BY THE BOOK

On the 30th Day of Putin’s Failing War He Invokes J.K. Rowling

In a rambling speech on Friday, the Russian president used the “Harry Potter” author as an example of the West trying to cancel Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chose to mark the 30th day of his war against Ukraine siding with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who he said was a victim of the type of “cancel culture” the West is waging against Russia. In a somewhat unhinged address, Putin complained that the West was trying to erase Russian culture from the map, citing composers Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Dmitry Shostakovich and Sergei Rachmaninov, who he said had been “canceled” just like Rowling. “They canceled Joanne Rowling recently—the children’s author, her books are published all over the world—just because she didn’t satisfy the demands of gender rights,” he said in a televised address. “They are now trying to cancel our country. I’m talking about the progressive discrimination of everything to do with Russia.” He then likened his definition of “cancel culture” to the Nazis burning books during WWII. “We remember the footage when they were burning books,” he said. “It is impossible to imagine such a thing in our country and we are insured against this thanks to our culture.” Rowling responded by tweeting, “Critiques of Western cancel culture are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics. #IStandWithUkraine.”