Mikhail Piotrovsky: We’re changing our vector of attention

In Muscat there is the National Museum, with which we work a lot. Now a new one has appeared – the Oman Across Ages Museum. I was invited to its opening by Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said.

The new museum was founded by the previous sultan and completed by his successor. It was built quietly, without fuss and pomp, which is typical for the Omanis. It is an answer of sorts to the remarkable museums that are springing up now in Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Bahrein.

The museum is strongly multimedia. You can reach out to touch a stone, and a story about it appears on a screen. You can find yourself in a hut on the seashore among ancient people or board a ship that is carrying copper ore… It tells about the most ancient of things using the latest technologies. Visitors can immerse themselves in the diverse natural environment of Oman, meet its first inhabitants, travel with caravans and ships, participate in battles with the Portuguese and see the famed Omani Empire that extended from India to Zanzibar.

The Hermitage has a long-standing friendship with the National Museum of Oman. Until very recently, it had a Hermitage Hall containing Islamic art. In the same way, we used to have a Hall of the National Museum of Oman with its astonishing antiquities. Restorers came to us to gain work experience. Hermitage restorers went to Oman to work on reliefs from Palmyra, so as to avoid bringing them to Russia.

The existence of a “Hermitage Hall” and an “Oman Hall” has proved to have great international resonance in the contemporary reality. European guests were indignant – “How is that possible?” A major figure from the USA was amazed that the Omani museum has lots of information about links with China, but not with America. In response, he was told that China is 5,000 years old, while America is 200.

The Oman Across Ages Museum tells people wonderfully about the history of the state. A considerable portion is devoted to modern-day history. The country is flourishing. It has all the benefits that oil-rich states get. Among other things, its citizens do not pay taxes. The country is an oil-producer. There is no longer that much oil there, but it is a state with strong financial and seafaring activities, an age-old maritime power.

The new museum used many things that exist in the National Museum: you can touch tactile copies of things, experience the smell of incense… But here the presentation is completely different, unlike the traditional museum approach. The latest technologies take you deep into the material. Their use in a present-day museum gives grounds for reflection. Technologies can be exhausting. Besides, today they are up to the mark, but tomorrow they are outdated and everything has to be replaced. In Oman they have a good arrangement: the National Museum, which is visited by tourists and heads of state, follows the traditional course. The new museum is on the tourist route. It’s convenient to get to by car. It is interesting for those who want to discover the history of Oman.

The account of the history of the state is interesting and useful. Interesting, because it is a very long history and not very well known. Oman quietly manages politics in the Middle East, serves as a mediator for many Middle Eastern negotiations. [Russian Foreign Minister] Yevgeny Maximovich Primakov travelled to Oman for talks connected with building bridges across the Middle East.

Oman is an ancient culture. In the museum there are models of ships that carried copper ore to India and Mesopotamia. Oman was the main source of copper, then a source of different kinds of incense, like Yemen. That furthered prosperity. Then a fleet appeared that sailed the Persian Gulf and beyond. In the 19th century, Omani ships sailed as far as America.

There is still a strong memory of the Portuguese, who established a foothold in this land in the 16th century. One of the branches of the National Museum in Oman is housed in a palace that for many years was the sultan’s residence, and then a place where exalted guests were received – the British Queen, the Shah of Iran, Princess Diana… The site was Portuguese. There was a Portuguese church there, Portuguese fortresses, Vasco da Gama sailed into the place. In our Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, we have a manuscript written by a pilot who sailed in Vasco da Gama’s time. The legend goes that he was even a pilot for the great navigator. When the Portuguese were driven out, the Omanis forged their own empire. They held territories on the Persian Gulf, in India, a huge slice of Arabia – what is now the Emirates, Oman, Zanzibar and part of Kenya.

A mighty maritime trading power. They also traded slaves. An anticolonial debate is currently going on in the world. The British are destroying statues of slave-owners. As usual, the guilty parties have to be found. We have been through that. British propaganda is already claiming that the main slave traders were Omani Arabs, while the British fought against the slave trade. The National Museum puts on exhibitions to show the real story.

After the colonial period was over, civil wars broke out in Oman. They managed to settle all the issues. Now things are calm in the country. In contrast to the skyscrapers of Dubai, it has wonderful white architecture, houses three to five storeys tall in the traditional style of the Indian Ocean. Mosques with coloured domes. Hidden behind that aesthetic are problems that resemble ours.

Jamal al-Moosawi, Secretary General of the National Museum, showed me how they are restoring architectural monuments. It seemed to me that the historical centre of Muscat has been preserved. It turns out that a lot has been demolished. The destruction of monuments can be quiet, go unnoticed. A set of problems familiar to us.

Today we have to struggle against cancel culture. Ethnic identity is constantly under discussion. The artist Aivazovsky becomes Ukrainian, then Armenian, because the Armenian diaspora defended…

Recently in the National Library of Russia we opened an exhibition devoted to the founding father of Arab studies in this country, Ignaty Yulianovich Krachkovsky. It was recalled how he was criticized in the 1950s for using the expression “Arabic literature” without specifying that the works in question were produced by people who are now Uzbeks, Tajiks and so on. Today that seems a little ridiculous. Much has been attributed to Russia. It was not without cause that the humorous phrase “Russia – the ancestral home of elephants” appeared. We should not take that process too seriously. Such efforts arise from an inferiority complex. We have no need to prove that Repin is a Russian artist.

I understand the pressure exerted on those working in the world’s largest museums by the reshuffling when artists get their nationalities changed. On the one hand, it’s absurd. On the other, it’s pseudo-scholarship. When labels carry a lot of superfluous information, errors will appear in the details.

Today, when we’re changing our vector of attention, turning away from Europe a little, we need to be looking at what is happening in China, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East; to devote greater attention to cultures with which we have long-standing ties, similar problems and much in common.

We are conducting negotiations with Oman about the restoration of full museum relations, considering the existing embargos on exhibitions. Restorers are coming to us from there to learn. Together we will help to preserve Syria’s monuments – we with the hands of restorers, they with knowledge and funding. We are in talks with China about participating in an exhibition about the tea ceremony; we are preparing Hermitage Days in Belgrade… There are a good many countries, where we are well understood.

This material was published in the Sankt-Petersburgskie Vedomosti newspaper on 29 March 2023.