonalds leaving the country, over the last few weeks a clear norm has been created: western businesses, like their governments, must make their support for Ukraine clear. Not just in words or empty statements, but in actions. By suspending their operations in Russia, they can ensure that the taxes they pay don’t fuel the war in Ukraine via Russian state pockets. As a result, Russia is now the most-sanctioned country in the world, ahead of Iran and North Korea.
However, not all sectors have presence in Russia, and therefore lack the ability to pull out of the country in protest. In the cultural sector, many organisations have instead made the decision to withdraw anything related to Russia - from a Tchaikovsky concert cancelled in Cardiff, to the Hermitage Museum in Amsterdam cutting its ties with the St Petersburg branch. Cannes Film Festival made the decision to ban Russian delegates, and while sport, like culture, usually likes to present itself as a ‘politics-free zone’, Russian athletes have been banned from international swimming, athletic, rowing, and cycling competitions, to name a few.
These decisions have been criticised by some as xenophobic or excessive, but it is worth recognising that the Russian state has long invested in culture as a form of soft power. The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg is a prime example, as it is not only one of the largest museums in the world, but is also run by the state. The deep ties between government funding and an individual’s career means that few filmmakers, artists, or musicians chose to risk their income for activism; many remain apolitical at best, or parrot state propaganda at worst. Those who don’t toe the line have found their funding dries up, or even under arrest. Likely wanting to avoid such a fate, some made the decision to leave Russia after the war broke out, such as Kantemir Balagov, a young award-winning director. Olga Smirnova, a star ballerina at the Bolshoi Ballet, denounced the war on messaging app Telegram: “I never thought I would be ashamed of Russia, I have always been proud of talented Russian people, of our cultural and athletic achievements… but we cannot remain indifferent to this global catastrophe.” She left the Bolshoi, and the Dutch National Ballet announced on March 18th that she would join the company in Amsterdam.
On the other end of the spectrum are figures like conductor Valery Gergiev, who has repeatedly endorsed Putin’s personality and his occupations of Crimea and South Ossetia. Having refused to condemn the war in Ukraine, he was removed from his post as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic and the annual Gergiev festival of the Rotterdam Philharmonic was cancelled. Other figures went further than refusing to condemn, but used their platform to openly support Russia’s aggression. An extreme example is Sergei Shnurov, the lead singer of the band Leningrad, who sings “Europeans, just say it...‘Russian’ is the new Jew for you” in his latest song in support of the invasion.
Some musicians have, on the other hand, released songs in opposition to the war. 12, by the rapper Morgenstern, alludes to the young soldiers being sent to be slaughtered. It ends with a voice message from his producer’s mother, who is Ukrainian, telling her son “right now we are sitting in the cellar, we have prepared a bomb shelter…don’t worry”. Nonetheless, many Ukrainians argue that Russians should be assigned collective responsibility for the war, regardless of individual acts of protest. Few Russians protested the annexation of Crimea and conflict in Donbas in 2014, which in fact caused Putin’s approval rating to shoot up. As Ukrainians are dealing with the continuation of 2014 in the form of country-wide attacks today, any form of opposition, whether through music or protesting, is seen by many as too little, too late.
This idea of national complicity is being shared on social media through hashtags like #NotJustPutin, which presents the idea that ordinary Russians are responsible for this violence - both due to the fact that they constitute the soldiers of the invading army, and that civilians appear to support (or at least do not condemn) the invasion. It is impossible in an authoritarian country to gather accurate information on people’s opinion on a war, not least since the word ‘war’ is banned in Russia - the invasion is known domestically as a ‘special operation’ to ‘de-nazify’ Ukraine. However, multiple surveys have shown that a majority of Russians polled do support it. The anti-war demonstrations that popped up across the country in the first days of the conflict were attended by a number of remarkably brave individuals, but although these numbered in the thousands, this is only a tiny fraction of Russia’s total population, which is over 140 million people.
“There is also a danger when calling for boycotting Russian culture that the complexities of individual identity are erased.”
