Mikhail Piotrovsky: Not Wars of Memory, but a Dialogue of Cultures

What I want to speak about can be summed up in a few words: nostalgia,. restitution, new ethics. Today the world is pining for the past; the idea is around of bringing something back. The past in question varies – it could be 20 years ago or 500, the time of colonial conquests or the First World War…

There has again been a deluge of articles in the British press about the Parthenon frieze. The Greeks are demanding that it be returned from the British Museum to Athens. The frieze was removed in the 19th century from Greece that was then a part of the Ottoman Empire and military action was taking place in the area of Athens. With the consent of the Turkish Sultan, the frieze was taken away by the British ambassador, Lord Elgin, supposedly to save it for Europe and to put it on show as an example of classical art.

This account is disputed. The Greeks assert that its export was illegal. The British government has so far stayed out of the discussions. The British Museum and its trustees have been drawn into the dispute. They believe that it ought not to be returned. The presence of the frieze in the British Museum is a part of cultural history. Which is quite true. The Parthenon sculptures became so famous precisely thanks to the British Museum.

Here's another event – a while ago, the French President Macron announced that art removed from African countries should be returned. A manifestation of the post-colonial syndrome: everything done regarding the African part of the world was unjust; that should not only be acknowledged, but also reversed. A group of objects from Dahomey that had been kept in France were handed over to the state of Benin, where they once adorned the ruler’s palace.

An important aspect of this discussion: when the objects were passed over, those responsible on the receiving side were asked where they would be kept, since a museum was not yet prepared. The response was that there was no museum, and none was required; the things had been taken from the palace and were going back there. The palace, though, does not exist either.

The question arises, what should museums do? At conferences I often say that we have the post-Soviet experience. We also expressed penitent regret that the Russian Empire had been a prison of peoples, yet we made no haste to hand everything out, but instead started to promote and celebrate the culture of those peoples in the museums.

Today everything has shifted. The British Museum is the target for attacks. The Australians are demanding the return of some shields from there, the Ethiopians want sculptures. The American Indians want US museums to give up ritual objects belonging to their culture, asserting that they have no place in museums. Egypt is demanding everything back from everyone, in particular the gem of Berlin’s Egyptian Museum – the famous bust of Nefertiti that was found by German archaeologists. The Turks are laying claim to items from museums in Germany and elsewhere in Europe that came from their territory. They are banning archaeologists from working if the issues are not resolved. In Greece, provincial museums want to get back their objects that are kept in the National Archaeological Museum. If there is to be restitution, then everything needs to be put back where it was lying.

Germany is demanding from Russia items that were removed from its territory during the Second World War – what they term trophy art, and we term compensatory restitution. The Church is insisting on the return of what was seized from it and became part of the museum collection. Muscovites have not abandoned efforts to return the Shchukin and Morozov collection to the capital…

There is an endless stream of demands to give back, give back, give back… Previously the talk was of illegal seizure. Now representatives of certain countries are claiming that even the purchase of their cultural heritage is colonial plundering on the basis that those who do the buying have more money.

Until very recently, we were the only ones bothered by problems of restitution. At that time, I warned colleagues not to touch the subject as there was a risk of opening a Pandora’s box. The box has been opened.

The book The Lost Museum by the journalist Hector Feliciano came out in Russian not long ago. The author discovered that French museums still have a large number of items hidden away that were confiscated from Jews by the Germans. Their owners perished in concentration camps. Their property passed into the museums’ stocks marked with a special code. The publication of the book caused a scandal.

The Hermitage has enormous experience in the area of restitution going back as far as the First World War era. At that time, Germany was demanding the return of the painting collection of the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel. It had been seized by the French. Napoleon gifted it to Josephine. Josephine’s heirs sold it to Alexander I, who brought it back to the Hermitage. During the conclusion of the Treaty of Brest, the Hermitage wrote an explanation in response to Germany’s insistence on the return of the collection. The sole condition laid down by the German side when the Treaty of Brest was signed that was not met was the handing-over of that collection.

The memoirs of Hermitage Director [Count Dmitry] Tolstoy include an account of representatives of the Central Rada coming to the museum in 1917 with a piece of paper from Comrade Dzhugashvili [then People’s Commissar for Nationalities] demanding the handover of objects that originated from the territory of the Ukraine. The Hermitage did not give them up. There were more negotiations later. Documents have survived. A portion of the items was transferred to the Ukraine in the 1930s. We checked on their presence with Ukrainian colleagues: everything had disappeared during the war – the gold, the paintings, the famous Zaporozhye Cossack banners…

I am deliberately mixing everything up because understanding which demands are legitimate and which are not is no easy matter.

