Translated material
Levon Nersesyan reminds that “museums have every power to protect their funds from unreasonable use that threatens their safety”
On July 4, 2011, in an interview with Portal-Credo.ru, senior researcher at the Tretyakov Gallery Levon Nersesyan expressed his attitude to the forms of implementation of the law on the transfer of property for religious purposes to religious organizations.
Levon Nersesyan recalls that most of the decisions on “the destruction of museums (Kostroma Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, branches of the State Historical Museum in the Trinity Church in Nikitniki and inthe Novodevichy Convent) under pressure from the Church” were made even before the adoption of the law. Currently, the main problem is the danger of transferring museum collection items to religious organizations.
Although “ there is no law that would prescribe the transfer to the Church of works of ancient Russian art from the museum fund, these transfers nevertheless occur ,” he emphasizes. “ We are dealing with the actual alienation of part of the State Museum Fund in favor of a public organization, and it is the Ministry that gives orders in this regard .”
L. Nersesyan, probably referring to the position of the Ministry of Culture, which proposes to consider the transfer of museum collections of the Church as perpetual exhibitions in church buildings, recalls that “ the basis [for organizing exhibitions] should be the decision of the museum itself, since it carries out operational management of the part of the State Museum entrusted to it museum fund, and this decision must be recorded in the appropriate package of documents .” Consequently, “ museums have every power to protect their holdings from unreasonable uses that threaten their safety .”
However, according to the expert’s experience, “ it often turns out that such decisions and documents are either pushed through by the Ministry of Culture, lobbying for someone’s interests, or are generally prepared retroactively, when the decision on the transfer has already been made .” In particular, he recalls that “according to colleagues from the Russian Museum, it is known that no restoration council, which should have preceded the extension of the exhibition period of the Toropetsk Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Knyazhye Lake, was held in the museum,” and the stock-purchasing commissionof the Ryazan Kremlin spoke out against issuing icons.
The existing problem, in his opinion, “ is not limited to the relationship between the Church and museums or the policy of the Ministry of Culture - we are talking about the general state of legality, which is trampled everywhere in our country, when anyone who has secured high-ranking support can “edit” any law. If there is no such support, the issue is resolved more or less legitimately . ”
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