Poland insists on the return of the paintings from the Pushkin Museum of Fine

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Сообщение от Grigory

Please read what this forum thread!

I repeat: There is only art!Clearly?

  The policy is not circumvented. I suggest this topic be moved to the "Arbor".

[uriart]

Once in the program "in the title role" Irina Antonova, the question of restitution of Julian Makarov said curtly and Yano:
"We owe nothing!" We should. We-no! "
Honor and praise her for this position.
Indeed all that lies in the vaults had been received as compensation for the losses suffered by the country during WWII.
And there's nothing to touch anything.
Shvydkoi has endeavored to give Boldin a collection. Probably a good rollback was promised.

[Grigory]

Сообщение от uriart

Probably a good rollback was promised.

Prove it in court! And so it is - an empty TREPOV!

[Тютчев]

Сообщение от uriart

Once in the program "in the title role" Irina Antonova, the question of restitution of Julian Makarov said curtly and Yano:
"We owe nothing!" We should. We-no! "
Honor and praise her for this position.
Indeed all that lies in the vaults had been received as compensation for the losses suffered by the country during WWII.
And there's nothing to touch anything.
Shvydkoi has endeavored to give Boldin a collection. Probably a good rollback was promised.

"How it was." The documentary story of Viktor Baldin

Anna Martovitsky

 
"When I was in the companies, had seen the soldiers pinned on canvas paintings from the basement more often than they were nude female figure"
 
... When Hitler's troops attacked the Soviet Union, I was completing his studies at the Moscow Architectural Institute. That summer I was at work on the restoration of the unique monuments of Old Russian architecture of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in Posad near Moscow. After masking the golden heads of churches and cathedrals, I was drafted into the Red Army and sent to the last course of the Military Engineering Academy. And already the officer Corps of Engineers began the front with the way the terrible battle on the Kursk Bulge.

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In 1945, our engineer units operated north of Berlin in the direction of Eberswalde - Iohinstal, Kravelin - Kyritz - Gransee - Alt-Ruppin - Perlberg - Karlstadt and May 5, came to the river Elbe. Further movement of troops had been suspended, and we were ordered to a temporary camp near the town Kyritz (80 kilometers north of Berlin).

I was instructed to choose a place for the dislocation of our engineers and demining brigades. I remember as a clear May morning, I left with two attendant in the city Kyritz. On the northern outskirts of the city, our attention was attracted by a large forest, we went to the side of the forest. Soon, it seemed a huge lake. On its shore was a beautiful house with two wings; grand staircase terraces down to the water.

We invited a host. Released high gray-haired gentleman with two middle-aged woman - it was the Count Königsmark. I explained that the house has a military headquarters. The count will have a truck - it can take what he needs, and it will be taken where it pleases. Looking above my head, Earl something said, and one of the women quickly translated: "Count on the Russian did not need anything. All three went to the door, the women were under the hand of the graph.

The house is located the headquarters of engineering-sapper brigade, and the linear part is close to the forest - the soldiers dug a dugout, and for the officers cut down the houses. So we lived here for almost two months in anticipation of returning home. Order came, as always, unexpectedly, and we quickly began to gather for the speech, scheduled for July 6. By the evening of the last day before he took the soldiers brought me the news that in the basement, where the staff, they saw a pile of "some pictures". The fact that the whole war I tried to find time to paint. At the request of fellow soldiers did their portraits, they are in the letters sent home - cameras, we did not exist. Therefore, they correctly judged that the news of the figures interested me.

After a break the door in the twilight favorite vaulted room, I saw a pile of the same mat, apparently dropped from haywire racks, standing on the perimeter walls, and walked on them, they looked at. I picked a few random pictures: gold stamping on heavy cardboard names were listed - Overbeck, Richter, Slefogt - that if I were not known. But then I saw the familiar - Guido Reni, Titian, Veronese, then Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Gogh. But Albrecht Dürer - one, five, ten, twenty drawings with his characteristic monogram of two letters!

