Korzhikova Aleksandra, Kovalenko Marina, Sokolovskaya Irina
Smuggling of cultural objects in Russia.
The lost cultural values of the RussianFederation
In books «Summary catalogue of cultural values of the Russian Federation
stolen and lost in the Second World War» for the first time for all post-war years is
published the register of the losses of the Russian museums, libraries and archives
suffered in the past war. In the Summary catalogue thematic inventories and
images of the plundered and destroyed property are presented.
In December, 1992 the governmental order of the Russian Federation
created the State commission on a restitution of cultural values. At the first session
they decided to make a work on the full catalogue of the Russian cultural values
lost during the Second World War as a priority direction of activity.
Then very few people assumed, how much difficult this problem would be.
At the disposal of composers of the Summary catalogue there was absent not only
the exact and systematised data about wartime losses, but also the registration
documentation, allowing to establish or check the facts of losses of cultural values.
Ruining our palace complexes, museums, libraries, archives, Hitlerites pedantically
took out or destroyed inventory books, inventories and card files.
In the first post-war years the Extreme state commission on an establishment
and investigation of evil deeds of fascist aggressors and their accomplices
established a damage put 64 especially valuable from 427 suffered Soviet
museums, and also to 4000 libraries (there were destroyed 115 million printing
editions) and archives of 19 areas (they lost 17 million affairs) RSFSR. In total in
territory of RSFSR (together with Crimean АSSR) in German occupation 173
museums suffered.
The exact figure of the cultural values lost by Russia, has not been defined
yet. The museum workers making lists of lost cultural values, worked with the
registration documentation which remained only partially in many establishments.
A lot of museums lost completely the registration documentation. Therefore the
lists of the lost museum pieces which had been made in the first years after the end
of the war, quite often differed from that which are presented last years.
Example to them is the data about the lost exhibits of suburban palacesmuseums of Leningrad.
In 1951 the number of cultural losses was named in «the Certificate of stocktaking of museum values of suburban palaces-museums». This document was
made by the commission where employees of the Central storehouse of museum
funds entered. In the Central storehouse after war there were the museum pieces
found out in suburban palaces-museums and returned from Germany.
 Ekaterina's palace-museum, Pushkin (Tsarskoje Selo):
registered under inventory inventories — 42172 subjects;
During war lost — 30151 subject;
 Aleksandrovsky palace Pushkin (Tsarskoje Selo):
registered under inventory inventories — 30382 subjects;
During war lost — 22628 subjects;
 Pavlovsk palace-museum:
registered under inventory inventories — 22133 subjects;
During war lost — 8715 subjects;
 Gatchina palace-museum:
registered under inventory inventories — 54030 subjects;
During war lost — 38152 subjects;
 Palaces-museums of Peterhof:
registered under inventory inventories — 31511 subjects;
During war lost — 16700 subjects;
On site www.lostart.ru in a heading «Lost cultural values» the numbers of
cultural losses of suburban palaces-museums of Leningrad (today St.-Petersburg)
are already others. Collective of experts of Ministry of culture of Russia being
engaged in revealing, gathering and comparative studying of the lost cultural
values, had rather extensive number of the documents which had been found out in
domestic culture establishments, in the Russian and foreign archives.
Today it is possible to ascertain: 15 volumes of the catalogue in 33 books,
devoted to losses of museums, libraries and archives of Moscow and Leningrad
(St.-Petersburg), Moscow, Leningrad, Voronezh, Kursk, Pskov, Rostov, Smolensk,
Novgorod areas, the North Caucasus, suburban palaces-museums of Leningrad
(St.-Petersburg) represent the damage caused by war in 1.129.929 storage units
(museum subjects, rare books and manuscripts, archival affairs).
The catalogue is calculated not only by experts, but also by all to whom the
destiny of a domestic cultural heritage is not indifferent. The catalogue allows
making active the further revealing and searches of the cultural values lost by our
country.
Returned cultural values
The problem of returning of its cultural values which have been taken out
from the country in days of the Second World War, remains rather actual.
Invaders took out cultural values not only from the state museums, archives
and libraries.
After the end of war a quantity of the Russian cultural values has been found
in special storehouses on the territory of Soviet and allied zones of occupation of
Germany. Also cultural values from the USSR were found out in the castle
Hohshtadt (earth Giessen), in the castle Kolmberg and Nojshvanshtajn (Bavaria),
in Austria in the castle Kogl.
The experts investigating the problem of cultural values taken out from
Soviet Union, recognise that storehouses of values in allied zones of occupation in
the first peace days were repeatedly exposed to a robbery. Military divisions,
protecting them, changed many times and weren’t responsible for safety of values.
The Soviet cultural values found out in Germany were brought to Berlin on
warehouses of transport association "Derutra". From Berlin railway echelons sent
them in the USSR in the Central storehouse in Tsarskoje Selo, in storehouses of
Novgorod, Minsk and Kiev. There experts tried to find out their origin and
returned in the culture establishments, where they had been taken out.
1,5 million units of cultural values returned to Soviet Union in the first postwar years.
Returning of domestic property to the mother land was not widely shined.
For the first time the question on the Russian cultural losses was put in the
late eighties, the beginning of 90th years when in the Russian mass-media the
information on the so-called trophy values which had been taken out by Soviet
Union from Germany after the end of war, started to appear.
According to the number of the experts studying history of the export of
cultural values from Soviet Union, today in the west it is improbable to find
museum curiosities in culture establishments from Russia. Abroad more often
stolen values are found out in private collections.
For last decades to Russia a number of the products which had been taken
out to Germany during the Great Patriotic War both were found out in the state and
private possession and were returned. They were returned in funds of the Russian
museums in their origin place.
Among them: the water colour of the unknown artist of a XVII-th century
"the Kind of Monrepo" (it is found out in the National museum of Vrotslav,
Poland), is returned in the Pavlovsk palace-museum;
O. Kiprenskogo's picture "Portrait of artist Basina" is found in meeting of
the American collector R. Lauder. It is gratuitously returned in the State Russian
museum;
The picturesque cloth of Richi "Wedding ceremony of the tsar" is returned
by the professor V. Ajhvede from Germany. The picture is transferred in the
Ekaterina's palace according the accessory;
The icon "the Image of the Virgin Pskovo-Pokrovsk" (Vision of aged man
Dorofeja) is returned from private possession in Germany to Russia. Nowadays it
is at the patriarchate’s disposal;
The fragment of the Amber room (one of four mosaics) and a castle from the
Amber room are found out in Germany in private possession in Bremen. They are
returned in the Ekaterina's palace;
The bell from church in the city Old Rusa was in Luebeck (Germany). It is
returned in Old Rusa.
It is necessary to recognise that few of lost is returned only, but it is
necessary to understand also that circumstance that revealing of such values is a
rather difficult process and in many respects a delicate problem. The edition of the
Summary catalogue in which all data available today about the domestic cultural
values lost in days of war, is collected and urged to help with their search and
returning to Russia.