Russian culture is an integral part of European culture, so attempts to abolish it are erroneous, said Italian President Sergio Mattarella.
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“The culture of abolition in relation to Russian literature and art seems to be a mistaken move that would like to shift the blame back on the products of centuries of European history, of which this culture is an integral part,” the politician said.
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Recalling the aphorism from the comedy of the ancient Roman author Publius Terence “I am a man, and nothing human is alien to me,” Mattarella emphasized that “attitude towards cultures created by man can only be openness, curiosity, familiarization, comparison.”
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“Progress is born from this. Not from rejection, not from cancellation. The cultural context is the product of a continuous transformation, contradictory, dialectical, with a non-linear direction,” the President of Italy said.
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The culture of cancellation has already been stigmatized by “the most vigilant intellectuals,” he said.
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Art itself refuses “convenient cataloging” and seeks to offer itself as a vision, each of which “coexists with others, merges, develops,” the president continued.
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“Culture is being killed by standardization, conformity, even that which we submit to unconsciously or through our own fault out of mental laziness, out of opportunism,” Mattarella concluded.
