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Today’s Russian artists are one thing; Russian art is another. Shunning the country’s back catalogue means giving up a guide to the darkness, and out of it. Cancel Dostoyevsky, as an Italian university threatened to, and you miss peerless insights into nihilism and violence. Blacklist Tchaikovsky—or Shostakovich—and you silence a beauty wrenched from the chokehold of repression. Turn away from Malevich’s paintings, and you forgo his urgent vision of a world cracked open. Banishing Tolstoy means losing a timeless prophet of peace.Share
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