Letters: Banning Russia’s culture only benefits Putin

Don’t ban Russia’s culture

Sir: It is uncouth, illiterate and actually beneficial to Putin when theatres, opera houses and other cultural institutions in Britain and across the globe block access to these heights of culture (‘Theatre of war’, 14 May). During Stalin’s last decade and throughout the Cold War, Isaiah Berlin was a superb help to this country and to Russia through his connection with Anna Akhmatova, including the award to her of an honorary doctorate at New College, Oxford, in June 1965, the year before her death.

Censorship and blocking of the free flow of culture between Russia and western society is what the Soviet Union enforced. It was only by secret means that Boris Pasternak was able to get his novel Doctor Zhivago published abroad in 1958, in translation, two years before his death. It could not be published in Russia until 1987. It’s just mad for the Royal Opera House and Cardiff Philharmonic to copy the Kremlin.