Breath ... What's unique sheets! Immediate need to be saved! Expel all and put their own man at the door: "Do not let anyone!" Then he ran to the commander of the brigade. In the confusion of departure, Colonel barely listened to my story and waved excitedly: "Come to the Chief of Staff.

Chief of Staff, I tried to persuade to provide at least the smallest car to save from extinction the unique images of a dark cellar. He thought, puffed at his pipe, and the curve for some reason wanted to know how old I am. Upon learning that 25, significantly extended: "A-ah ... and led to the window. The top floor of the house was a good view of the whole yard, filled with trucks. "See? 20 cars. We must have the same, but they are still there. And here you are with her drawings.

Figures were many. First I chose the well-known names, then an interesting plot, and then began to take everything! Among the pictures was the only picture on a small blackboard: hurry rider with a horse in a characteristic dark coloring oil painting. The sticker on the back - Goya!

It was past midnight, the last candle burning low, and I could not tear myself away - cut off and cut. And early in the morning had to act on the road. I had to leave something that seemed not so valuable, but how can you be sorted? Also do not leave a premonition: that will leave - will die. My heart was heavy ...

The route from Berlin to Brest length of 1000 kilometers. We walked over a month. And when I was in the companies, had seen the soldiers pinned on canvas paintings from the basement more often than they were naked female figures. Then I told the soldier: "You know what this figure represents the value of a museum?" It must necessarily be retained. And you have lost it. What do you want to get for him? "How?" In exchange, went all - and belts, and watches, and the board, and sometimes just the money - all that I could give. The latest "acquisition" after long negotiations was a small head of Christ Diirer executed in tempera on a cypress board - in exchange for newly-stitched calfskin boots. So was the completion of the collection. Suitcase all the time with me.

In the collection of drawings were submitted to the best artists of almost all European countries since the fifteenth century, playing many subjects met frequently in books on art. There were drawings by Italian masters - Fra Bartolommeo, Titian, Caravaggio, Guido Reni, Salvator Rosa, Tiepolo, Veronese, Bernini (84 sheets), famous artists of France - Greuze, Corot, Delacroix, Rodin, Manet, David (23 pieces). England, Austria, Spain, Czech Republic, Bohemia, Norway, Switzerland, represented by such masters as Murillo, Goya, Daniel Gran, Maulbertsch Dahl and others (15 sheets); among the Dutch were - Rubens, Snyders, Hals, Van Dyck, Rembrandt , Ruisdael, Van Gogh (97 sheets). Most were, of course, the Germans - Durer, Günther, Krüger, Overbeck, Richter, Bush, Slefogt, Kobell and other (145 sheets).

The collection contains 362 sheets of drawings and watercolors and two small paintings by A. Durer and F. Goya. At the same time on 52 sheets of drawings and have been on the back, sometimes the same grimy, as with the front side. Thus, the collection consisted of 416 plot drawings. Almost all the sheets, there was a round seal of the museum Kunsthalle Bremen.

© "Culture", 26.03.2003

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Grigory Zaslavsky

Shvydkoi: we get the money for the Bremen collection

But as long as it remains in storage ROSIZO

In early February, the Minister of Culture of Russia Mikhail Shvydkoi during talks in Berlin promised to return to Germany, the so-called "Baldin collection" - part of the collection of the Bremen Kunsthalle. Exactly one month later, the chairman of the Duma Committee on Culture and Tourism Nikolai Gubenko gave a sharp condemnation of gratuitous transfer of cultural property. The confrontation reached its climax, and when she and the other party appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office. Yesterday in "NG" their point of view expressed Nicholas
Gubenko.

Today we publish an interview with the Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoi.

- Fradkov, tell me, what is your relationship to the current developments around "the Baldin collection"?

- I am very pleased that events unfold as they unfold. This indicates that there is no conflict between the branches of government, various state institutions and society.

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Even in such sensitive matters as the problems associated with the consequences of World War II in culture. For me, it is important that today, this discussion reveals that the public interest to ensure that all acts committed in accordance with law and international treaties of Russia.

