RUSSIA Putinism conquers the Hermitage

For the director of the Saint Petersburg museum, art is a form of militarism and imperialism. Journalist Pavljučik advises you to look at the photos of broken Ukrainian families. Director Nevzorov: “Today in Russia the last bastion of decency has fallen. Fascism knocked on the door of the Hermitage, and they opened it.”

Moscow () – Causes a stir, both in Russia and abroad, an interview by Rossijskaja Gazeta with the director of the Hermitage Museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky. The head of the museum explained that exhibitions of Russian art abroad should be organized as “powerful special operations.” After all, he said “we are all militarists and imperialists”, and war is nothing more than “the self-affirmation of the nation”. According to the Russian “patriarch of art”, Russia is a part of Europe, and it is Europe that must join Russia to form a new Soviet Union.

Indeed, the authority of the director of Russia’s main museum is equal to that of the head of the Orthodox Church, and his remarks cannot simply be dismissed as “Putinist propaganda”. According to Piotrovsky, the Russians “are closely linked to European culture and to Europe itself, and this is not erased by the special military operation in Ukraine.” Recalling the numerous wars that have characterized European history, he asserts that “we have been and can be more Europe than the Europeans themselves, more than other classic European nations, and certainly more than the European Union, which is increasingly resembling the Soviet Union… We will never be isolated, we will absolutely remain a part of Europe, with the same rights and the same value as the others.”

The director of the Hermitage extols Russian patriotism as “the sense of one’s own historical dignity”. And if this is not done through war, “there are many other things to do, and no less important, because our country is changing world history, and we must be part of it.” Piotrovsky is 78 years old, an Arabist philologist who has worked at the Hermitage since 1991. He is the son of another historic director, Boris Piotrovsky, who was the driving force behind the museum’s greatness from 1964 to 1990. Mikhail was also a deputy of the “Russia Union” of Putin, and collaborated closely with the leader of the Kremlin, becoming part of the committee that prepared the constitutional amendments approved in 2020.

Even with all the limitations currently in force due to the “Putin purges”, which prevent any form of dissent, there has been no lack of indignant reactions in the Russian cultural world, and in public opinion in general. Journalist Leonid Pavljučik advised Piotrovsky to look at the photographs of broken Ukrainian families: “The director is an intelligent man and capable of great visions, there is no point in arguing with him about these absurd statements… I hope that such photos will also appear in your dreams, during the night.

Writer Viktor Šenderovič observes that “the path to falling in love with the Big Brother ideal always leads through suffering and massacres, and is often accompanied by the most extreme fantasies… Piotrovsky’s survival instinct of his own power prevails.” Another journalist, Viktor Mučnik, recalled that “the love of art does not prevent anyone from becoming a cannibal… One of the main organizers of the final solution against the Jews, the Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich, loved to play the violin”.

The publicist Sergei Čapnin, a former collaborator of the Moscow Patriarchate, considers that Piotrovsky’s “is not a simple interview, but an oath of fidelity, published in an official press organ”. This point of view, like that of many others, including Moscow Patriarch Kirill, “has no return”. Theater critic Anton Khitrov describes the interview as a “fascist manifesto”, similar to those already expressed by director Konstantin Bogomolov and other men of official culture. And he adds: “it is time for everyone to decide who they want to be, history will judge us by how we were in 2022.”

The well-known film director and television presenter Aleksandr Nevzorov concludes that “today, in Russia, in Saint Petersburg, the last bastion of decency, reason and respectability has fallen: fascism knocked on the door of the Hermitage, and they opened “.