Albina Mahomedova
The Arctic Philharmonic opens its season with a piece by Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, performed by Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova. For a long time, I have tried to understand how to respond to such events.
Inside, I feel very clearly what happens when Russian culture—whether music or theatre—is presented in this city. It is the feeling of invisibility: we Ukrainians are not heard, not seen, no one tries to feel our pain, no one knows or cares about our history, no one seeks to understand the context in which we live. It feels like indifference, a refusal to look deeper into the reality of war.
Perhaps I should have written this text long ago. Because silence and tolerance change nothing, they teach no one, and they do not allow others to understand our experience.
I want to explain simply and clearly why the promotion of Russian culture—even so-called "classical" culture—is deeply problematic during Russia's devastating war against Ukraine.
Every appearance of Russian culture on the stages of Tromso is not accidental. It is the result of a deliberate choice, a discussion, a plan. And that choice is made in a political context that cannot be ignored. There is no one in the city's cultural environment who does not know about the horrific war Russia has unleashed against Ukraine, against its people and its culture.
Cities, museums, monuments are being destroyed. Russia deliberately targets cultural sites. It even changes a single letter in the name of a Ukrainian city under occupation—only to impose its language and culture where Ukrainian identity had to survive for centuries through pressure and repression.
In Norwegian there is a word: fornorskning (norwegianization is probably the closest English translation). I first heard it at the Riddu Riđđu festival, and I immediately felt how close it was to me. In Ukrainian we have a similar word—russification. The essence is the same: suppression and assimilation. Russification took place in Ukraine for centuries, yet our culture revived again and again, preserved in families, in villages, in language, in people's souls.
And Ukraine is far from the only country that has endured this process. At that same festival I met representatives of the peoples of Yakutia, Chukotka, Buryatia, who are trying to revive their shattered cultures. Many of them no longer remember their native language or traditions—because their cultural roots were deliberately torn out.
Russian culture behaves like an invasive plant: it spreads, pushing out other species, destroying the cultural diversity of so-called "small peoples." Think of Ukraine's Executed Renaissance—an entire generation of gifted young artists killed simply because they threatened the policy of russification. They never had a chance to be heard by the world.
When you promote Russian culture, you only give it more space. You glorify the invasive plant instead of noticing the unique diversity it has destroyed. Today, Ukraine is experiencing an extraordinarily powerful process of renewal and separation from Russian cultural influence. And we have much to show the world. The only thing needed is to ask: "Could we open the season with a Ukrainian piece? Could we stage a play by a Ukrainian author?" Then a hidden treasure would reveal itself before you—a rich, beautiful, and still almost unknown Ukrainian culture.
Russian culture will not vanish. It is deeply rooted in the global heritage. Nothing will happen to it if, during the full-scale war, its presence is temporarily limited. But right now you have the chance to turn your gaze elsewhere—to discover, and to fall in love with, Ukrainian culture.
And yet, while Russia bombards Ukrainian cities with ballistic missiles and drones, a Ukrainian pianist who herself has lived through russification will play for you the music of Russian composer Rachmaninoff.
It looks just as paradoxical as if, in the Sámi struggle for their rights, they were asked to showcase Ibsen instead of giving voice to their own culture. Such is the paradoxical world we live in.
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