In the twilight of the Soviet era, Kazakhstan requested that the Hermitage return a huge cauldron with attractive inscriptions from the mausoleum of Ahmad Yasawi. It was handed over because Hermitage Director [Iosif] Orbeli had taken it by for a temporary exhibition and in doing so saved it. Had it remained the main cult object in the mausoleum of a [Sufi] saint, it would have been destroyed. It was also given back because at that time Kazakhstan was part of the USSR and there was a single common fund of museum stocks.

After the war, a large amount of the displaced art was transferred to the GDR, since museums had been restored there. Among other things, the Pergamon Altar was returned from the Hermitage and [works] from Moscow to the Dresden Gallery.

In the post-Soviet era, people in Germany began demanding the return of the remaining items of displaced art. In Russia a law was passed declaring them the property of the state with certain exceptions. Those exceptions included the stained-glass windows from the Marienkirche that were in the Hermitage and Pushkin Museum. Of the museums’ own accord and following the passing of a special federal law, they were transferred to Germany.

As for the rest, the issue remains unresolved. We believe this to be our property; Germany has its point of view. So far we have been working with our colleagues from Germany, making exhibitions, publishing catalogues. In the situation that has arisen, that is the best solution. Art belongs to people. It should be studied and put on show.

There are matters that are absolutely evident. What the Nazis stole from private collections needs to be returned. We do not have such items. There are many of them in America, but, there too, there is a chain of innocent purchasers – buyers at five removes who have paid money.

Now the process of restitution is acquiring new strength in the world because it is part of the new ethics, the ethics of the humiliated, insulted, oppressed and robbed. This is coming ever more into consideration. The most dangerous thing is that the spirit of the demands is changing. Initially the tune was: “Colonizers, give our property back; we will put it in our museums.” There is a new term now – “appropriation”. We are being told: “When you take a part of our culture, even if you put it in a museum and are enchanted with it, you are still taking away from us. If you admire African sculptures and artists take inspiration from them, that is bad too. You are defiling out cultural heritage, using it for your own ends. Give it back. We will do as we want with it. The majority of the objects were not made for museums. The Benin sculptures were for a palace, other items for rituals, and what is not needed at all we used to throw away and will continue to do so.”

I am not exaggerating. Some tough talking is being done. We are participating in the discussions about universal encyclopaedic museums. There is also fresh growth of young museum workers who reckon that it is necessary not just to apologize, but to get down on one’s knees and hand everything over.

Of course, you do not sit on a chair placed in a museum. People can pray before an icon that hangs there, but people belonging to other religions also look at it. In a church, it has a different purpose. And here the tone of the conversation changes. Previously it was: “Give the things to church-run museums.” Now we are being told that they were not made to hang in a museum.

The new ethics with the new talk of restitution is a threat to the existence of museums. The museum as a product of Enlightenment-era European culture, as a great custodian of memory for future generations is coming under attack. Ways out have to be found. To do so we have to have the desire and will. There is no general solution. In each instance, among the people involved and those who aren’t there will be different points of view. Positions may vary, but we need to think of the future. We need a compromise that looks to the future. It is time to leave history in peace and to construct the future in such a way that wars of memory turn into a dialogue of cultures. Otherwise, cultural heritage can easily turn into grounds for armed conflict.

There are various ways of resolving issues. Joint study and presentation, which is what we do now with German museums, and part of the keenness of the conflict is blunted. It is like the question to whom Jerusalem belongs. People should proceed from the standpoint that they need to live together. There is useful experience of joint ownership. A statue of The Three Graces by Canova belongs to a museum in Edinburgh and a museum in London.

Things can be bought in order to get them back. Fabergé eggs that were at one time sold by the Soviet government were kept in the Forbes collection. Vekselberg acquired them and brought them back to Russia. The Chinese are simultaneously demanding the return of what was taken from them and sometimes buying things.

Court cases are also being held. The latest example is the case of the items from Crimean museums that were sent for an exhibition in the Netherlands and detained there due to claims made by Ukraine. Those objects were excavated on Crimean soil and had always been kept there, but at the moment when the exhibition was created they belonged to the Ukrainian museum fund. In this instance, what is fair and just is quite clear – the collections are Crimean. In other situations, that clarity is lacking.

There is one more aspect to this conversation. Where are the limits of restitution? How far should it go? For example, in the 1930s the Soviet government sold off several Rembrandt paintings from the Hermitage. They were bought by the Dutch. What ought we to do now: demand them back, or take pleasure in the thought that they have returned where they came from? Should Rembrandt only be in Holland, French artists’ paintings only in France, Italians’ in Italy? And then allotted even further, city by city?

That is the degree of craziness which restitution might reach.

It seems to us that the main thing is the museum. What is there should remain there. We need to proceed from the stance that culture is above politics and belongs to the whole of humanity.