Piotrovsky: Culture is as much as symbol of Russia as the coat-of-arms and the flag

After cultural institutions were closed to visitors, Russia’s most famous museum continued its work on the preservation and restoration of exhibits and on the preparation of new projects, while the guided tours moved online. Will the Hermitage be using remote technologies after the return to the customary working format? Why is the amendment to the Constitution about culture as unique heritage that should be protected by the state so important? Mikhail Piotrovsky, Hermitage Director and a member of the Public Council attached to the State Duma’s Committee on Culture, spoke about this in a video interview as part of Natalia Pilyus’s authorial project “On culture in the Year of Commemoration and Glory” in the Parlamentskaya gazeta (Parliamentary Gazette).

– Mikhail Borisovich, despite the restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, an enormous amount of work is being done in cultural institutions, including work online. How has the Hermitage been functioning during the pandemic?

– The Hermitage did not shut down, since any museum has at least five functions – collecting, keeping, studying, restoring and presenting. We performed all those functions apart from the last during the pandemic with a limited group of people. Presentation of the collections moved online, and these two months have shown what I consider very good results. You know, the bulk of visitors – and around 5 million people come to us each year – receive as a rule a superficial impression of the Hermitage, while working online allows us to reach those people who do not ordinarily come to the museum, to tell them about the museum’s complex organism. As a result of that sort of work, over these past months we have had 39 million visits to our website and social media. [As the article was going to press that number passed 40 million.]

After the pandemic ends, we will need to tackle the fairly difficult task of finding the right combination of online and offline, so that part of the impressions that the museum gives to people is combined with the information in the social networks.

The instance of the pandemic has also shown that culture needs guarantees from the state. Due to the threat of the coronavirus spreading, museums stopped accepting visitors and receiving money for that. At some point, it seemed that they are capable of earning their own keep, but a search for additional sources of income should not be the main task for museums, because their task is to preserve cultural heritage. I believe that the state should ensure those functions and compensate the loss of income. That is a highly important position for the future of Russia.

– This year has been marked by a very major public and political event in Russia – work on amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation. You were a member of the working group to draft proposals for the amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and together with Alexander Kaliagin and Denis Matsuyev you proposed an amendment to Article 70 of the Constitution stating that Russia’s culture is the unique heritage of its multi-ethnic people and is protected by the state. What does your involvement in the working group and in this amendment mean for you personally, and is there anything similar in other countries’ legislation?

– I think the amendment is unique, although it arises from the meaning of the activities of people engaged in culture – in theatres, in music, in the museums. We have been trying for many years to bring the state of legislation in our country into line with the interests and tasks of culture. The work on the amendments to the Constitution provided the opportunity to secure the special significance of culture in Russia at the highest level. We reckon that culture is as much as symbol of Russia as the coat-of-arms and the flag. Flags and coats-of-arms change, but Dostoyevsky, Pushkin and Tchaikovsky are always with us. For us it was important to point that out and, proceeding from that assertion, to draw another important conclusion – that culture should be defended and preserved by the state.

– One of your most noted recent pronouncements has been a suggestion about the creation of international cultural organizations that would be alternatives to UNESCO. Where did that idea come from, how do you see it being realized, and on the basis of what institutions or even countries might the coordinating and procedural work be carried out?

– Of course, we are not suggesting the creation of any sort of alternative UNESCO, but in recent years many international organizations have proved to be excessively politicized. In my opinion, they need to be revamped. Today there are a lot of problems in the cultural sphere and they need to be examined under the auspices of UNESCO, but political considerations are hindering that. UNESCO cannot work in Syria, for example. That is why we are putting forward fresh initiatives that will take place under the auspices of that organization, but with a different attitude – less politicized and more oriented on culture. We should urge UNESCO, and other international organizations too, to be more actively engaged, but we do not intend to replace it.

– What problematic issues in the cultural sphere require changes in legislation, in your opinion?

– There are many issues of that sort. At the moment in the Public Council attached to the State Duma’s Committee on Culture we are discussing the fundamentals of legislation that would combine freedom and the obligations of the state that I was talking about earlier. I think that culture requires three sorts of guarantee. Firstly, a state guarantee of a budget. Secondly, a guarantee for exhibition activities, so that everything that goes out of the country should come back. Thirdly, a guarantee of insurance. There have to be mechanisms by which the state guarantees to pay out if some insured event occurs. We have a whole programme for the creation of a unique cultural policy and a package of amazing legislation on culture. We can only accomplish that, though, together with you, deputies.

– In the Year of Commemoration and Glory, when our country is marking the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, particular attention is being devoted to matters of a patriotic character. On 8 May 1965, for the first time seven cities were awarded the title of “Hero City”, Leningrad among them. The city distinguished itself not only for the unprecedented courage of the soldiers that defended it, but also for the endurance of its inhabitants who preserved our country’s culture, at times at the cost of their own lives. Tell us how the staff preserved one of Russia’s gems – the Hermitage and its collections during the war. What educational work did they perform?

– Many books have been written about the history of the Hermitage during the Great Patriotic War. One of them contains the formula “the Hermitage’s great feat”. Still today, 75 years after the war ended, the memory of those events is still alive for us. During the war, a third of the museum’s stocks were in the Winter Palace, two-thirds in Sverdlovsk. In the first terrible winter of the siege, members of the Hermitage staff were dying of starvation, but they defended the museum from bombs and shells, organized scholarly conferences and even tours around the museum with its empty frames. They attempted not merely to preserve the collections, but to turn the Hermitage into one of the best museums, as it has become today. And therein, I believe, lies the meaning of that great war – it was not a war of one state against another, but a struggle of good against evil, in which we won.