I recently returned from Kaliningrad, where the Baltic Cultural Forum was held. It is becoming increasingly popular, bringing a lot of people together. Some interesting discussions take place there.
The Governor of Kaliningrad Region, Anton Andreyevich Alikhanov, participates in the forum. He is head of the working group on museum activities attached to the State Council. We get together regularly and what we talk about reaches the State Council. That helps to shape the direction of museum work in the country.
A joint session of that group and the Union of Museums of Russia showed how the picture of museum life is changing. Vigorous public organizations are being formed. Associations of maritime, literary and musical museums made addresses at the forum.
We do not always notice that culture is becoming an important motive force in various areas of life. What we do is starting to influence politics more and more. Politicians, not only in Russia, are speaking about traditional values, national self-awareness, the role and protection of minorities.
The theme of the present forum was “The Philosophy of Culture”. There are various definitions of what that is. We proceed from the one that we adopted: culture is the non-genetically inherited memory of generations. Mechanisms are being created to organize and preserve that memory.
Some currently fashionable things are entering the life of culture. On the one hand there is artificial intelligence, on the other genetics and genetic engineering. The formation in people of the memory of generations through cultural institutions and artificial intelligence is interfering in some of the most pressing issues of the moment.
The metaphysics of culture is bound up with the rhythms of history that lie in its depths. I am fond of talking about the rhythms of history. In the Kaliningrad area, the mix of historical events is exceptionally checkered. It is the history of the people who live there. Kaliningrad’s museums build their work upon that.
What do we know about this land? First of all, there is the Teutonic Order, the history of its conquests, the crusades carried over onto European soil. All of that is embodied in monuments and in literature.
Then there is the period of East Prussia, now Polish, now German. Peter I visited those parts a number of times. We must not forget the era of the Seven Years’ War, at the end of which Russian troops entered Berlin for the first time. Königsberg was taken too. Empress Elizabeth became its ruler. At that moment the great Kant, the chief figure in the history of the region, was a subject of the Russian Empire.
There are events that we do not speak about often, but they need to be remembered – the Russian army’s failure at Friedland and Preussisch-Eylau. As a result, in 1807 at Tilsit Alexander I and Napoleon agreed a treaty that people hostile to us today call the first Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. At that time, Russia gained the opportunity, among other things, to enter Finland and free it from Sweden.
The Battle of Gumbinnen was a very important one on the Eastern Front in the First World War. The Battle of Tannenberg was considered a great German victory with the Tannenberg Memorial being created to commemorate it. Many years later, the Soviet army entered East Prussia. The Germans wrecked the memorial and carried away the remains of the commander-in-chief Hindenburg.
One of the greatest battles of the Second World War was the Königsberg Operation, in which we defeated the Germans. A cultural element edges its way into that military event – the Amber Room. We know that it was removed by the Germans from Tsarskoye Selo to Königsberg, which at that time too was considered the capital of amber. And East Prussia became part of Poland and Russia.
The museums tell about all these events.
Some splendid artists lived in that land. It was the birthplace of Lovis Corinth, one of the foremost German artists of the late 19th century. In Svetlogorsk people can visit the House-Museum of Hermann Brachert, a leading German sculptor in the first half of the 20th century.
The cult of Kant existed everywhere, Soviet times included. Today too, his grave is a spot that draws people. For the Soviet period Kaliningrad was also the capital for organ music.
Kaliningrad is the location of the Museum of the World Ocean. It is attractive and interesting. Tourists stream there. That museum rescues ships. In Saint Petersburg the icebreaker Krasin only survived because it became part of the Museum of the World Ocean. Around ten more ships are anchored in Kaliningrad that would have perished if the museum had not saved them. They are not simply halls with custodians sitting in them. The ships have crews. They are a museum and a functioning vessel at the same time.
A museum’s mission is to snatch things from their customary context and save them. The research vessel Vityaz, like our Krasin, was no longer in active service with the navy. It was destined for the scrapyard. The museum preserves the memory of the life in which they played a part. To be honest, if the Krasin had not been preserved as a museum, then few people would perhaps remember about the recue of the Nobile expedition.
The museum metaverse with its intertwining of different historical events makes it possible to travel in time. It is not without good reason that a fair number of films were shot in Kaliningrad about Russia, Germany, the Teutonic Order, the 1812 invasion… It is a place where history lives.
Museums produce a sense of belonging to the world in various forms.
Kaliningrad’s Art Museum is housed in the building of the Exchange, where it harmoniously co-exists with the aesthetic traditions of a former centre of commerce. It is appropriate in an interesting historical edifice.
The old cathedral has undergone many changes. It was Catholic, then became Protestant. After the war it housed an exhibition hall. Now there is an exhibition hall and a concert hall with an amazing organ. Alongside is the main shrine – the grave of Immanuel Kant.
There are many places of worship in Kaliningrad. Some of the Protestant churches became Orthodox. The synagogue has been restored. There are working chapels in the cathedral – Protestant and Orthodox. Sometimes events with a Catholic connection also take place there. That, too, is a historical process.
A museum telling about the knightly history of the Teutonic Order is open to visitors. There is a museum devoted to Peter I and one devoted to the First World War… An arts cluster-complex is under construction: a theatrical college, a stage for the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theatres, exhibition premises for the Tretyakov Gallery. Alongside a Russian Cultural Centre is going up, where there will be Russian and German art from private collections.
Present-day cultural life is proceeding, processing heritage. This is no simple matter and can arouse discussions and controversies.
Besides metaphysics and physics, there is the mysticism of the land, where peoples inherit from one another, their heritage merges together. It should not be forgotten that most people live on territories where different peoples have succeeded one another. A situation like in Kaliningrad can be observed all over the world.
We talked about that at the forum. Museum work is an iceberg and a condensation. The museum of a small town can have all its history concentrated in it. There are many small towns in the Kaliningrad region that have age-old names and their own museums. The people who live there become with the help of museums a part of the history of this land.
The foyer of the Hermitage Theatre was recently the setting for an exhibition of the Saint Petersburg fashion designer Konstantin Goncharov. That might seem to have nothing to do with the Hermitage. The museum does not collect contemporary art. But it does collect what relates to Leningrad culture.
On the shore of the Baltic a distinct phenomenon appeared – Leningrad culture. It is known for such figures as the painter Timur Novikov, the photographer Boris Smelov and the fashion designer Konstantin Goncharov. They represent the culture of that part of Leningrad that felt itself to be Saint Petersburg. That gave rise to a special style. For the Hermitage as the custodian of Petersburg tradition it is important to preserve that.
There is a well-known concept of Mediterranean culture. The culture of the Baltic Sea is also distinctive. Now its shores are divided by borders. Still, there are two cities – Saint Petersburg and Kaliningrad that have both a Russian and a German name. They are symbols of and a part of the culture of the Baltic, which can be identified and contrasted to the culture of the Mediterranean region.
This material was published in the Sankt-Petersburgskie Vedomosti newspaper, №75 (7651) on 24 April 2024 with the headline “A Place of Memory”.
