The State Hermitage Museum: Information

Interview with the magazine Art Chronicle
April 2006

- In the context of what would seem to be the calm and grace of museum work, the history of museum collections has always been linked to dramatic history. This is because we are talking about possessing Treasures and they always stoke passions. Political unrest and changes, wars and revolutions affect museums in a direct way. Can we hope that in the 21st century, which has finally confirmed the priority status of property and defense of world culture, museums have nothing more to fear?

- Unfortunately, no. In all centuries up till now museum collections were seen not only as piles of diamonds and gold but also as something important in terms of status, as demonstrations of the power and strength of a state, taking the form of rich trophies. At the end of the 20th century everything changed. Now the thing is money. Auctions have witnessed an absolutely inappropriate growth in prices and this situation immediately fed the criminal trade in works of art. Now this form of criminality occupies third place, right after trade in arms and narcotics. Stolen masterpieces are not sold and are not bought; instead they become a valuable security in the settling of scores between criminal communities. Everything has a price. Russian government bodies overseeing and financing museums also are inclined to take a formalistic, bureaucratic view of art as "property". This approach gives rise to a great many passions and misunderstandings. All the 'historic" disputes (for example, over repatriation) in the final analysis end in talk about 'how much money we will lose on this". In our ministerial milieu there is even such a horrible concept as "lost benefits". They are constantly trying to turn museums into "warehouses" and museum directors into "warehouse foremen" who just turn over in a timely way what is needed according to a list and who perform a "paid service". We constantly see tragic-comical incomprehension on the faces of bureaucrats from the ministries of finance and treasury: "What kind of scientific work are you doing there and why does it eat up so much money?"

- Putting together a full-fledged collection is in one way or another linked to the movement of separate treasures. And these movements at times have long histories behind them and many different claims to ownership ...

- Yes, the well-known set of refrains exists since long ago: "These were taken from us during the war", "they were carted away", "they were dug up in our country". The logic of these inquiries suggests that the Louvre should give things back to Italy; Stockholm should return things to Prague; all Greek works of art should be returned to Greece; Egyptians things should go to Egypt; Rembrandt should be returned to Holland; and Novgorod icons should be repatriated to Novgorod. Moreover, there is the favorite claim of all Russian museums: "That was once ours and now it is in the Hermitage". Yes, a lot ended up in the Hermitage as a consciously created "universal museum" still back in the days of the Soviet regime (and, thanks to that the works were saved). Conversely, much was taken out of its collections by plundering orders of the Soviet Government. There were and will be claims. Some of them are grounded in law; others are groundless. But the main thing is that all these claims should not go further than the bounds of discussion among professionals.

- At the same time it was precisely the tactic of explaining the true value of the Hermitage not only as a Russian institution but as the property of the whole world which allowed you as director to save and lead the Hermitage out into a new life during the complex time of Perestroika.

- The political significance of the Hermitage as a fundamental collection existing precisely in Russia is, of course, great. One must never forget that when things enter a collection, they become part of its "organism" and this collection in its totality is appreciated to be a self-standing cultural phenomenon. We did not just "amass a lot of things by plunder", rather we created a great museum! What is remarkable about the Hermitage as a phenomenon of Russian culture, considering that a large part of its collection consists of Western European art, the art of Classical Antiquity and the art of the ancient Orient? It is precisely that we include Russian culture in the dialogue of cultures of a universal museum. And this symbol of dialogue between Russian and world culture was created back in the days of Catherine the Great! In the 18th century, it was a real feat to put together such a collection here, amidst the snow and ice and impassable roads. This is what makes it possible to call the Hermitage an outstanding cultural phenomenon. Only here can you go from Rembrandt to Matisse while passing through the throne room of the Russian Empire!

- Naturally every museum manager defends the interests of his collection. But how are political settlements made in the museum world? How is this ethos generated?

