Being anti-war is not being anti-Russia

I GREW up in Denmark at a time when Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain. But no such division existed on our bookshelves: the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol and Chekhov were next to those of Dickens, Cervantes, Hugo and Goethe. In our home, Tchaikovsky was The Beatles of classical music.

Russian literature and art are integral and inseparable parts of European cultural heritage and history. Writers, such as Tolstoy, have influenced and helped shape consciousness, ethics and self-perception of readers, writers and the public — directly and indirectly — during and beyond their own time. To hate Russia is to hate a part of ourselves.