Ukraine’s culture minister has called on the country’s western allies to boycott Russian culture, urging a halt to performances of the music of Tchaikovsky and other Russian composers until the end of the war.
Writing in the Guardian, Oleksandr Tkachenko argues that such a “cultural boycott” would not amount to “cancelling Tchaikovsky”, but would be “pausing the performance of his works until Russia ceases its bloody invasion”.
He argues that such a step is right given that the war is “a civilisational battle over culture and history” in which Russia is actively “trying to destroy our culture and memory” by insisting that the two states constitute a single nation.
Many cultural figures in Ukraine have said the Russian state is actively instrumentalising its artistic heritage during the conflict. Billboards in Russian-occupied Kherson, for example, showed images of Pushkin, with text referring to the Russian poet’s link with the city.
Tkachenko – a former TV executive who has been criticised in Ukraine for failing to step in to halt a controversial threatened reorganisation of the Dovzhenko Centre, Kyiv’s film centre and archive – also urged arts institutions not to soften in their resolve not to hire Russian artists who support the war.
Ukrainian cultural figures are using the language of decolonisation to describe a process of separating themselves from a once-dominant Russian culture, one that was promoted while Ukrainian artistic expression was suppressed, sometimes violently, by the Russian empire and later the Soviet Union.
Such events included the mass killing in 1937 of a generation of Ukrainian artists and writers, known as the “executed renaissance”. No Russian music is being performed in Ukraine at present.
However, as the Christmas season approaches, with Nutcrackers the winter fare for ballet companies from New York to London, cultural leaders in the UK are stopping short of boycotting works from the Russian canon.
“The presentation of great historic works such as The Nutcracker, performed by an international roster of dancers, should send a powerful statement that Tchaikovsky – himself of Ukrainian heritage – and his works speak to all humanity, in direct and powerful opposition to the narrow and nationalistic view of culture peddled by the Kremlin,” said a spokesperson for London’s Royal Ballet.
He added that the company’s policy, for the duration of the war, continued to be that “we do not work with Russian state actors, such as the Bolshoi, nor individuals who have a clear association with the Putin regime in the Kremlin”.
A spokesperson for English National Ballet, which is also staging a production of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker this Christmas, said that while the company “stands in solidarity with all those affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”, its programme would go ahead as planned.
Kathryn McDowell, the chief executive of the London Symphony Orchestra – which is performing programmes including Stravinsky and Rachmaninov in Germany under Sir Simon Rattle – said: “We continue to perform Russian music of the past.” She also noted that the orchestra continued to work with Russian artists “who are not identifying with the current leadership”.
“While we at the Hallé abhor Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and are not performing music or working with artists who support this illegal war we as Ukraine’s allies stand against the Russian state, not its people or its culture,” said David Butcher, the chief executive of Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra, whose upcoming programmes include works by Stravinsky and Shostakovich.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate as a pioneering creative organisation to cancel, pause or self-censor, in our case, great music which deserves to be performed and heard.”
A spokesperson for the BBC pointed to its programming of Ukrainian music and culture on Radio 3 and elsewhere, including a summer Prom featuring the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra.
“We continue to carefully look at programming linked to Russia, considering everything on a case by case basis,” he said.
