The fallacy of "Russian Culture" in Ukraine

On 25 April [2022] the New York Times, a newspaper with more than nine million subscribers, published on its editorial page an essay, "Russian artists aren't the problem," by Kevin M.F. Platt, a professor in the Department of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and editor of the book Global Russian Cultures. Although he is careful to blame Russia for "the depraved brutality of the unprovoked Russian invasion," he deplores what he sees as "retaliations against anyone and anything Russian" by other countries. He finds it "profoundly ironic that those who react to the war in Ukraine by aggressively or indiscriminately canceling or restricting artists and artistic works simply for being Russian are reflecting the same kind of nationalist thinking driving the Russian invasion in the first place."

By Hiroaki Kuromiya

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