Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Tuesday that Russia had won another victory over the “collective West,” saying it had failed to “erase” Russian culture, Lenta reported.

She made the announcement after the conclusion of the P.I. Tchaikovsky International Classical Music Competition, which is held every four years in Moscow or St. Petersburg, and Zakharova said he “adequately” responded to those who tried to write off Russian culture.

“All attempts by Westerners to spoil the music festival in the spirit of ‘cancellation culture’ have been futile,” she rejoiced, claiming that the jury had selected 236 young performers from 23 countries and “all of them came to Russia.”

“According to our data, the show gathered more than 50 million viewers from 102 countries. All records in the history of this cultural event have been broken,” said the spokeswoman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

Zakharova noted that under these conditions, the competition became the main music competition in the world, despite “negative forecasts” in the Western press, which, according to her, tried to suggest that it would no longer be held.

“I consider this event a huge success for the organizers, who adequately responded to those who tried to write off Russian culture. Russia canceled the cancellation of Russia,” she concluded.

How Russia has complained that it is a victim of a “cancellation culture”

After the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian propaganda used the term “cancel culture”, which first appeared in the Anglo-Saxon space, Moscow accused the West of trying to cancel Russian culture after several Russian artists were boycotted from major international stages due to invasion or refusal to support them to distance themselves from the aggression unleashed by Vladimir Putin.

On the other hand, Putin personally referred to it back in March of last year.

“It is enough to mention such a phenomenon as “cancellation culture”. In other words, public ostracism, boycott and even complete silencing, forgetting obvious facts, books, names of historical and contemporary public figures, writers, people who do not fit into the absurd modern patterns that they really are,” he said. On March 25, 2022, a meeting of laureates of the Presidential Prize for Literature and Art for Children and Youth was held.

“Today they are trying to abolish the entire thousand-year-old country, our people. I am talking about the progressive discrimination of everything related to Russia. With all the coexistence, and sometimes encouragement, of the ruling elites,” Putin continued.

Vladimir Putin declared that “Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Rachmaninov are excluded from concert posters, Russian writers and their books are banned.”

“The last time such a massive campaign to destroy unacceptable literature was carried out by the Nazis in Germany almost 90 years ago,” the Russian President concluded.

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