"If Russia failed." Dmitry Volchek - about the culture of cancellation

Street poster in Italy: "Russia does not exist, there is only a damned Muscovy. To cancel Russia!" The code leads to the Cancel Russia manifesto, calling for an imperial colonial Russia to be ignored everywhere, to exclude any contacts with the institutions of the terrorist state, and in return to support Ukraine and its culture. "Russian culture is expansionist and imperialist in nature. Over the centuries, it has cherished superiority over other peoples who were first enslaved by the Russian Empire, and then the USSR. The Russian Federation decided to continue this regrettable practice. Almost the entire Russian culture continues the traditions of Russian imperialism, mainly due to the fact that the expansionist policy of Russia was never condemned and publicly condemned and publicly condemned and publicly condemned and publicly condemned This is not debunked.

This initiative causes the expected dissatisfaction in Russia, but few people from Moscow impressed few people. The process that promotes the CANCEL Russia movement is in full swing - at least in Europe. Without Russia, almost all cultural forums of the war months were done - the Russians did not sang anything at Eurovision, the pavilion of the Russian Federation on the Venetian Biennale was closed, and Russian films are canceled at the last moment from the programs of film festivals.

The Cannes festival, despite letters of protest, still decided to show the “Tchaikovsky’s wife” by the Putin authorities Kirill Serebrennikov, but refused to accredit representatives of the Russian media. The Salzburg festival had to explain why he continues to cooperate with Theodor Custezis and his orchestra. A review in the Swedish newspaper for an exhibition of the Moscow artist is entitled : "The art that should not be boycotted." Classes and exceptions only emphasize that the new policy was established seriously and for a long time. What is the Salzburg festival if the owners of Russian stores in European countries hastily rename them into "Ukrainian", and sometimes to "Asian"!

Putin was the first to complain about the “abolition culture”, announcing that in the West Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Dostoevsky was prohibited. But with Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich everything is in order, only the messengers of today's Russia are ignored. The Kremlin spent billions on the centers of Orthodox spirituality, the days of Russian cinema, the tour of the propagandists and the bribery of foreign celebrities, and all this went to dust overnight. The times when Zakhara Prilepin was welcomed at the Frankfurt Book Fair or the Paris Book Salon, we hope that they have passed into the past forever.

The time when the steam locomotive of Cansel Russia could still be stopped was passed

I am talking about culture, because it is in sight and louder all outraged. But the same thing happens in all areas, no one wants to deal with Russian officials, businessmen and journalists of the Putin media. Almost the only channel that is banned in anless telegram belongs to RT . The tragicomic story: “A member of the Public Chamber, an adviser to the Governor of the Kursk Region”, calling himself a human rights activist, breaks into Vienna at a meeting of the OSCE on Human Rights, but a few hours before the meetings, he is simply deleted from the list of participants - walk, Vasya!

The forebodings of such a sad national fiasco can be found with Russian writers. “If Russia had failed, then there would have been no loss or excitement in humanity,” Ivan Turgenev said that the main idea of the novel “Smoke” is contained in this phrase. In 1984, Eduard Limonov in the “disappearance of the barbarians” described the sudden loss of not only the USSR, but also the Soviet military towns in Eastern Europe - all these territories were covered with a strange white substance resembling freshly dawn gypsum, and there was no trace of Soviet citizens. I recall this long -standing fantasy when I look at Pavel Seplnov’s painting “Geopolitical” - a portrait of an absurd, half -loaded in the snow, the culprit of the Russian catastrophe.

Pavel Pavel Seplnova "Geopolitics"

What in return? As offered by the ideologists of Cancel Russia , attention switched to Ukraine. The victory at Eurovision, the Square of Ukraine on the Venetian Biennale, the compositions of Ukrainian composers on posters are not even the most impressive part of the country's triumph, which was attacked by the "damned Muscovy." The main thing is the unprecedented presence of Ukraine in urban space. For the third month, Ukrainian flags are everywhere - on balconies and billboards, in lightboxes and on lampposts. This is a sign of support for those who found a refuge in Europe - thousands of volunteers help refugees find housing and work, collect things and medicines. The crowding out was so quickly and radical so that now that you hear Russian speech on the streets of European cities, you first think: Ukrainians. At first, Russian tourists sample restrictions related to non-recognition of Kovid vaccines, the EU is now tightening visa policy because of the war, and the Czech Republic and the Baltic countries do not give visas to the Russians at all. This is also a significant element of the policy of Cansel Russia , in front of which the artist, an official, and a tourist are equal.

Everyone wants to know what an angry young man will say, but no one is interested in what an angry old woman will say. Ukraine today acts as an angry young man, Russia has chosen the old woman with its symbol. The grandmother of a grandmother with a red flag, which was invented by political strategists and very far from the prototype, which began to perpetuate the ominous murals, crawled out directly from the story of Daniil Harms , and no one wants to hear her annoying voice.

The time when the Cansel Russia steam locomotive could still be stopped was passed. At the end of February, they expected that a massive anti -war movement would appear in Russia, hoped that businessmen and diplomats would condemn Putin’s policy. But now the end of May, and the account of the detainees for anti -war shares did not exceed 15 thousand, of the major businessmen, only Oleg Tinkov decided to unequivocally condemn aggression, and not a single Russian diplomat doubted Lavrov’s course.

There are much more intellectuals who condemned the war. But condemnation is often the same colonial in nature. This is not a struggle for Ukraine, but self -centered care for its own interests. Europeans, in order to support the victim of aggression, study and popularize its culture. In Russia, such attempts can be counted on the fingers. Alexey Lyubimov performed the works of Kyiv composer Valentin Silvestrov in Moscow, Anton Dolin wrote a cycle of articles about Ukrainian cinema ... I have no doubt that there are other noble initiatives, but they did not cause resonance. How did the Russian rulers of the Duma respond to the news that museums of Maria Primachenko and Gregory Skovoroda were burned through the fault of their country? Yes, even in the Facebook, sad faces.

Here is a lengthy interview with an excellent musician on YouTube, he is against the war, but for more than an hour he manages to say a word not to say about bombing, about millions of refugees, and Ukrainian resistance. There is a conversation about whether to leave, how to talk with a stanned audience in the province, about the metamorphoses of the left discourse and other curious things - curious, but not the most important now, when bombs are falling every day. And this evasion is a veiled, unconscious form of solidarity with the aggressor.

Wise Russians are discussing in social networks about the benefits and dangers of emigration, about Putin’s madness, about Kirkorov and Urgant, about the closed McDonald's, non -working credit cards and the repertoire of Moscow theaters. And there is little shocking about Ukraine and its tragedy. An attempt to conquer this country is the regrettable background, at which the arrogant owners of the discourse discuss their hardships. They discuss, not realizing that they were already irrevocably canceled, including for this arrogance.

Dmitry Volchek - Radio Freedom Journalist

Opinions expressed under the heading "Law" may not reflect the point of view of the editorial office