Today, Explained - Canceling Russian culture

Episode Date: April 8, 2022

Vladimir Putin says the West is trying to erase 1,000 years of culture. Arts organizations say they have an obligation to respond to the war in Ukraine. This episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Vladimir Putin recently accused the Western world of trying to, quote, cancel a whole 1,000-year culture. It might seem like just another powerful white dude complaining about being canceled, but some facts. Russian acts are banned from Eurovision this year. Christie's and Sotheby's called off auctions of Russian art. The Munich Philharmonic parted ways with its conductor, Valery Gergiev, who's an old friend of Putin's. The Bolshoi Ballet got

booted from a residency at London's Opera House, and many, many miles from the Kremlin, a man in made a decision. Ahead, Today Explained, I'm Noelle King. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Ladies and gentlemen, please silence your cell phones. The program is about to begin. It's Today Explained.

Maestro George Stiluto, music director of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra in Peoria, Illinois, had a big April concert planned. It was billed as Russian Wonders. As you might guess, it featured the works of Russian composers. And then an invasion happened. And now... Our concert is called now Unity with Ukraine, but it's not an anti-Russian program by any stretch of the imagination. And we are doing Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony, which includes a lot of Ukrainian folk melodies, because going back several generations into Tchaikovsky's background, his great-great-grandfather and great-grandfather were Ukrainian.

In fact, his last name was Chayka, and eventually it was Russianized to Tchaikovsky, which was kind of a tradition of the day if you were working in imperial Russia. What was the response from the members of your orchestra, from your musicians, when you told them we're changing the program? They understood and they were pleased. Some of them had expressed concern. What sorts of things were you hearing? You know, there's a general concern about it because of what's going on around the world

and other organizations canceling certain Russian artists or guest artists. So we were getting just concerns about doing a concert, if you will, that was all Russian programming and was that sending any kind of message. So we decided to adjust it a bit and also address Tchaikovsky's background, which everybody thinks he's a Russian composer, and he certainly was part of Imperial Russia, but his background was Ukrainian, and that was kind of covered up, if you will, during the communist era. And I had to point out to people once we decided to keep Tchaikovsky on the program, but go to the Second Symphony, which was nicknamed the Little Russian. Would you describe the first movement of the Second Symphony? What does it sound like?

It starts out kind of solemn. It uses Ukrainian folk melodies. One of them is a folk melody called Down by Mother Volga, which refers to the river Volga. And it sounds very serious. And then it becomes quite energetic. I would say it's got a kind of intensity about it, but in Tchaikovsky's context,

I don't think that this intensity is combative or anything like that. It's just a kind of intense folk energy about it, and sometimes even those celebratory pieces were in minor keys. He quotes another folk song in it called Spin, Oh My Spinner. You know, this is an obvious homage to Ukrainian culture, and he's done that in at least 30 of his compositions. He was a world-renowned conductor. He grew up in St. Petersburg, worked in Moscow, was world famous. In fact, he conducted the opening concert at Carnegie Hall when it was built.

No kidding. But he also didn't quite fit into the culture of his country at the time. I mean, he was gay. He kind of has a place in our contemporary society because he was somebody who lived in society, was revered as an artist by society, but didn't quite fit in. And so I think now is the time for his music to be understood, his background to be understood, and his ancestry to be understood from the fact that even that

was a bit of a cover-up. You know, he was a famous composer worldwide. Vladimir Putin came out and made a statement recently. He said, the West is trying to cancel Russian culture. Now, you've made some pointed choices about which works you're going to play at a symphony orchestra concert in Peoria, Illinois. Many leaders in the arts are making similar decisions. What do you think of what Vladimir Putin said? The West is trying to cancel Russian culture. I really don't think that's accurate.