It is highly disadvantageous think a tantrum, which frustrated some participants, because it prevents a truth. For me as a bureaucrat, it is important that all was done according to the law, and in that sense I am extremely pleased and that the problem Baldin collection discussed in the Duma, and what steps the Ministry is studying the prosecutor's office, and that the situation is under the supervision of the President. Once again I want to emphasize, there are no parties to the conflict, the more opponents. Opponents have remained on the fields of the Second World War. All the controversy and debate that goes around "the Baldin collection" and around displaced values, it seems fruitful for the present and future.

- You are sincerely glad to see this?

- Of course, it is important to only one circumstance. The controversy must be fair. The debate should not be misleading nor society, nor the Parliament nor the executive branch nor the media nor the first president. Nikolai Gubenko thrice misled all participants in the discussion: it is misleading and the president, and his colleagues in the parliament. The first time he insisted that the Baldin collection is part of the museum's array, which should be governed by the Law On Displaced values. This, in fact, built to address the parliament to the president. The second time, when Mr. Gubenko reported to the president of a protocol of intent in 1993, which not only has not lost its strength due to the emergence of new laws including the Law on Displaced values ", but intended to return to the Bremen collection of unfavorable conditions, Russia . And, finally, the last - when tried to convince the public that legislators and the performers must work together to implement the laws. This is contrary to the constitutional separation of powers. I do not know for what reasons, performed all these actions, Mr. Gubenko, but also to work constructively on the Baldin collection to a man like me and my colleagues in the ministry is very difficult. On behalf of the president, I met with Mr Gubenko, but the essence of order was that it was necessary to hold consultations with factions of the Duma, to find consensus on this issue. What I, in fact, engaged in recent days. Naturally, the "United Russia", representing the parliamentary majority, in this case seems to me the most constructive partner in the negotiations with the Duma. Although I have had conversations with the leadership of the ATP and we are preparing documents for circulation to the leaders of all factions, including the Communist Party.

Grievances Mr. Gubenko the way he was met at the Ministry - as we found it absolutely in ethics, which, let's say, than on parliamentary goodwill and tolerance, "- seem to me more than strange. Everyone knows that we have known since 1965, but to be on "you" with a man who during the week of reproach in all media, even for me, a man of peace-loving and ready for a variety of compromises, a highly difficult. I have not said yet that Mr. Gubenko sent a letter to Prosecutor General's Office about the activities of the Ministry of Culture in general and the minister himself, but for this I am grateful to him only because I also treated with similar requests. True, not in the form samodonosa, and through the press and the relevant authorities.

- How do you comment on that, by the way, submission, signed by Deputy Attorney General?

- Because the prosecutor's office sent its opinion by marking it marked "For Official Use Only", I, as a bureaucrat, I can not publish it. I can only say that the statements of Mr. Gubenko, in my view, premature, and the Ministry of Culture in response to the submission of the Attorney-General will address a letter in which we ask to clarify some of the positions reporting, because we did nothing that would violate Russia's law . I am deeply convinced. On Wednesday I met with representatives of the faction "United Russia" and hope that this faction and its leaders will help us in a dialogue with the German side, and with the State Duma, and with the public. I believe that we can get for Bremen collection twice as much as that on which insists Nikolai Gubenko. And the preliminary agreement is quite convince me of this.

- How do you think ...

- No, I would like to comment on some more recent statements by Nikolai Nikolaevich. Now my shamelessness. The memory of my brothers and sisters, which burned in the 41-th year, the memory of dozens of relatives who fought and died on the battlefield, my father, crippled at Stalingrad, did not allow me to never forget what happened in our country during the war . I never even talked to anyone at all, because it did not consider it necessary, they say, show the wound. But I'm no worse than Mr. Gubenko know why the Germans came to my land. But apparently, I am more than Gubenko, respect for modern Russia, because I firmly know that we have entered into the civilized world and must live by civilized rules. And should not enjoy the fact that we rightfully belongs. I - an official at the service of Russia and the state will act in the interests Rossiyskogo state and its laws. To Rossiyskogo States - observe good neighborly relations with its partners, especially in such difficult historical moments, like today, when Russia and Germany stand together against the war in Iraq. But I will not break any law of Russia in order to please someone outside my country. I am confident that justice and right will prevail.

