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| Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting |
President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused the West of trying to cancel Russian culture, including the works of great composers such as Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Dmitry Shostakovich and Sergei Rachmaninov.
At a televised meeting with leading cultural figures, Putin compared the cancellation of a number of Russian cultural events in recent weeks with the actions of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
โToday they are trying to cancel a whole thousand-year culture, our people,โ Putin said, citing the cancellation of events involving Russian artists in some Western countries.
โI am talking about the gradual discrimination against everything linked to Russiaโฆ a tendency unfolding in a number of Western countries,โ he said.
A number of events involving Russian cultural figures who have voiced support for the war have been cancelled, including some involving Valery Gergiev, general director of the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre, who spoke to Putin during Fridayโs meeting.
Gergiev has been dismissed as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic and lost the chance to conduct at Milanโs La Scala after he failed to condemn Russiaโs invasion.
A much smaller number of events have been cancelled due to their association with dead Russian cultural figures, with the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra dropping a Tchaikovsky piece from its programme and media reports saying similar moves were taken by orchestras in Japan and Croatia.
Spainโs Teatro Real, one of Europeโs major opera houses, cancelled performances later this year by Russiaโs Bolshoi Ballet. Auction houses Christieโs, Sothebyโs and Bonhams have cancelled sales of Russian art in London
The Cardiff Philharmonic said it was subject to โhate speech and vicious commentsโ after cancelling a performance of Tchaikovskyโs 1812 Overture earlier this month.
โBasic humanity takes precedence over art and history,โ the Orchestra said in a Facebook post. โWhen the humanitarian crisis is over the discussion about โwokeโ and โcancel cultureโ can have its place.โ
During Fridayโs meeting, Putin compared the treatment of Russian cultural figures with that of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling after she sparked controversy with opinions on transgender issue.
REUTERS