As a result, many on social media are using hashtags like #CancelRussia and #CancelRussianCulture to argue that the culture of Russia should be boycotted due to its inherent link to the ongoing violence. The campaign includes posts that show this rationale through statements like ‘there’s no Russian culture without Russian tanks’ and ‘culture → identity → nation → state → aggression’. The same hashtag is under an open letter from the Ukrainian electronic music scene, asking their relations to cancel cooperation with Russian artists and clubs who do not explicitly take action to stop the invasion. Similarly, prominent Ukrainian filmmakers have demanded a cultural boycott of Russia and an end to “any cultural collaborations with representatives of a terrorist country”. The suffering of Russians under a cultural boycott is nothing compared to the suffering of Ukrainians under a Russian invasion, many argue.
But not all Russian cultural productions can easily be labelled pro-regime or pro-war, and this is particularly the case within the world of film. Renowned directors like Andrey Zvyagintsev or the aforementioned Kantemir Balagov make films that allude to the corruption, violence and oppression of Russia’s past and present - though since filmmaking in Russia is practically impossible without state funding, they had previously received financing from the Ministry of Culture. Yet the onset of war has meant that a different ministry is now involved in film production. On March 15th Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Minister of Defence, called for the work of Alexander Rodyansky, the producer of both directors mentioned above, to be “excluded from the cultural agenda”. A Ukrainian-Russian filmmaker, Rodnyansky’s projects were included alongside those of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had a successful entertainment career before becoming President of Ukraine, as unhelpful in fostering “positive public opinion of Russian citizens in support of the country’s leaders”.
There is also a danger when calling for boycotting Russian culture that the complexities of individual identity are erased. This is especially difficult when dealing with Russian culture from the past, as the Russian Empire, and later the Soviet Union, actively erased the identities of successful and famous non-Russian individuals, so that we continue to understand them as purely Russian. The avant-garde painter of the iconic Black Square, Kazimir Malevich, was for example born in Kyiv to Polish parents. Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, best known for The Master and Margarita, grew up in Kyiv, while the composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky was Ukrainian through his grandfather’s side. Within one ‘Russian’ family today you may find Latvians, Tatars, Kazakhs or Georgians; the legacy of empire means that Russian-speakers abroad could be from any post-Soviet state. When the Glasgow Film Festival dropped two Russian films from its programme, the point was raised that not only had both filmmakers voiced their opposition to the war, but one had spoken of his Ukrainian grandmother, who was hiding in a bomb shelter at that moment.
Given the horrific violence on the ground in Ukraine, and the helplessness felt by many abroad, the campaign to cancel Russian culture is fully understandable. It is a very real fact that the Kremlin has sponsored and exploited culture for its own benefit, and that many artists, musicians, and filmmakers in Russia have refused to condemn, or indeed endorsed the war. These people and any connected institutions, should indeed face sanctions and be de-platformed, but calling to cancel Russian culture as a whole should be treated with caution. Namely because it risks fulfilling the Kremlin’s own propaganda, which argues that Putin’s actions have unanimous support domestically, and that Europe hates Russians, and seeks to destroy their country’s foundation. It also prevents any development of independent, anti-regime cultural production. In the same way that three Nordic newspapers took the initiative to publish in Russian to counter state propaganda, there should be similar initiatives to support music, art, or film in Russian that directly opposes the Kremlin’s line.
“It is time that Europe recognises the importance of culture in the same way as information or media in times of war, and consumes it with care. ”
Moreover, drawing the line at nationality to decide what is acceptable also divides the world into simplistic narratives that do not correspond to the reality of multinational genetic makeup and complicated family ties. There is a danger that Russian culture will be equated with Russian-speaking people. Already there have been stories of Russian-speaking Ukrainian refugees (Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine have been hit hardest so far) facing verbal abuse as people in Europe mistake them for Russian. A brick was thrown through the window of a Russian shop in Amsterdam, despite the fact the owner was Armenian and sold products from across the post-Soviet space. There is a danger that campaigns like #NotJustPutin and #CancelRussia may backfire and cause discrimination and violence against anyone from the region.
Rather than campaigns to remove Russian culture from view, the priority should be highlighting the richness of Ukrainian music, art, theatre and film, which has long been undervalued on an international level. Russian and Ukrainian culture appeared for too long on a shared podium due to perceived linguistic or historical similarities. Having been overshadowed by its neighbour for centuries, now is the time to support Ukrainian culture in order to create a more multifaceted understanding of the war, showing there is, was, and will be more to Ukraine than the images of destruction coming out of the country today. It is time that Europe recognises the importance of culture in the same way as information or media in times of war, and consumes it with care.
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