- It is known that "Baldin collection" is not part of the state assembly. Yet. Do not spoil it, after the current decision of the General Prosecutor's Office, the de facto ban the export of collections, with the official Berlin?

- I do not think that they spoil fundamentally. But for me there is much that we do not follow international laws, while the German partner, they should. I am not talking about what the price return, I say that we return the belongings of Russian descent, on demand and at a time when they are identified as a Russian thing. Naturally, this left its mark on relations with Berlin. But this is not the business of my agency.

- Since the exhibition of drawings in Bremen, scheduled to open on March 29, the collection was in these very days to go across the border ...

- I warned colleagues that this does not happen, because I do not want to violate the law.

- What would be the way forward "Baldin collection"? Back to the Hermitage? Back to the Museum of Architecture?

- The collection will be stored in ROSIZO, there is the normal state repository, otherwise not required. Just want to see: a collection of drawings - not a toy, such figures could ever exhibited only two months of the year. Therefore, opens and closes the box, we will not.

- Are not you afraid of prosecution? I mean personal - say, for exceeding their authority?

- You see, I am a normal person. All are afraid of something, including criminal prosecution. But in order to bring criminal charges against me, to prove that I broke.

Published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 20.03.2003
Source: http://www.ng.ru/culture/2003-03-20/1_shvydkoi.html

[Тютчев]

Viktor Baldin. Biography

Born March 1, 1920 in the village Mitinskaya Moscow region in a family of rural teachers. Graduated from Moscow Architectural Institute (1941). Candidate architecture (1972). Distinguished architect of Russia (1976). Winner of the European Prize for the preservation of ancient monuments (1992). Honorary Citizen of Sergiev Posad (1992). Honorary member of the Russia Academy of Architecture and Building Science (1994). Member of the Great Patriotic War.

Another student at the Institute of Architecture in 1938, V. Baldin involved in the restoration of monuments of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, and it became his subsequent life.

In 1941, the outbreak of war after taking part in emergency disguise golden domes of churches Laura and evacuation artistic treasures of the museum was called the Military Engineering Academy Kyibyshev, graduated from an accelerated rate, and as an officer of the engineering troops participated in the battles of Kursk Bulge to the storming of Berlin and meeting with the Allied troops on the river Elbe.

In December 1945, discharged from the army to continue work on the restoration of the Trinity-St.

From 1946 to 1950 worked as artistic director Zagorskogo vocational school of restorers-builders. School has prepared over two hundred graduates for restoration workshops, created at the time of the ancient Russian cities, many stayed to work in Sergiev Posad.

Since 1950, V. Baldin continued to work on the restoration of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra has as a principal architect of the project of the Central scientific restoration workshops of the Academy of Architecture of the USSR. Based on a comprehensive survey of ancient buildings and study archival material he performed an analysis of historical and architectural ensemble of the formation of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, has developed a comprehensive restoration project. When the monuments of later accretions to a large extent restored the original beauty of the ensemble of the monastery. Materials research and the results of the restoration work included in a number of fundamental publications and textbooks on the history of architecture.

In 1963 V. Baldin was appointed director of the Research Museum of Architecture im.Schuseva in Moscow and was in that position for 25 years until his retirement in 1987. Simultaneously, he continued to conduct supervision and scientific guidance on the implementation of their projects restoration of the ancient buildings of the monastery. Many years of research and creative activity of V. Baldin contributed significantly to reveal the true beauty of this outstanding ensemble of ancient architecture, which incorporated in 1993 in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

B. Baldin author of many books and publications on the history of the Trinity-Sergius monastery, methods of restoration and protection of monuments of architecture.

Distinguished architect of Russia V. Baldin died Jan. 4, 1997 after a long illness of the heart.

  Yu Sivakova - Widow B. Baldin
September 1999

[Тютчев]

Grigory Zaslavsky
 
Russia - Germany - Baldin - Collection

"Baldin collection": an exhibition to be held in any weather

"RUSSIA - GERMANY - BALDIN - COLLECTION - announce the news what happened in the month of March a lot. The captain of artillery and an architect by profession Viktor Baldin, probably, and could not have imagined that someday his name will do so now "senior" context. And maybe that is what he hoped, when a year had sent their first treatment Brezhnev, Suslov, then, Ligachev, Gorbachev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and each requested during the next Summit to transmit pictures of the GDR or the FRG, which was rescued from imminent death at the end of the war.

