No, Russian artists have not been ‘cancelled’

One of those cancelled is Valery Gergiev, general director of the St Petersburg Mariinsky Theater and a friend of Putin’s, who was present at Friday’s meeting. While most of the cancelled figures are alive, a small minority of the events cancelled included pieces by deceased icons such as Tchaikovsky — performances of the composer’s pieces were cancelled in Italy, Japan and Croatia. However, that didn’t stop Putin from drawing the spotlight to it in his speech. “They’re now engaging in the cancel culture, even removing Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov from posters. Russian writers and books are now cancelled,” he said.

Since its introduction into mainstream popular culture through college campuses and social media around half a decade ago, “cancel culture” has become a raging issue in the culture war in the West, sharply dividing conservatives and left-liberals. It has become an umbrella term that has different meanings according to who you ask but its essence remains a collective boycott and de-platforming of individuals, corporations or institutions for actions collectively deemed inappropriate or offensive.

Cancel culture itself has been called out for “cancelling” free speech, bullying, and a mob mentality. Depending on the offence and the extent of punishment meted out, cancel culture has been called everything from a “distraction” to a “hyperbolic phase of the larger culture war”, to America’s “free speech problem”.

Looking at the issue through the prism of conservative opinion provides insights into Putin’s remarks and the message behind them. Right-wing groups have increasingly portrayed cancel culture as emblematic of a far-left ideological hysteria rooted in “outrage culture”, fuelled by groupthink and authoritarian mob justice. Donald Trump, no stranger to calls for cancellation, made it a central talking point in his presidential re-election campaign in 2020, calling his impeachment trial “constitutional cancel culture” and cancel culture “totalitarian”.

He is by no means alone. More than half the delegates at the Republican National Convention 2020 mentioned cancel culture as a menace, and conservative state governments have sought to pass legislation seeking to curb it in the US. These groups see cancel culture as an indication of mob justice by moral zealots on the far-left, colloquially called “social justice warriors”, who weaponise social media to punish and hurt anyone, whether comic, writer, professor or scientist, for daring to breach a moral orthodoxy under the guise of “political correctness”.

As the political-cultural faultlines in the West have widened, the attitude to cancel culture has become a line that now sharply divides liberals and conservatives. It is in this sense that Putin invoked the term, comparing the West’s treatment of Russian culture to Nazi Germany’s burning of books. These portrayals depict the person, institution, or in this case, the country being cancelled as the victim.

Putin hinted at this in his singling out of J K Rowling, who was “cancelled” for her views on transgenderism — a topic still very much on the fringes of the public conversation outside the West. “Recently, they cancelled the children’s writer Joanne Rowling because she – the author of books that have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide – fell out of favour with fans of so-called gender freedoms,” he said. The Moscow Times, while reporting on Putin’s speech, quoted former president Dmitry Medvedev describing the West’s “frenzied hatred” as being pushed by the US to stoke “Russophobia” as part of what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation”.

With comments on cancel culture, Putin is giving a dog-whistle to conservatives and hard-right groups in Russia and around the globe, including the West. It should be seen as an effort to put a distortionary spin on the cultural and social sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of his actions since the invasion of Ukraine, and level the same charges against the West legitimised by their own conservative leadership and intellectuals.

Further evidence of Putin borrowing from the American conservative’s playbook is the overblown portrayal of the “cancelling” of Russia visible in his referring to Russian writers and books being cancelled as if they were boycotted en masse. These are the same exaggerated terms in which mainstream US right-wing news media such as Fox News usually portray cancel culture’s image and reach.

Noam Chomsky talks about how the true meaning of “socialism” never really reached the common masses because the two largest propaganda machines, the US and the USSR, had both peddled distorted definitions of the term. From Donald Trump’s rhetoric in the US presidential election to Putin’s reference to the term, political divisions around “cancel culture” have also reached their apogee. We must be wary of its use to spread misinformation and shift the blame for the due consequences of waging war on a sovereign country.

Priyaranjan is a researcher and writer