After a long gap, the latest Saint Petersburg International Cultural Forum has taken place. Petersburgers are not especially fond of forums: the city centre was partially closed off. The centre was, however, also closed for an event that citizens do enjoy – a concert on Palace Square. For the first time, while the Forum was running, the museum provided the opportunity to visit free of charge. The Hermitage did so in the evening, the time when locals come. Over three days, several thousand visitors came for the evening time-slots.
As previously, the Forum was held on Hermitage premises – in the General Staff building. The doors to the halls of the great enfilade, where the sessions took place, were open. That meant that the architecture of which we are so proud could be seen – a modern space fitted into a historical one.
This time the Forum was organized along the lines of the Valdai conference: invitations, an intensive programme. Usually, huge numbers of people come here to show themselves, without having any particular interest in what takes place. This time those who came together were people who do find it interesting and do have something to say. There were many ministers of culture, not European ones, but those did not come previously either.
One slogan was repeatedly heard: culture outside of politics. The aim of the Forum was to create a model for relations in the future. The existing world is collapsing; we need to build a new one on the principle of cultural sovereignty and multi-polarity. It was announced that no-one intends to leave UNESCO, but that the institutions created after the Yalta Conference of 1945 have become outdated.
In my opinion, it is evident that we are shifting from crude globalism to intelligent sovereignty. Globalism has become primitive, simplified, with irritating negative features. Technologies have spread everywhere. Everyone has air-conditioners, cars, computers, television, Internet… At some point, everyone became alike, everyone became less complicated. A disdain for traditions appeared, a rejection of one’s own traditions. The result was a single world, but with distinctions in the standard and quality of life between countries and peoples. The gap has proved to be large. Columnists write about it a lot, and we see it too. This is going on all over the world, including with us. That is a part of worldwide globalism. Everything’s there, but something’s still missing: real equality has not come about. The result has been the emergence of what is termed ressentiment – a sense of dissatisfaction, exasperation, envy. People see only black and white, ceasing to notice nuances. Young and old, journalists, writers, politicians…Harsh statements appeared, abusive nicknames, what is called a “war of etiquette”. People say that the Russian language needs to be protected from foreign words. It needs a different kind of protection too. Back when we were young, only criminals used prison jargon, but now it can be heard everywhere.
Primitivism tips over into aggressiveness. Don’t like something – let’s cancel it. Don’t dare touch our heritage. What is termed “appropriation”. First people reject everything, then they begin to look to their roots, but there aren’t enough roots. Our former republics are remembering that, raising the question of restitution – give back what’s mine. Even at the Forum we heard a series of demands for restitution. Claims are laid to heritage because people sense a shortage of it.
The demands for restitution are sometimes strange in themselves. We are told, “Give back the trophies!” What trophies? Trophies are taken in wartime. They are the pride of an army; nobody will ever give them up. We have Swedish banners; the Swedes have some of ours. It never occurs to anyone to demand them back. People talk about finds made in the course of expeditions. There are documents that record the history of the formation of museum collections. If you go into those in detail, it will be clear where there is justification and where there isn’t. Discussions make it possible to repair relations, give fresh conditions for the study of how things found their way into a museum.
I posed a provocative question: “Perhaps bridges of culture are not needed?” They are, but movement across them should be two-way. China, a country that had been used to living in isolation, is now actively telling about its culture. We have agreed with our Chinese colleagues about an exchange of specialists, about participation in the preparation of displays, the Chinese one with us, the one about Russia with them.
There was discussion at the Forum of what museums should prioritize when they tell visitors about war. The International Council of Museums asserts in declarations that museums should join in the struggle against war. Admittedly, when conflict flared up in the Middle East, they started to shout less about it. Museums have their own professional function: to save objects in a zone of military operations, to restore museums and return everything back there. In parallel with that, they ought to record what is going on around, including military operations. That is the experience from previous wars. As far back as the First World War, a section was formed in our country that was supposed to gather and museumize materials about the war.
We discussed modern-day experience. In Syria museum people evacuated exhibits, realizing that the radical Islamists would destroy them. Together with the Omanis, we have helped them, transporting things for restoration to Muskat, the capital of Oman. Now, adhering to international rules, we are working on the reconstruction of Palmyra. Egyptians told about how they are saving objects in Sudan, where a civil war is raging, by removing them to Egyptian soil. On the one hand that’s a good thing, on the other it isn’t. Europeans suggest evacuating museum items from the Middle East to Europe, depositing them in Switzerland. Everyone is turning the idea down, understanding what might follow. The evidence of that is in the story of the Scythian gold. Items from museums in the Crimea were taken to the Netherlands for an exhibition. The Dutch have not returned them, handing them instead to a state allied to them.
Now there is a lot of fuss about the movement of museum objects around Ukraine. Military operations are underway; there is no precise information. We know that things are being moved to places of safety on the Ukrainian side and on ours. When there is endless clamour and accusations, though, the world listens. As a result, we get a “major sensation”: Scythian gold from museums in Ukraine has been found in Spain. Even an inexpert eye can tell that those are primitive replicas of existing artefacts. They are made of gold, which means that the production and sale of fakes is happening. The black market reacts vigorously to rumours. At one time, it was announced that there were pictures supposedly from the Hermitage somewhere in Kuwait. Things plundered from museums or excavated on the sly may disappear. That needs to be looked into.
Just now the main thing in many people’s heads is ownership of culture. We ought not to be endlessly clamouring about ownership; we need to think about the rights of culture. In particular, its right to exist and develop in peace. There was a revealing story from America recently. A statue of the Confederate leader General Lee was pulled down. First they removed it from its pedestal, then publicly cut it up on the square and melted it down. The same fate lay in store for the tomb of Alexander Nevsky if the Hermitage had not intervened. Today culture and museums have become fashionable; they are being used for insane purposes. Eco activists smashed the glass protecting a painting by Velazquez in London’s National Gallery. Members of ISIL (Da'ish – an organization banned in the RF) blew up the monuments of Palmyra, asserting their own thinking.
A decline in the level of culture is evident. We need to get away from that. There is a sound recipe that was heard at the Forum: everyone is good, everyone is sovereign, but there is no need to play yourself up and reckon you are the best.
This material was published in the Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti newspaper No 225 (7554) on 29 November 2023 under the heading “A Return to Sources”.
