Petersburg “Cossacks” Force Cancellation of One-Man Show Based on Nabokov’s “Lolita”

‎”Cossacks” in Petersburg have forced the cancellation of a one-man show based on Nabokov’s novel Lolita and starring well-known local actor Leonid Mozgovoy. The show was scheduled for today (October 21) at Erarta, a contemporary art center in the city’s Vasilievsky Island district. In a threatening letter addressed to Erarta management, subsequently published by several local media outlets, the so-called Cossacks claimed that Nabokov “commits the sex act with a 12-year-old girl several times during the course of his work”; that Mozgovoy himself was “not afraid to portray Hitler as a positive character” (in Alexander Sokurov’s film Moloch); that Sokurov himself is “a well-known promoter of sodomy and a homosexualist”; and that the event’s organizer (Artyom Suslov) is “known for sodomy and anti-ecclesiastical actions, has been convicted several times, and is a drug addict.” The “Cossacks” then cited Petersburg’s newly minted “law” against the “promotion of pedophilia and homosexuality” amongst minors and hinted that the show’s organizers had already violated said law by advertising the show. According to Internet Russian-language newspaper Bumaga, these arguments were enough to persuade Mozgovoy and Suslov. Mozgovoy is quoted as saying one that one cannot argue with “scum” (bydlo), that “they tried to argue with them in 1917” (and what?); while Suslov is quoted as saying that Mozgovoy “respects their opinion” (i.e., the opinion of the “scum”) and therefore decided to cancel the show. (!) A quite unbelievable turn of events considering that, as far as we can tell, no one even knows who these “Cossacks” are. More details, including a reproduction of the threatening letter, here (in Russian):  http://paperpaper.ru/no-lolita/