Today the future transfer to the Bremen Museum of so-called Baldin collection "does not argue otherwise how will the performance front. From 13 to 29 March the tone and direction of thought very Russian statesmen have undergone major changes. Changed and the route the collection itself. First, because of the St. Petersburg 362 drawing and two paintings in Moscow were supposed to go to Bremen. The show was already scheduled for March 29. Then, after the speech Nikolai Gubenko and State Duma deputies who voted against the donation of collections in Germany, packed boxes stayed in the vault of the Ministry of Culture. And then decided not to postpone the date of the exhibition, but the very exhibition to be held in the Museum of Architecture, where the drawings were transferred Viktor Baldin in 1947 and where they were kept secret until 1991.

In the end, satisfied with everything. And even the German side did not make any criticism of the current situation of the collection and change themselves, and the opening of the exhibition was to be found the whole delegation from the Embassy of Germany in Moscow. And without exception, they say, if it is such a turn of events is the most desirable: and Mikhail Shvydkoi, and Nikolai Gubenko (although the mutual insults and remained unresolved). And the director of the Museum of Architecture, David Sarkisian, who a week ago announced its intention to ask for a "dignified compensation" for decades, collections storage: the need to transfer the museum under the management of the Ministry of Culture (now he is in charge of State Construction Committee) at the opening ceremony, Minister of Culture spoke very clearly and presumably, he will decide this question in the near future. Satisfied and the audience.

Would like to think that the incident will cause Baldin collection and the German side to change the current hard-edged rhetoric. And, more importantly, increase, I apologize for some sloppy style, the cost of treatment to the return of displaced values, which differs in recent years, Russia's position. During this culture minister could say thank you to the head of the division of the State Duma, the more so in the present scenario, their public statements have not quite distinguishable from one another.

Published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 01.04.2003
Source: http://www.ng.ru/accent/2003-04-01/7_baldin.html

[Тютчев]

They say the children of Captain Baldin

The unknown details of the Bremen collection
 
All interested parties have already managed to speak to the history associated with the return (or - return) to Germany, the so-called Baldin collection ", ie drawings from the collection of the Bremen Kunsthalle, rescued at the end of the war, artillery captain, Viktor Baldin. All - but not all.
Recently Received "NG" children came Viktor Baldin, Vera and Alexander, who attended and the opening of the exhibition of drawings at the Museum of Architecture. Then, at the opening of the family stood widow Baldin, Julia Feodorovna Sivakov. However, Vera and Alexander told us that Julia Sivakova - the second wife of Viktor Baldin (first wife, their mother, thank God, too, is alive, but the interview does not). Baldin's first letter to the leadership of the Soviet Union with a proposal to return the drawings appeared shortly after the conclusion of a new marriage. Before Viktor Baldin said only that moved the pictures to convey them to their state. He told Baldin children and how summoned him to his end of the 1940 Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria. Questioned in detail about the collection, and when he learned that the drawings have already been transferred to the Museum of Architecture, shouted at Baldin: "Fool!" Get out! "
The necessity of returning the collection to Germany, Baldin's widow Julia Sivakova continues to speak today, after the death of Viktor Ivanovich. Today is the first time his point of view expressed Children Viktor Baldin.

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Recently, in our press, radio and television is, in our opinion, very partisan campaign around the collection of drawings from the Bremen, which saved during the war and preserve our father, Viktor Baldin. For a long time, we silently watched the developments, but the last transfer, especially on the channel "Russia" ( "Mirror" Nikolai Svanidze), lead us through the press to speak out against the use of the name of our father in the tendentious imposition of views on the transfer of the collection to Germany.

