Russia’s cultural comeback in Western Europe is underway
The West’s Overton window on Russia is slowly beginning to reopen. A revealing example emerged this week in Italy. At the Venice Art Biennale, organizers decided to reopen the Russian pavilion for the first time in four years. More importantly, it wasn’t handed over to representatives of the émigré opposition or anti-Kremlin proxies, but to actual Russian delegates who travelled from Moscow.
Predictably, the decision provoked outrage. The European Commission reportedly sent angry letters to the Biennale organisers and the Italian government. Ukraine imposed sanctions on those involved in running the pavilion. Activists quickly descended on Venice, including members of Pussy Riot, the punk group banned in Russia as extremist, who staged demonstrations against the event.
What’s striking is that, despite the pressure, the Italians refused to back down. Biennale president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco openly accused critics of censorship and narcissism. The Russian pavilion remained open.
Only a year or two ago, such a scenario would have seemed impossible. During the height of the Ukraine conflict, even the slightest positive gesture towards Russia in the West was treated as morally unacceptable, as evidence of “sympathy for the aggressor.” Any deviation from the approved line had to be condemned immediately, and those responsible risked public ostracism.
Now the atmosphere is gradually changing. Russia is cautiously being allowed back into international cultural and sporting life. The Venice Biennale is only the latest example.
Earlier this year, Russian athletes at the Paralympics in Milan were once again allowed to compete under national symbols. The pattern was similar as Ukraine protested loudly and Western activists demanded restrictions. Yet the International Paralympic Committee ultimately sanctioned Ukraine’s most disruptive athletes rather than reversing the decision. Russia’s return proved highly successful: six athletes won 12 medals, and the team finished third overall.
Taken together, these episodes suggest that attitudes towards Russia inside the EU are beginning, however slowly and reluctantly, to soften.
It is hardly surprising that Italy is at the forefront of this shift. From the beginning of the conflict, Rome adopted a distinctive position. Officially, Italy supported collective Western European initiatives. In practice, however, it maintained a noticeably more restrained attitude towards Moscow than many of its allies. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was among the first major EU leaders to openly raise the question of restoring official contacts with the Kremlin.
Italian society reacted calmly. That is no accident. For decades, Italy has maintained close cultural and economic ties with Russia, and ordinary Italians have generally viewed Russians favourably.
A similar dynamic can increasingly be seen elsewhere in Europe, although in many countries it is still drowned out by the aggressive rhetoric of political elites. France offers a good example. While Emmanuel Macron continues discussing the “containment” of Russia at European summits, French audiences have enthusiastically embraced a new production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin performed in Russian.
More broadly, Western Europeans increasingly recognize an uncomfortable reality: Russian culture cannot simply be erased. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky and Chekhov are not merely “Russian” figures in a narrow national sense. They are part of world civilization. Attempts to cancel them always looked intellectually shallow and culturally self-destructive.
And this is precisely where the growing demand for normalization comes from. Once people accept that Russian literature, music, and art remain legitimate parts of European cultural life, it becomes harder to argue that everything contemporary Russia produces must remain permanently quarantined as well. One thing inevitably leads to another.
Another important shift is also visible. The West no longer treats Ukraine’s position as morally unquestionable in the way it once did. There was a period when every statement from Kiev was amplified as if it carried unique ethical authority. Zelensky and his officials were treated less as political actors than as moral arbiters, but that mood has faded.
Even if the EU’s illusions about Ukraine have not disappeared entirely, expectations have become more grounded in reality. Western Europeans increasingly understand that Kiev’s total rejection of everything Russian is not simply a cultural preference but a wartime political necessity for the Ukrainian leadership. It’s part of the ideological framework through which Zelensky maintains internal unity during a prolonged conflict.
The EU’s interests are ultimately different. However hostile rhetoric towards Moscow may sound today, many in Europe understand at a deeper level that Russia is not going anywhere. Geography alone dictates that some form of coexistence will eventually have to be rebuilt.
And if Western Europe and Russia will ultimately need to find a path back to peaceful coexistence anyway, then perhaps the small steps now being taken are not merely symbolic gestures, but the beginning of something larger.
This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team
