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Hermitage Magazine, Summer 2007 No. 7
Letter from the Director of the Hermitage
"The Multi-dimensional Hermitage"
The world knows the State (Imperial) Hermitage and many other ‘hermitages.’
Some of them have no relation to the museum, while others are closely
linked to it. However, among them all there is one commonality of origin:
the word "refuge for a recluse" [ermitage], which has gone beyond
its original meaning while preserving all its charm. From a "refuge
of a recluse on the hill" there appeared the French wine "Hermitage.”
From "refuge" in the sense of "isolation" came various
palace pavilions in Lausanne, in Peterhof, in Tsarskoye Selo and so forth.
The amusement nuance reached its high point in Moscow’s “Hermitage”
amusement park. The transformation of Catherine’s “refuge for
a recluse” in Petersburg into a museum gave the name a special significance
and additional attractiveness. There are an endless number of situations
when people try to use this name both legally and illegally, both in Russia
and beyond its borders.
The Imperial Hermitage itself is subdivided into other Hermitages, both
inside and outside. There are its official affiliates/departments in Petersburg:
the Menshikov Palace, the Museum of Porcelain, the Museum of Heraldry,
the Reserve collections, the General Staff building. There are also the
Hermitage’s exhibition centers in Amsterdam, Las Vegas (together
with the Guggenheim), in London and in Kazan. Soon there will be an additional
research center in Ferrara. The word ‘hermitage’ necessarily
figures in the name of each center, which appears to us to be an example
of a necessary cultural expansion that is useful to the world and to Russia.
Inside the Hermitage there are its collections. These are ‘molecular
hermitages’ which to a large degree determine the style and spirit
of the museum. After all, the Hermitage is not only Catherine the Great,
Nicholas I, Alexander II and the other emperors. It is also Crozat, Walpole
and Bruhl, Bazilevsky, Semenov-Tian-Shansky, Shchukin and Morozov…Among
the ‘molecules’ which constitute the Hermitage, its archeological
expeditions play an important role. They are an irreplaceable part of
a universal synthetic museum.
Our museum is a multifaceted organism. It combines into a single integral
entity the independently existing components including conservation and
scientific study, display and restoration, narration and interpretation.
Finally there is music making and festive ceremonies.
The synthetic aspect is furthered by the Hermitage’s partners –
the Hermitage Orchestra, Hermitage radio, the Hermitage Magazine, the
newspaper News of the Hermitage, various television programmes about the
museum and the Hermitage Cafe. In the cosmos, there is the planet Hermitage.
The Hermitage is multi-dimensional. We still are just beginning to discover
and understand its new and unexpected dimensions...
Mikhail Piotrovsky
Director of the State Hermitage
Contents of the magazine:
Portrait
Mstislav Rostropovich: The Petersburg Circle
Îlga Chumikova
The Hermitage Museum
A taste for collecting
Mikhail Piotrovsky
Chronicle of the theft. The scene of the action: The Hermitage
Julia Kantor
Tapestries: life in the palace
Tatyana Lekhovich
"Àrmitage" Her Majesty
Îëüãà Êîñòþê
Museum machinery
Polina Fomina
Hermitage-The Place
Kazan: Northern outpost of Islam
Anastasia Grib
Svetlana Kolina
Amsterdam: The Hermitage on the Amstel
Svetlana Datsenko
Las Vegas: America in the Mirror
Adam Fuss
London’s River: On the shores of the Thames
Paul Quail
Italian feast
Maria Pirogovskaya
interview with Yelena Kostiukovich
Hermitage- The Word
Dream
Umberto Ecco
translation by Yelena Kostiukovich
Hermathenae, or a short history of garden hermitages
Boris Sokolov
The Collection
Artemy Troitsky: Museum-Maker
Liubov Kudriavtseva
Art and money
Russian Sotheby’s. Investments in art. Advice from an expert
Sergei Skatershchikov
Postscript
The Hermitage brand
Marina Tsyguleva
Events
Theatre/cinema/exhibitions/premieres
Announcements
Summer exhibitions and concerts
Children’s page
How to speak about art with children
My Hermitage
Andrei Bitov
Stradivarius’s drum
Contact information:
Contact person: Maria Berntseva
Director of Marketing
E-mail: berntseva@sptimes.ru
Telephone: +7 812 325 60 80
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