Eleven days into the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, a wave of cultural backlash against Russians (in a sense, a wave of Russophobia) seems to have swept over Western countries. Russian artists, musicians and filmmakers are being excluded from European events and competitions.
The Russian national football team was suspended from the remaining qualifying matches for the FIFA World Cup scheduled to take place this summer in Qatar, while UEFA decided to relocate this year’s Champions League final from St. Petersburg (which is also Kremlin master Vladimir V. Putin’s hometown) to Paris. The University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy reportedly postponed a course on Russian literary giant, Fyodor Dostoevsky, a decision that was then retracted. Scores of retail brands and businesses in several European countries are boycotting Russian-made products and are reportedly discriminating against…
