Bicocca University cancels Paolo Nori’s course on Dostoevsky: “Let’s avoid controversy”. The writer in tears: “It’s censorship, ridiculous”

Paolo Nori barely holds back his tears as he reads the e-mail received in the past few hours from the Bicocca University of Milan, where from next Wednesday he was to hold a course in four lessons – “free and open to all” – on the Russian writer Fëdor Michajlovič Dostoevskij, on which Nori himself published his last book in 2021, “It still bleeds. The Incredible Life of Fëdor M. Dostoevskij ”. «I got home and opened my pc and saw an email that came from Bicocca. He said “Dear professor, this morning the Vice Rector for Didactics informed me of the decision taken with the rector to postpone the journey on Dostoevsky. The aim is to avoid any form of controversy, especially internal as it is a moment of strong tension ”», announces Nori in a live video on Instagram.

The emotion of the author originally from Parma is evident, as well as the disbelief and anger. «The course on the Russian author’s novels – explains Nori – was to begin next Wednesday a course of four lessons. They had invited me, it was an hour and a half each, it was free and open to everyone. I – he continues – find that what is happening in Ukraine is a horrible thing and I feel like crying just thinking about it. But what is happening in Italy today, these things here, are ridiculous things: censoring a course is ridiculous ». And he adds: «Not only being a living Russian is a fault in Italy today. But also being a dead Russian, who was sentenced to death when he was alive in 1849 because he had read a forbidden thing is. That an Italian university prohibits a course on an author like Dostoevsky is something I can’t believe, when I read this email I didn’t believe it “.

According to Nori, right now that there is war in Ukraine we should “talk more about Dostoevsky: the other day I presented“ Sanguina Ancora ”in Florence to Leopolda and the interest in this book was very high”. There were many demonstrations of solidarity by Nori’s followers both during the live broadcast on the afternoon of Tuesday 1st March and in the comments on the post.