Mikhail Piotrovsky: How can freedom be combined with restrictions?

On the one hand, culture is the individual’s freedom of self-expression. On the other, it is restrictions. It is a set of rules for how people see the world and a system of restrictions. One person’s freedom ends where another person’s freedom begins.
At a recent session of the President’s Council for Culture, there was discussion of the way the amendments to the Constitution have put culture in a special place. While previously it stated that the main thing was to provide people with access to culture, now the emphasis is on its preservation and upkeep as the duty of the state. Duty and not goodwill.
In essence, the fact that the government allotted money for the support of cultural institutions during the crisis is a performance of its constitutional duty. At the President’s Council there was no keening lament, everyone spoke about support. It’s not a matter of support, though, but of protection. That’s a different category.

Accordingly, a host of objections arise. Our economic colleagues speak about the capacity of the state budget. “We’re doing what we can,” they say. The discussion begins.

For example, the Council discussed the myths that the financial oversight bodies create about culture. About culture being given large amounts of money. In actual fact, there is little money. As we say, within the limits of statistical error compared to the financing of other areas.

The talk then moves on to how to define the effectiveness of cultural institutions. It is considered a good thing if as few people and possible work there, while receiving as many visitors as possible. The pandemic has shown that numbers are not the main indicator. It has provided a reminder that museums are engaged not only in receiving visitors, but also in research, storage and restoration.

Optimization is carried out to minimize expenses, but it leads to the amalgamation and elimination of small centre of culture. Such an approach threatens the loss of diversity. Everything will look the same, like cars coming off the assembly line.

Optimization is leading to the disappearance of art and music schools. Schools that should train up talents and send them out into the world. The present system for nurturing talents is turning artistic education into hobby groups attached to palaces of pioneers. Those are different things. A “hand-crafted” talent is something distinctive, important for culture. It’s in industry that everything should be identical. Culture has a different function.

Recently a session of the State Council’s group on museum activities was held in Kaliningrad. With the Governor of Kaliningrad presiding, we discussed the issue of the museum as a spectacle. Various documents rank museums among institutions putting on a public show. Part of their activities is indeed to provide a show, but if there is no research, restoration and collecting, museums may turn into mere places of entertainment.

We have a “tug-of-war” ahead of us between the rights of culture, which are now enshrined in the Constitution, and the interests of “arithmetic”. We need to ensure that the figure used for assessing the activities of cultural institutions is not a straightforward arithmetic one, but at the very least algebraic.

Culture has one more important significance. We have said repeatedly that it retains the functions of a bridge between people and countries. That is continuing during the pandemic as well.

The US Former Ambassadors’ Fund provides money for cultural projects in our country. This year, a sum has been allotted for the restoration of three School of Raphael frescoes in the Hermitage. This is a major programme forming part of the preparations for the exhibition “After Raphael”, which involves a lot of different projects and sponsors.

There have been no exchanges between museums in Russia and the USA for a long time, only private ones. The situation is bad. It has never been like this. The diplomats understand that they are preserving bridges. Part of the funds will go towards telling about the project and about the Hermitage in the USA.

The project is remarkable, as are the frescoes themselves. They were housed in the hall where Michelangelo’s Crouching Boy stands. The frescoes from Marquis Campana’s collection are awkward somehow, heavily overpainted in oils. Restorers were reluctant to touch them. A new generation of curators and restorers has come along and a new generation of technology. It turns out that the frescoes can be cleaned. The work is progressing; some splendid painting is emerging. It is a great discovery that will become a piece of international heritage. We will see frescoes produced by Raphael’s finest pupils.

In museums, discoveries of some sort are happening all the time. What is kept in museums is a stock of research and discovery for many generations to come. Then it becomes a public show and common property.

In Washington, students studying Russian at the Carmel Institute held a seminar on a film about the Hermitage. The striking film was shot by a Dutch journalist about the museum’s people: custodians, restorers, guards… I was pleased that things like this are happening. Never before have we had such a link-up with American students from the Hermitage.

Today the young generation loves the Internet – the feeling that complete freedom exists there. That is deceptive, though. Even providers allow themselves to engage in censorship. First, they banned those who use indecent language, now they are beginning to decide themselves what’s good and what’s bad. That shows that the Internet is a means of manipulation.

Books are valuable in themselves. People are returning to them. There is a nostalgia for them. It is not without cause that exhibitions of livres d’artiste are so popular now. At the President’s Council, the words, book, bookshops and libraries were heard. To be honest, it is hard to hold onto bookshops. What a pleasure it is, though, to leaf through books there. Now, during the pandemic, you have to put on gloves to do that.

How can freedom be combined with restrictions? The set of restrictions is growing, sometimes to the point of absurdity. A complete disgrace has taken place with the marking of age limits on books – 12+, 16+, 18+… Children are not supposed to read Quiet Flows the Don. At the same time, a huge quantity of books are getting published with contents that not only disturb people, but also contradict our moral principles. To place Nazi Germany on a par with the Soviet Union is insulting to the citizens of Russia. Holocaust-denial is also offensive to many. Those are obvious matters.

To get different groups in society to come to a consensus is a task for the future. As, for example, is the attitude to restoration.

Restoration is the preservation of cultural heritage and a problem that many are speaking about now. In theory, everyone knows that heritage should be preserved. Yet at the same time you hear that the preservation of cultural heritage should not interfere with new construction. We say that building should not be allowed if it destroys cultural monuments. A compromise has be found. To that end, a mechanism is worked out in debates.

We cannot pass everything over to the builders, or to the restorers. They will not be able to agree between themselves. The restorers won’t permit construction; the builders will tear down the monuments. There is discussion about how to arrange things so that the Ministry of Culture concerns itself with monitoring the restoration side of building projects and not with checking the prices and materials, which the builders understand better.

Combining freedom and restrictions is becoming one of the foremost problems. One example is what is going on now in France.

A cultural prohibition is the most effective. It is not defined by some number or formulation. For a cultured person there are things that one must never do.