In 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded Valery Gergiev the Order "For Services to the Fatherland" © dpa
Author : Jan Dams | Source : Die Welt | Link : original text
For some Russian artists, Putin's war means the end of their engagements in the West. Former Minister of State for Culture Julian Nida-Rümelin thinks this is wrong, and warns against a relapse into dark times. For state employers, the dismissals could still be expensive.
The case of Valery Gergiev has been making headlines for several days. The Russian, until recently chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, lost his job because he did not publicly renounce the Russian president after Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine. The star conductor is said to be very close to the Moscow autocrat.
"Why did the city of Munich get Gergiev as conductor of the Munich Philharmonic?" asks Julian Nida-Rümelin, the German government's former minister of culture. "Because he is a brilliant musician and not because he was considered close to Putin." Gergiev, he says, is not a representative of Russia in Munich.
And, Nida-Rümelin scolds, "There must be no mind examinations of artists and scientists in Germany." He said that this would be an axe to the fundamental values of a free, strong democracy and would weaken it in the systemic competition with autocracies.
Gergiev is perhaps the most prominent case of a Russian artist in Germany who had to give up his job. He is not the only one. "I have a number of clients right now who are losing their engagements because, in the view of their employers, they don't distance themselves loudly enough from Putin," says Viktor Winkler, a Frankfurt lawyer who specializes in legal crisis management.
He observes that it is not uncommon for Russian artists to have an assumed proximity or connection to their homeland, which is enough to end their engagements or employment relationships. The procedure is not only politically questionable. It is also legally high-risk and could one day cost the artists' state employers a lot of money.
Employers are threatened with damages
If the separations end up in court, their justification may not be tenable. Operas and other institutions might then even be liable for damages. "They can't just terminate engagements or not renew contracts because of an unchecked assumption that someone supports Vladimir Putin," Winkler says. "Discrimination just for not saying something is also illegal. This so-called negative freedom of speech is protected to the same extent as positive freedom of speech - which we all know."
Such contracts could only be terminated if someone had an unlawful view - i.e. denies the mass murder of the Jews or similar facts. "As yet, those affected are not suing because they don't want to publicly belong to the bad guys. But that is likely to change at some point," says the lawyer.
The institutions face not only costs if the cases end up in court, but also a loss of reputation. When prominent artists, athletes and scientists fight in court in public proceedings, it attracts attention - not only for the people affected, who have lost their engagement, but also for the former employers who have thrown them out.
Especially since most of the cases so far have been far less high-profile than that of Munich conductor Gergiev. When media talk about Russian artists losing their contracts, they usually mean the stars of the scene. Artists like Gergiev or soprano Anna Netrebko at New York's Metropolitan Opera, who condemns the war but not Putin.
However, there are also many other, less prominent Russians who now have no livelihood. "We're not talking about people who publicly support Putin, we're talking about artists who have lost their commitment just because they're Russian - or who are hastily accused of closeness to the Russian state, which doesn't exist on closer inspection," Winkler says.
"Some opera houses, but also sports federations, no longer even mention Putin, but refer to impending reputational damage." But that alone does not justify the separation of artists or athletes. One day, the lawyer believes, some of those affected will take legal action. Employers who are quick to part with employees today will then have to ask themselves why they made the decision they did.
Cultural expert Nida-Rümelin fears that the divisions will lead back to dark times. "It is wrong to demand that artists declare their opposition to Putin," he says. "Where that can lead, after all, is what we see in the history of the U.S. with the McCarthy era, when artists were caned and politically persecuted if they didn't publicly distance themselves from communism before the McCarthy Commission."
An expression of opinion test does not fit with liberal democracy, he said. A debate is already raging at Italian universities over the cancellation of courses on the work of Russian classicist Fyodor Dostoevsky. "This is crazy," Nida-Rümelin scolds. "What does Dostoevsky, one of the most important writers in the world, have to do with Putin?"