Spoils of War v. Cultural Heritage:
The Russian Cultural Property Law in Historical
Context
Open to the public with online registration (space permitting)
February 8-9, 2008
Langdell South Classroom, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA
co-sponsored by
Harvard Law School Arts & Literature Law Society
Commission for Art Recovery
Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University
Foundation for International Cultural Diplomacy
Harvard Law School European Law Research Center
After WWII, Soviet authorities, seeking reparations for the extensive costs of Nazi aggression, used special
"Trophy Brigades" to empty museums, castles, and salt mines in Germany and Eastern Europe, transporting
millions of cultural treasures to the USSR. These included German state-owned cultural objects, cultural objects
taken from churches and synagogues, as well as a great deal of private property that had been looted by the
Germans from individuals. The art works taken back to the Soviet Union were held in relative secrecy for years,
until the final years of glastnost (Гла́сность). As European countries started to demand their cultural treasures
and archives, Russian legislators passed a law that potentially nationalizes all cultural treasures brought to
Russia at the end of World War II. In 1999 the Constitutional Court issued an opinion basically upholding the law
if certain amendments were made before implementation. How do these actions comport with international law?
What are the chances for restitution of these displaced cultural valuables?
Participants include:








Konstantin Akinsha, co-author of BEAUTIFUL LOOT: THE SOVIET PLUNDER OF EUROPE'S ART TREASURES (1995)
Professor Michael Bazyler, author of HOLOCAUST JUSTICE: THE BATTLE FOR RESTITUTION IN AMERICA’S COURTS
(2003)
Wolfgang Eichwede, Professor and Director of the Research Centre for East European Studies, University of
Bremen
Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, author of TROPHIES OF W AR AND EMPIRE: THE ARCHIVAL HERITAGE OF UKRAINE,
W ORLD W AR II, AND THE INTERNATIONAL POLITICS OF RESTITUTION (2001), co-editor of RETURNED FROM RUSSIA:
NAZI ARCHIVAL PLUNDER IN W ESTERN EUROPE AND RECENT RESTITUTION ISSUES (2007)
Lawrence M.Kaye, Herrick Feinstein LLP, author of Art Wars: The Repatriation Battle, 31 N. Y. U. J. Int'l L. &
Pol. 79-94 (1998)
Michael J. Kurtz, author of AMERICA AND THE RETURN OF NAZI CONTRABAND: THE RECOVERY OF EUROPE'S
CULTURAL TREASURES (2006)
Wayne Sandholtz, author of PROHIBITING PLUNDER: HOW NORMS CHANGE (2007)
Olga Yudina, former leading adviser to the Hermitage museum, St. Petersburg
http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/martin/art_law/russian_law.htm