Yes, indeed, during the war, as an officer in the Soviet army, our father accidentally stumbled on a collection of drawings in a German castle. As an architect, he immediately realized the value of this collection, and did everything to save her. (It should be noted that his father wrote poetry and drew well. In war time, he kept a whole portrait gallery of his fellow soldiers, which he painted during the hours of respite.) He turned to his military superiors for help in the removal of this collection. However, it refused him. So my father had at his own risk to do the very salvation of this collection.

And save a collection of really had. Many drawings have walked through the hands of our soldiers. In some drawings, which lay under their feet, were already signs of soldiers' boots. A short time images could disappear without a trace. And he did everything to gather all the pictures. He loved to recall how he traded a painting by Durer for a pair of chrome officer's boots.

By bringing Bremen collection of drawings in the USSR, his father did much to make it (more precisely, the portion which fell into his hands, because there are other parts of this collection, whose fate is not mentioned. And why not?) Has been retained as whole. Images were cleaned of dirt. My father made a full inventory of all drawings. Moreover, he invited a professional photographer, and they took pictures of all the pictures.

In the preservation of images taken part and our mother, Antonina, held the Finnish and the Great Patriotic War. Parents of many risky at the time, doing this work.

My father never believed that collection - his personal property. He always believed that the drawings of this level - and in the collection are sheets of Durer, Rembrandt, Delacroix, Rubens, Monet, Degas and other famous masters - must belong to mankind. Therefore, when the collection has been described (which is not possible to further divide it into separate parts, which could vanish into thin air), the father shortly after the war gave it to be deposited in the Museum Schuseva Academician of Russian architecture in Moscow.

When Beria learned about the collection, it was too late - she was in the hands of academician Schuseva. To touch the author of Lenin's Tomb Beria dared. Therefore, he limited himself to one single conversation with his father and, apparently, very sorry that the collection was not included in his hands. But all could have ended very differently, and for our parents, who risked their lives, and for the Bremen collection. (Julia Feodorovna Sivakov, which now gives a lot of different interview about the Bremen collection - the second wife of Viktor Ivanovich, she married him in mid-1960's, and to preserve and transfer their drawings to the State is irrelevant.)

Thanks to these measures, the collection is really without any loss of preserved until our time. It should be noted that the fates decree father himself was in the middle of 1960 the director of the Museum of Russian architecture, and the collection was again in his hands. And again he did everything to save her, and not one leaf collection is not gone, as they say, for "commercial" channels in private hands, although such proposals were met.

Father his entire life doing everything possible to preserve the collection. He always believed that the collection of this level - this is the province of all mankind and should determine the fate of the state. That's why he turned on the collection to his command, and being refused, later himself, on his own initiative, had brought her and gave free state.

Father had done his job - a collection of preserved and even became available to the public. Now it is up to the state. That it must define its exact position on the issue of this collection. And not only about her. This is a purely political question, and here must take into account the interests of the state.

At one time the Soviet Union returned the GDR Dresden Gallery. It was a political move aimed at building confidence between countries. This was the position of the state. U.S. taken from the post-war Germany, a lot of values. They are stored in the U.S., no one is transmitted and generally not disclosed. This position of the state.

With respect to the collection of the Bremen drawings, our Russia's state should also take a clear and unambiguous position.

We are not talking about how it should be returned to Germany or not. These issues should resolve a State which transmitted images of the Bremen collection, and it should extract the maximum benefit from this, because the state is responsible for all of us.

The clear position of the State should be raised and on the other values that are stored with us. How, for example, the issue will be resolved with other parts of the Bremen collection, which now no one speaks, but which are also in Russia?

Unfortunately, our media is often biased, without a thorough study presented with screens and newspaper pages the question of the Bremen collection. Considered and heavily promoted on many television channels, only one point of view, protecting the interests of Germany, not Russia. And example of this - the last channel "Mirror" Nikolai Svanidze.

Unfortunately, the name of Viktor Ivanovich Baldin used in order to satisfy the interests of individuals under the guise of a noble deed, which he has committed. The name of our father should be mentioned only once and in this context: "These pictures were saved during the war and preserved for mankind Russian officer Baldin, VI, regardless of where the collection will be in the future. Such a memory he deserved.

