Russophobia is rampant in Europe: the Gergiev case in Caserta, the "Piciernenko" case, and the war in Ukraine against Putin's imperialism.

She exults like a fan in the terraces at the cancellation of the concert at the Royal Palace of Caserta: " We won!" The receipt expert, as well as a lover of De Mita 's political language, is ready to bite into everything in the extravagant world of Eastern-flavored sounds. Therefore, she presents herself as the Mediterranean version of a former Secretary General of Ukrainian origin, that Chernenko who in 1984 hissed at the Soviet boycott of the Olympics organized by the Yankees. With the same avoidance of any dialogue with others, the "Piciernenko" shouts her "no" to the presence on her home soil of a fearsome Russian conductor, no less a sympathizer of the Tsar. She believes him capable of deceiving the audience by circling them with the diabolical swinging of his baton.

The liberals, celebrating the joyful partnership between the relentless researcher of Russophile deviations and the firm head of the Ministry of Culture, rejoice at having transformed the Bourbon residence into the " Palace of Calenda ." The trench newspapers, Repubblica and Corriere, have evoked 700 phantom Nobel Prize winners—they may have even listened to the opinions of Quasimodo or Grazia Deledda —en masse exhorting the virile enterprise of finally shifting the war from the necessary (economic sanctions, military supplies) to the superfluous (letters, sheet music, athletics tracks). In a contest that has now become total, the democrats demand the civil annihilation of anyone in the arts who shirks a liberating profession of anti-Russian faith. The conflict proves to be boundless. Every potential friend of the enemy must be framed as an objective enemy— "an enemy of democracy ," according to Repubblica —to be silenced at all costs. Since there is no shortage of hasty types around, like those who took no time in blowing up the Toyota of Darya Dugina, daughter of a philosopher with ties to Putin, it would be wiser not to endorse the image of the director, who is close to the despot, as someone who should be annihilated in the public arena.

Even though Meloni, with a parachute on her back, has not yet formally declared war on Russia, liberals still dream of a return to the brutal practices of religious wars. According to a fanatical and pre-modern vision, those facing each other are not states with troops, but individuals, considered wherever they are, in their naked corporeity, as foreigners to be eliminated, if not physically, then at least intellectually. Who knows what "Piciernenko," Lepore , and the complementary liberals would do with two illustrious American academics trying to probe Putin 's military strategy without preemptively accommodating the demands of incipient Russophobia. John J. Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato (in How States Think , Yale University Press, 2023) allow themselves authorial licenses ( "Not only was Russia's decision to invade Ukraine rational, but it was not even anomalous ") that would be truly costly in a Europe donning camouflage .

To Boris Johnson and Joe Biden, who described Putin as a mad "butcher" guilty of waging an indiscriminate war to conquer European space, the two political scientists retort that the principle of the full rationality of the homo theoreticus who oversees all foreign policy, including that of the Kremlin, remains valid. It is therefore not necessary to inconvenience the "deranged autocrat " who alone takes the liberty of launching the so-called special operation. " The available evidence ," Mearsheimer and Rosato note, " tells a different story: Putin's subordinates agreed with his opinion about the nature of the threat Russia faced, and the president consulted with them before deciding on the war." The order to cross the border therefore appears to be the result of a deliberative process involving politicians, civilian advisors, and military personnel. Even given this extended decision-making process, the accusation leveled against Gergiev of being the associate of an elective tyrant is empty and implies the denial of any legitimacy due to the institutions of a sovereign country, as well as the evident blurring of the divide between art and politics. The Russophobia, which pervades all of Old Europe, stems from an outdated ideological interpretation of international relations as a metaphysical clash between democracies and autocracies. Any political solution evaporates, and a heated theological dispute triumphs, one that rejects the prosaic roots of hostilities and thus the possibility of compromise.

For Mearsheimer and Rosato, the aim of the tanks marching toward Kiev was not to fuel a senseless nostalgia for a lost empire. Behind it lay an attempt (realistic in its own way) to preserve a vital state of geopolitical equilibrium. The two scholars believe that, setting aside extrinsic moral considerations and even a judgment linked to the results achieved, the event that triggers the recourse to violence against another territory meets the canons of predictability. Their conclusion is clear: " Russian leaders relied on a credible theory. In short, it was a war of self-defense aimed at preventing an adverse alteration in the balance of power. The United States and its allies were unwilling to accommodate the security concerns raised by Russia. Given this, Putin opted for war." In order to guarantee national security, perceived as a highly at-risk asset following the flag-waving of Ukraine's entry into NATO, the only option left for the Moscow elite was to gamble. Faced with the possibility of a California seceding from the United States and hosting Russian or Chinese bases, Uncle Sam's reaction would not have been much different. The resistance to employing realistic political criteria in addressing the ongoing hybrid conflict only makes the war unsolvable through negotiation. Western leaders and analysts, who portray Putin as a mad dictator, lacking a discernible foreign policy, a perfect reincarnation of Hitler, are playing this game because they intend to undermine the very foundations of diplomacy. One certainly cannot come to terms with a bloodthirsty and, to boot, irrational monarch.

The recent excommunications of artists are moving in a similar direction: the rejected Russian-speaking musicians signal the Liberal Democrats' refusal to recognize that there are no transcendent distances or gulfs of values between the contenders, but rather contingent, clashing strategic interests. Meloni, praising Trump's renewed bellicose stance, and "Piciernenko," a talent scout, agree with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's assertion: "The war in Ukraine has never been just a Ukrainian issue. This is a war over the future of Europe. We should stop thinking of aid to Ukraine as donations. This is our war against Russian imperialism."

The pale democratic fighters who praise Netanyahu for " doing our dirty work " are leading the continent toward the abyss, launching a witch hunt, fearful of hearing a few Verdi tunes in the theaters. Having torn up the constitutions they swore by, these people give the impression of a political class adrift, scarcely credible as a standard-bearer of democracy. The disastrous fall of tired political cultures, seduced by the word of war to the point of mistaking the soloists of the St. Petersburg theater for an aggressive army, seems imminent. The certainty is that a military hangover always leads to a right-wing recovery. When will the popular movement for peace, opposed to warmongering governments, revive? Only from here can a new politics be reborn.

FROM

Michael Prospero