Only in appearance was this a cultural event. Conductor Valery Gergiev, undoubtedly one of the most talented musicians of our time, was to take the podium at the Reggia di Caserta on 27 July to conduct a symphonic concert. But behind that artistic gesture lay something more, much more than a musical programme. A few days after the performance, after a growing wave of protests, the event was cancelled. And with it, the implicit political message that that concert was intended to convey was also rejected.

Capturing the strategic nature of the operation is Peter W. Krueger, in a post on X: “This was a well-targeted operation on the part of the Kremlin to open a further penetration breach in a country that is already among the most infiltrated in Europe“. An action that, according to Krueger, follows the Mafia logic of the ‘signal’: to show that the Kremlin can do as it likes, even in the symbolic places of democratic Europe, in ways not unlike those already seen in the elimination of dissidents and traitors abroad. An operation, he concludes, that could have paved the way for many others, all under the banner of self-styled ‘Russian culture’, used as a propaganda Trojan horse.

Valery Gergiev is no ordinary artist. He has long been one of the symbolic figures of Russian culture closest to the power of Vladimir Putin. He conducted celebratory concerts in Crimea a few days after the annexation, publicly justified the military intervention in Ukraine, took part in official Kremlin events, and his presence in Caserta, in the middle of the Italian summer, could not be considered a coincidence. That evening was to become a symbolic act, a signal to the entire continent: the Kremlin is still capable of entering the theatres of Europe with its finest ambassadors, and Italy is perhaps the most fertile ground on which to test a new form of cultural penetration.

The public reaction was, fortunately, sharp. Hundreds of intellectuals, activists and citizens – many of them Russian or Ukrainian in exile – called for the concert to be cancelled. Among them was Yulia Navalnaya, widow of the opponent Alexei Navalny, who denounced the initiative as a cultural legitimisation of the Moscow regime. In just a few days, the signature collection launched by Memorial Italia has gathered over 16,000 signatures, becoming one of the most visible civic campaigns against the soft penetration of Russian power in the West.

The Italian government, initially silent, then made its voice heard. Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli called the initiative ‘senseless’, reiterating how Italy cannot offer public stages to those who legitimise Russian aggression in Ukraine. Even European Parliament Vice-President Pina Picierno, who fought hardest for the concert’s cancellation, spoke of a ‘moral error‘. However, it was not the Campania Region, the organiser of the event, but the management of the Reggia di Caserta, which decided to cancel the event, relying on the principle of the ‘non-neutrality of culture’ in times of war.

The most controversial attitude was the one held for weeks by the President of the Campania Region, Vincenzo De Luca, who defended the invitation to Gergiev in the name of artistic freedom and the autonomy of culture from politics. A position that, in its claimed neutrality, ended up being functional to the Kremlin’s narrative, for which art would be a neutral sphere, impervious to any moral responsibility. But in a historical phase in which Russia uses culture as a geopolitical lever, ignoring its implications means passively accepting its strategy.

What happened in Caserta is not an isolated episode, but a piece of a wider operation. For years, the Kremlin has been trying to maintain a symbolic presence in Europe through festivals, academic exchanges, exhibitions and concerts. These events become ambiguous spaces where propaganda disguises itself as art and power hides behind the elegance of classical music. Italy, due to its geographical location, institutional fragility and political rhetoric that is sometimes indulgent towards Moscow, represents the soft underbelly of Europe. A middle ground on which the Kremlin is betting, today more than ever.

Cancelling Gergiev’s concert was a victory. Not so much against a man, but against an idea of impunity. It was a collective response that shows that there are still civic, moral and institutional antibodies capable of opposing sophisticated forms of infiltration. But we must not lower our guard. The episode shows that Russian cultural pressure is not only expressed through official channels, but can take elegant forms, difficult to challenge without appearing censorious.

Europe, and Italy in particular, must develop a new political and cultural vocabulary to meet these challenges. It is not a matter of prohibition, but of understanding. It is not a matter of isolating artists, but of discerning between creative freedom and the legitimisation of power. The story of Gergiev’s concert, with the announced and then withdrawn attendance, showed how thin the line is between culture and propaganda, between art and domination. And it reminded us all that even a concert can sometimes be a weapon.

The campaign that led to the cancellation of that concert – promoted among others by our friends at Europa Radicale – was not censorship. It was a form of liberal resistance, a rational defence of the open foundations of democracy. As Karl Popper warned, one cannot be tolerant with the intolerant: cultural hospitality has a limit, and that is the limit beyond which art becomes an instrument of domination. To defend this limit is to defend freedom itself.