Culture at war
Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, a battle has also been raging in culture. Artists who for a long time presented themselves in public as Putin friends and did not clearly distance themselves from him in view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have been disinvited from festivals, like Anna Netrebko, or are losing their posts, like Valery Gergiev, whose contract as conductor of the Munich Philharmonic was terminated because he failed to respond to a demand issued by Munich's mayor that he condemn Putin's war against Ukraine. (Munich is Kyiv's twin city.) Newspapers publish articles on Ukrainian literature, and Ukrainian authors are more visible on the cultural scene in the West than ever before. At the same time, a university in Italy considered cancelling a lecture on the Russian writer Dostoevsky.
The question is not new, and yet it arises again and again: How political or apolitical is culture in war and in peace, and how possible or impossible is it in the public perception to separate the artist as a private person from the artist as a public person and his/her art? Is it important to make that distinction?
Round table organized by the Goethe-Institut and the Ukrainian Institute in Sweden.
Participants:
- Fredrik Löjdquist, Director of Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies (Moderation)
- Natalya Pasichnyk, Director of Ukrainian Institute of Sweden
- Jutta Gehrig, Director of Goethe-Institut Schweden
- Stefan Ingvarsson, Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies
- Gabriele Baumann, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Resident Representative to the Nordic Countries
- Sofia Nyblom, Critic and arts journalist
The panel will be held in English. After the event, Goethe Institut invites to a glass of wine and light food.
The event is free of charge but you need to register in advance to . Register to the event below.
