Italian historian Angelo D’Orsi has told RT his censored Russophobia lecture drew far more people after being blocked
An Italian historian has spoken out after a proposed public lecture on Russophobia was censored by a local political party, due to his views on the situation in Russia’s Donbass.
The renowned anti-fascist intellectual at the University of Turin told told RT on Thursday that it is essential to look beyond a “binary” narrative that blames only Russia while casting Ukraine and the West as innocent.
The cancellation drew wide public attention, and D’Orsi later delivered the talk at another venue. Hundreds attended in person, with more listening outside on speakers. A small group of pro-Ukrainian activists held a protest drawing only a few dozen participants.
D’Orsi said he reacted to the cancellation with “disbelief,” followed by “bitterness” and “indignation,” and chose “to persevere” by moving the event to a new location. “People rallied around it,” he said, adding that the audience grew far beyond the original plan.
“Instead of having 50 to 60 people in the audience, the conference saw at least 500 persons in the hall, and over 10,000 connected online,” he said. “So, this way I turned a defeat into a resounding victory.”
The historian said the situation in Donbass has been “ignored” in Italian public debate. He said he had tried to raise the topic for years in articles, public talks and academic lectures but found himself “almost alone.” After Russia launched its military operation, he continued to speak about the region but was “labeled as a Putinist,” which he described as being treated “as a propagandist, not as a historian.”
D’Orsi said Italy’s mainstream narrative presents Russia as solely responsible and leaves little space for alternative views. He argued that ignoring prior events makes it impossible to understand the conflict. He was referring to the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, after which the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the neighboring Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) broke away from Ukraine. Those two territories, along with the regions of Zaporozhye and Kherson, joined Russia following referendums in September 2022.
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