As we all know, you know, there's the spin, the propaganda that takes place to foment whatever sentiments are serving the people that say them. There are some organizations out there, orchestras that have canceled Russian concerts because they thought it was appropriate, and they're receiving, I would say, a little bit of criticism for taking that stance, that intense stance, by other organizations in the West. So I don't think there's an attempt to cancel Russian culture or get rid of it. And, you know, we've always seen that during the First World War. There was a lot of sentiment in France and other countries, even in the U.S., of not doing any German repertoire. And of course, more reasonable minds prevailed in those cases where it's like, you know, it's not the culture, it's not the people that we're upset with. It's the people in charge that are perpetrating these injustices on another country. And nobody that I know and respect feels that way. Russia has added so much to the world culture. Anybody

that wants to cancel it, that's an ill-advised approach. And so at the end of the day, what do you hope that changing your concert program is going to achieve? What does it really do? I hope that it gets people to think a little more about what's going on, to think past the initial indignance and anger, to realize where these things are coming from. So I just hope it gets people to think a little more through the idea and the presentation of music, which can kind of help you to let down your guard

and open up your mind a little bit and think about, you know, that we all have indignations and fears and senses of injustice and that we have to maybe take a breath first and realize that we're all one humanity. Everybody is in the same boat, if you will, and we have to stop shooting holes in the boat.

Does music ever feel small in the face of all this? It doesn't feel small to me ever, but it can feel small and insignificant if you don't understand the value and the power that it has. And a great example of this, of course, was during the siege of Stalingrad during the Second World War. The orchestra there was playing concerts while bombs were being dropped on the hall and on the city. And so, you know, their sense of how important this culture is, not because it's just entertainment, but because it's important to your quality of life, to your health of your mind, and to the maintenance of your being, I don't think it can be insignificant or small. I don't think it has that capacity. I love you. limited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an AuraFrame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a thoughtful message, maybe your favorite photos. Our colleague Andrew tried an AuraFrame for himself. So setup was super simple. In my case,

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1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. It's Today Explained. Simon Morrison, professor of music and Slavic languages at Princeton. Where do you come down on the notion that responsibility should be placed on Russian artists and musicians and even dead composers for Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine? Right now, I can understand the resistance on the part of programmers to present a lot of Russian music, Russian artists.

I can understand that, especially what we've been hearing about in the last couple of days, this monstrousness. And in terms of actually suddenly everyone is performing, Valentin Silvestrov, who is an eminent Ukrainian composer in his 80s. It's like he's been around for a while now and we haven't been performing this music till this moment. The music has always been great, has always been awesome, has always been about deep spiritual matters. And yeah, I understand you want to perform this music now as a gesture of solidarity, but I don't know if Silvestrov would be particularly comfortable having his art reduced to political protest. I will say that most artists who come from Russia and are currently saddled with obviously a very unpopular identity view themselves as artists first and foremost. They are not nationalists by pedigree. It's just not wired into most people's psyches to think about the relationship between art

and nation in a close way. Most Russian composers tried very hard not to be Russian. Why? Why was that? Well, Russian nationalism was a very small slice of 19th century music, and Russian composers actually found that to be really limiting. And if it meant using Russian folklore or Russian fairy tales and legends as subject matter, their problem was that most of their training was international. Their sources of inspiration were international.

And so, although it was fun for a while to put together works that dealt with, you know, Russian languages, intonations, and folk subjects and so forth, they actually realized they were putting themselves into a kind of bunker and they, you know, wanted to be international. Do you have a sense of what it's like for artists trying to navigate this now? I mean, there's a lot of symbolism involved here, but also involved are people who really do need to make a living, people who eat based off of, you know, their music, their dancing. What happens to folks like this when we decide to cancel a part of the culture for a particular period of time and a particular reason. It's worse than a Faustian bargain for a lot of artists who were pro-Putin. Yeah, they're getting annulled out West.

And then if you come out and say, actually, you know what, I was pro-Putin and I regret that, or I've come to a reckoning or recognizing the true nature of that regime, I cannot countenance anymore, then they get annulled back home. So it's a sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Does this make sense to you? Do the cancellations make sense to you? I can understand it from an emotional and ethical standpoint. In terms of what the music is often about, I don't understand it. The notion of helping Putin out by annulling and cancelling Russian culture, by actually reinforcing his paranoia, his fortress mentality, his sense that they're all out to get us,

which is paraded every night on television for everybody over 50 to look at. You know, it's not helpful. And so on one hand I see, yes, I can understand why right now is not the time for Russian ballet. I can see that we should exercise forbearance or reschedule things, but to do it in a kind of like, because you are Russian or because you are a Russian artist, you know, you're tainted or contaminated somehow. I think that that just is just another form of hatred that contributes to what we're dealing with now, which is an absolute, you know, barbaric, you know, seemingly endless monstrosity that's been unleashed on Ukraine. We talked to George Stiluto in Peoria earlier.

