Western people did not exactly read arab poets while ISIS was expanding their territory either. Also, people in west were never too quick to read Ukrainian, Polish, Czech or whatever literature.
My point here is: if art of other countries is so important for nations being together, why is the Russian one being constantly treated as more important then everyone else? Why not urging us to read Finnish, French, German, Polish, Slovak and Ukrainian? Or literature from Belarus for that matter?
Seriously, why did emphasis on Russian art went UP after the latest invasion?
Russian literature has been a mainstay among western audiences for the last hundred years. Works like Punishment and Crime, War and Peace, Anna Karenina are widely known across the world.
This is just tradition, personally I don't believe Russian writers of 18/19 centuries were better or worse than their counterparts living in Eastern Europe, for example. It is indisputable Russia produced some great writers and poets, such as Anna Akhmatova (but especially for poetry 70% is lost in translation). The reason that Tolstoi and Dostoyevski got famous is largely geopolitical; what we are doing now is just a part of tradition. I remember I relatively enjoyed reading Crime and Punishment, but when I started to read Brothers Karamazov, I started to have a feeling there are so many better ways to spend my life than reading these two bricks and this feeling only increased with time. YMMV.
My point here is: if art of other countries is so important for nations being together, why is the Russian one being constantly treated as more important then everyone else? Why not urging us to read Finnish, French, German, Polish, Slovak and Ukrainian? Or literature from Belarus for that matter?
Seriously, why did emphasis on Russian art went UP after the latest invasion?