German Minister Says She Won't Allow Putin to Take Chekhov

Russian artists often try to preserve the "last space of freedom", so it is "completely wrong" to boycott Russian culture,noted German Minister Claudia Roth Claudia Roth

A boycott of all Russian culture is “completely wrong” and there are public discussions about this, but Russian artists often try to preserve “the last space of freedom,” Claudia Roth, state minister, federal commissioner for culture and the media, said in an interview with the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung.

“Such great Russian culture, be it music, be it literature, be it Anton Chekhov. I will not let [President Vladimir] Putin take Chekhov away from me!” - she said.

Roth recalled that recently in North Rhine-Westphalia a youth orchestra was banned from playing the music of the composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky. As the newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger wrote, the 2nd and 3rd symphonies of the Russian composer were banned from public rehearsals of the concert, this decision was made by the mayor of Lindlar, Georg Ludwig.

Bashmet considered the refusal of the West from Tchaikovsky and Pushkin "a refusal from the soul" Society

In April, German Ombudsman for Human Rights Louise Amtsberg said that Russian art and culture should not be persecuted because of the conflict in Ukraine. “I think it’s completely wrong that the stores, apparently, remove the works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy from the shelves,” she said.

Amtsberg stressed that it is also wrong to treat the Russians with "some kind of hostility" or "blame them for the war."

After the start of Russia's military special operation in Ukraine, a number of cultural figures faced the cancellation of their performances or refusals to cooperate. In early March, the Bavarian State Opera stopped working with opera singer Anna Netrebko and conductor Valery Gergiev. Gergiev also lost his post as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

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Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage Piotr Glinski said that Russian culture should now disappear from public space. He pointed out that now is not the time for Russian ballet and not the season for productions based on Chekhov or Pushkin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that progressive discrimination against everything connected with Russia is developing in the West. “Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff are excluded from concert posters,” the head of state said. According to him, the last time such a massive campaign against culture was carried out by the Nazis in Germany.