All of Russia?

No.

But what would actually be left of Russian culture if the intoxicating urge to exclude Russian artists of all persuasions from the cultural scene continued?

A Milan university even wanted to ban Dostoyevsky from the seminary.

Not this time because he was an old white man whose writing might make students uncomfortable, but because he was unlucky to have been Russian.

The decision was reversed after protest.

Others remain.

Some of them are justifiable, such as the short-term cancellation of Shostakovich's operetta "Moscow, Tscheryomuschki" at the Augsburg State Theater.

The stage management explains the satirical piece about nepotism in the mood of the Ukrainian-born musicians taking part in the performance.

Can you understand.

On the other hand, where it doesn't hit the pillars of Putin's system, the boycott seems cheap.

The refusal to distinguish between art and politics results in the wrong ones being hit and critical voices losing their podium.

Is Dmitry Bertman such a man?

The director of Moscow's Helikon Opera, who did not attract attention as a Putinist, was supposed to conduct Umberto Giordano's revolutionary opera "Andrea Chénier" at the Deutsche Oper in Bonn.

He is not allowed to do that now, the decision is not directed against Bertman personally, but is unavoidable in view of the military conflict, the opera says.

Indeed?

Putin's nuclear weapons effectively condemn Western countries to the role of spectator.

There is something inappropriate about covering up this impotence and perhaps past omissions with symbolic political fireworks while Ukrainians are being killed by real weapons at the same time;

it demands from others a willingness to take risks that one spares oneself.

Do you seriously think that the Russian people would rise up against Putin out of anger at the exclusion of their artists from the Western cultural market?

In the politicized culture industry, apparent dissidence and moral enrichment are practiced reflexes.

The war didn't change that.

It just looks particularly noticeable.