Moscow, SANA- Lithuanians should not enjoy Russian culture as long as a conflict is raging in Ukraine, its culture minister, Simonas Kairys, told national broadcaster LRT this week. The minister was echoing the ideas of his Ukrainian counterpart, Aleksandr Tkachenko, who earlier called on the West to boycott Russian culture altogether.<\/p>\n
Kairys accused Moscow of using Russian culture as a\u00a0\u201cweapon\u201d<\/em>\u00a0by supposedly sending Russian pop culture artists to Lithuania on dates\u00a0\u201cimportant for the Lithuanian state.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0While stopping short of supporting what he called an\u00a0\u201cauthoritarian\u201d<\/em>\u00a0administrative ban on Russian culture, the minister said he favored a\u00a0\u201cmental quarantine\u201d<\/em>\u00a0on it.<\/p>\n Both individuals and institutions should demonstrate personal awareness, Kairys maintained, adding that\u00a0\u201cwe must abandon works [of art] that seemed acceptable to us before.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0He also praised those Lithuanian cultural figures, who\u00a0\u201cconsciously responded\u201d<\/em>\u00a0to his ministry\u2019s recommendations.<\/p>\n Some of Lithuania\u2019s culture figures appear to have taken a similarly defiant stance towards Russian culture. The head of the Scanorama film festival, Grazina Arlickaite, called for a\u00a0\u201csmart boycott\u201d<\/em>\u00a0on Russian culture, adding that showing or watching Russian films amid the conflict in Ukraine would\u00a0be\u00a0\u201cinsensitive.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The former head of Lithuania\u2019s National Opera and Ballet Theater, Gintautas Kevisas, told LRT that\u00a0\u201cjust like oil, culture is Russia\u2019s weapon,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0adding that\u00a0\u201csince it is a weapon, everything is clear.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Kairys\u2019 statements prompted a sarcastic response from Moscow. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the Lithuanian official\u00a0\u201ca lack-of-culture minister\u201d<\/em>\u00a0in a Telegram post, and said he\u00a0has managed to put himself into\u00a0\u201cmental quarantine for quite some time.”<\/em><\/p>\n Western nations have seen calls for boycotts of Russian culture since the start of Moscow\u2019s military\u00a0operation\u00a0in Ukraine last February. Numerous Western cultural institutions have removed Russian-linked works in response to the conflict. The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra in Wales dropped music by Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky from a concert and the Royal Opera House canceled a tour by the Bolshoi Ballet.<\/p>\n Netflix paused production earlier this year on \u2018Anna K\u2019, an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy\u2019s novel \u2018Anna Karenina\u2019. Russian President Vladimir Putin has likened to Nazi book burnings such efforts by the West to weaponize\u00a0\u201ccancel culture\u201d<\/em>\u00a0against Russian composers and writers.<\/p>\n Source: RT<\/p>\n Hala Zain<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Moscow, SANA- Lithuanians should not enjoy Russian culture as long as a conflict is raging in Ukraine, its culture minister, Simonas Kairys, told national broadcaster LRT this week. The minister was echoing the ideas of his Ukrainian counterpart, Aleksandr Tkachenko, who earlier called on the West to boycott Russian culture altogether. Kairys accused Moscow of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6987],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-arabic-international","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/146321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}