He changed his concerts program. It was Russian Wonders. Now it is Unity with Ukraine. And I wonder, could we do the reverse? Could you design a concert for us that would showcase what Russia has to offer, but also illustrate, as you said, that not all Russian artists like being caught up in their country's terrible politics? What would be on your program at this time in history?

I would program the 1812 Overture, even though that seems to be a counterintuitive example. You know, it's not Tchaikovsky's most serious composition by any stretch of the imagination, but the reason I would program it has to do with the fact that it was a celebration of the triumph over invaders. In this case, the Napoleonic invasion that ended in 1812. It ended when Russia, rather than being dominated by another country and an enemy force, well, the citizens of Moscow burned down their own city to prevent it from being taken over. Absolutely apocalyptic, active resistance. There is a lot of music by Russian composers

that protests inhumanity, that champions the dispossessed, the alienated, the exiled, that protests tyranny. The most raw and explicit form of protest I can think of is Shostakovich's 13th Symphony. In 1962, he put out a very provocative symphony that included a male chorus,

and that chorus sang poems by the poet Evgeny Yevtushenko, who was a dissident poet. And the first movement, and the thing that inspired the rest of the movements, was a poem called Baba Yar. And the opening line of that piece that is sung is, At Baba Yar there are no monuments. At Baba Yar there are no monuments. At Baba Yar there are no monuments. And it was about the senseless, barbaric, subhuman slaughter of Jews and Ukrainians and Russians in a ravine outside of Kiev.

And he wrote this poem that was published in a literary newspaper in the Soviet Union and was quickly a scandal because it referred to the suffering of Jews over the sufferings of the Soviet people and also implicated to some degree culpability in that massacre. Nothing in me shall ever forget. The international, let it thunder when the last anti-Semite on earth is buried forever. And this became the first movement of a very brooding,

portentous symphony that included another poem called Fears. The line is sung that fears are ending in Russia right now, and it's about the fact that in the 30s and in the early 50s, Soviet society was terrorized by its ruler. And as I write these lines, and I am in too great a haste at times, I have only one fear when writing them. The fear of not writing with all my power. It's a deeply profounding work, and at the end the music is very beautiful. And even though the subject matter is grim, it's actually saying that there's always this

one place of beauty in the world, which is this art form. I would close with Musersky, the modest Musersky and his second opera, which is called Havanshina, or The Havansky Affair. It's deeply pessimistic about Russia and Russian history. And the paradox of Russian history, among many, is that oftentimes

the people have settled for a brutal dictator who at least suggests order. He wonders why Russian rulers have gotten away with their monstrousness and horribleness and crimes, with impunity. He wonders how it is that these people actually manage to actually control a sixth of the world's landmass. How did they pull it off? By what mechanisms did they decide they could actually destroy other peoples to destroy their own people? And basically says that the people always lose. And ultimately, the people at the top always lose.

Because, you know, everybody schemes and schemes and schemes, but ultimately everybody loses. All of these pieces protest the kind of Russia we have today. All of these composers wanted Russia to engage in a dialogue with history in general and to stand for, you know, values that you consider to be not simply timeless, but fundamentally international. The things that connect us all. None of these composers wanted Russia to be a particularly strong nation. It's grim. It's art that's created under pressure. It's art that somehow flourished despite censorship and repression and limitations

and living in a time when very little was possible artistically, but everything was taken with deadly seriousness, and it challenged those repressive circumstances. ¶¶ Today's show was produced by Victoria Chamberlain. It was edited by Matthew Collette and engineered by Afim Shapiro. It was fact-checked by Laura Bullard. The rest of our team includes Halima Shah, Will Reed, Hadi Mawagdi, and Miles Bryan, and Sean Ramosferm. Our supervising producer is Amina El-Sadi. Vox's VP of audio is Liz Kelly Nelson. We use music by Breakmaster Cylinder and Noam Hassenfeld. Inspiration for

today's show came from a story that reporter Hannah Alani did for WCBU Peoria Public Radio. We are now airing on WCBU and on other public radio stations thanks to our distribution partners at WNYC. Today Explained is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. © transcript Emily Beynon