- On the one hand, in each museum manager there is the spirit of a collector, a sort of Pliushkin, who will never given up anything to anyone. On the other hand, in each of us there should also be a normal and wise sense of collegial spirit with other museum managers. There are a multitude of examples where after the Revolution the Hermitage gave part of its second-tier holdings to Russian cities which had no museums of European art: to Voronezh, Saratov, Krasnodar, Pskov, Perm, Yerevan, Kabardino-Balkaria. And one must say that these transfers were not objected to insofar as the farsighted practice of enlightenment was felt in them. For example, I now observe with great satisfaction how effectively the Museum in Irbit in the Urals functions, knowing that its collection of graphic art came mainly from the Hermitage. Not long ago we opened our exhibition in Krasnodar and the Krasnodar Museum prepared for our arrival an exhibition of "Hermitage" items. The way these things were presented, how they were preserved and continue to work in the name of culture, can only elicit respect. Among museum managers all extra-professional political prejudices should be excluded! For example, when I meet with my German colleagues, directors of museums, I should forget completely that we once fought, that Nazi German troops nearly destroyed our city, just as I should forget that we conquered them and they, vanquished, lay prostrate at our feet. But I do not forget this when I speak with government officials. And they do not forget it. The Hermitage has always been an initiator of dialogue even in such painful issues as "trophy art". We don't owe anything to anyone, but we always meet people halfway when we understand that in the Hermitage collection, by force of historical circumstance, there are rarities which are more important to some other museum than they are to us. Several years ago my colleague, the director of the Berlin museums Dube and I opened the widely talked about exhibition of "Unseen Treasures" and in our introductory remarks we said that if the politicians would only leave us alone, we could resolve all these misunderstandings in 10 minutes. The German politicians were offended by him and the Russians were offended by me, but I am certain that in this matter there is a "Hamburg account".

- The Hermitage was built by Russian sovereigns and the Revolution, which in principle destroyed everything "tsarist", could never forgive this. How is it the Hermitage survived at that time?

- The Russian Revolution did a lot less damage to culture than the French Revolution or the rebellion of Cromwell in England. An entire stratum of culture was destroyed there. When they began to restore Versailles, they could not find authentic things. As you know, in our Fieldmarshal's Hall we have the famous golden carriage of Catherine II painted by Boucher, whereas in France you cannot find a carriage from this period in a single museum! In Russia destructive revolutionary passions were combined with a desire to preserve things (it is another matter how later on part of what was saved was then sold off). The Winter Palace was not subjected to pillage for very long. Practically even before it was stormed, Junkers were sent in under the command of Lunacharsky and they closed all the doors. The museum was defended. Moreover, both branches of the Russian intelligentsia, both those who took up the cause of the Revolution and those who opposed it, showed themselves to be worthy men and found arguments to justify preserving the national legacy. In general it seems to me that the Russian Revolution was victorious precisely because in fact this revolution restored the Empire, which had fallen into decline. This is why the Civil War was a war between officers of the Russian Army who found themselves on different sides of the barricades.

- However, as a result of the Revolution the capital was moved to Moscow and this had very painful results for the Hermitage collection.

- In fact, thank God, the capital moved to Moscow, for otherwise the Hermitage would have been turned into a center for state receptions like the Kremlin and there would not have been any sort of generally accessible museum here. After the Revolution all art treasures were nationalized in Russia and a huge museum fund was created. The transfer here of a number of small private collections, in particular archeological and Central Asian (and the subsequent opening of the Oriental Department, where my father began his work) certainly enabled the Hermitage to consolidate its status as a "universal museum". Even before the Revolution, back in 1912, an educational museum was created in Moscow on the basis of Moscow University's Cabinet of Fine Arts and Antiquities, which was filled with first-class copies of outstanding foreign monuments. Then on 7 November 1924, a decree of Narkompros resolved to fill its halls. The source was to be the Hermitage. In our museum they created a "Council of the State Hermitage on the question of choosing works of art by Western European artists transferred to fill out the Moscow collections". This body tried to defend the Hermitage, but it was all in vain and they began rudely to tear the collection apart. They took matched items such as portraits by Murillo or Poussin landscapes and divided them in half: "the girl will go here and the boy will go there". As a result about 200 first class masterpieces were lost: Cranach, Rembrandt, Rubens, David, Ingres, Van Dyck, Titian, Voronese, Watteau. That is how the museum now called the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts was born. In our archives we have kept the documentation and correspondence surrounding this bloody history, but it is painful to recall.

- Not long ago the director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts Irina Antonova publicly made claims for the transfer back to Moscow of part of the collection of French Impressionists which till 1948 was kept in the Museum of New Western Art that was disbanded at the order of Stalin and was divided between the Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum. She said that this is "purely a Moscow collection". How do you react to this statement?

- I have heard several times about this idea of Irina Aleksandrovna, but I do not take it seriously since there is a museum etiquette according to which you generally do not discuss re-dividing museum property in public. I would point out that the transfer of paintings from Moscow was interpreted and officially recorded as an exchange. Several generations of Russians have grown up knowing about the paintings on "the third floor of the Hermitage" and the "Picasso in the Pushkin Museum". Moreover, I think that the main thing was not the "Museum of New Western Art" itself, since it was rather mechanically assembled from the nationalized collections of Shchukin and Morozov, but rather it was these collections taken separately. They were the work and bore the traces of highly individual collectors who put them together in the most painstaking manner. We have extensive experience recreating the collections for purposes of temporary exhibitions. Several times we and the Pushkin Museum recreated the collections of Shchukin and Morozov. And now we may come to the end of this constructive collaboration.