The question of collection must solve our state and our president.

V. Baldin,
AV Baldin
April 9, 2003

Published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 18.04.2003
Source: http://www.ng.ru/saturday/2003-04-18/15_baldin.html

[Тютчев]

Stanislav Safonov
 
Lessons of History "Baldin collection"

Once again on the trophy cultural values
 
On the issue of captured values expressed without exception media. The reason for slovoizyavleniya served as a story with graphics, Viktor Baldin exported from Germany in 1945. Wrote about it all the media until mid-year, and then fell silent, as if, in the words of Mayakovsky, in the mouth of dollars they took ... Interest in the problem flared up again on the occasion of the appearance on the international antique market paintings Peter Paul Rubens' Tarquin and Lucretia.

The subject of bargaining - a picture of a popular subject in the past from ancient Roman history, "disgraced Lucretia." Canvas area of six square. m written by Peter Paul Rubens between 1609 and 1612 years., the work of subscription (the signature was discovered during the restoration). Attribution pictures confirmed by specialists of the GoE and German from the gallery of Potsdam. By the time the restoration of the canvas was folded several times, and at the joints is visible scree paint layer. The quality of restoration is unknown.

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Provenance picture. Until 1942 he was in a meeting of the palace Sanssouci in Potsdam. In the list of exported values in the Soviet Union did not appear. In 1945 he was in the house of his mistress propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. In 1945, the house occupies a Soviet commandant of Brandenburg, and later, after the end of his service, as it was then taken, along with the picture of the situation was brought to Russia. For the convenience of carriage cloth was folded several times and as such lay there till our days. The daughter of an officer to sell the painting for 800 dollars. Now the picture is owned by businessman and collector of icons, Vladimir Logvinenko, and to address the issue of the status of pictures placed in the repository ROSIZO.

Assessment paintings. Name a few sums: 95/80 million, 80 million euros. According to experts, the amount is overstated, as the now-antique market there is no rush for Rubens. The painting was offered to the German museums for $ 30 million, according to other sources, for a quarter of the amount of the assessment. To pay for her German side refused.

This scene of rape can be attributed to the strange war booty in 1945. Surprisingly, then in each duffel bag, "Sidor" soldiers and officers who were returning from Germany, was a place for erotic postcards, magazines, albums with nudity, figurines, golyshek etc. It seems already manifested deficits sex in Soviet Russia.

Return to the lessons of the controversy around the "collection" Baldin. Highlight four different positions, four approaches to the problem.

Position of the first, let's call them patriots, clear and understandable. They remember or have heard from the parents of that terrible war: the gallows in almost every village or village, ditches, clogged with corpses, every city and from Moscow to Brest, there is no place where there were no ruins and ashes. " Their position is marked Captions S. Raskin, 1943.: "We will never forget!

Position Second, advocates of universal values, or how they are still referred to as "Westerners", more complicated and difficult. They need to help the German side and persuade the electorate that "by the global rules captured values are subject to the unconditional return" of Germany (like writing one of the Moscow newspapers on April 1 this year). They are intricately transferred to equalize the scourge of war, and our German side, as well as damage caused by our German and cultural values.

That's what writing two ladies of the Komsomol newspaper after a meeting with the second wife of V. Baldin: "After the victory of antique linens and shepherds of the great masters literally filled Moscow's commission store. Baldin friend sold four drawings from the Bremen series in the Pushkin Museum, has received forty thousand rubles, and noted successful deal of joy in Prague. "Why this curious information? Julia Feodorovna Baldin was then in places far from Moscow. Probably the Komsomol and the ladies do not know that in 1945 in Moscow there were only four commission store, where we took antiques, and they physically could not be literally filled with paintings of great masters. "In other" stores random things "traded" trophies "in the current range of Vietnamese and Chinese markets, and antiques can get on their shelves only at the ignorance of a commodity specialist. Restaurant" Prague "was opened ten years after the victory - in 1955, and the Pushkin Museum until 1956 he worked intermittently on the "Stalinist" and "Dresden" exhibition.

Another "Komsomolskaya" lady, holding our own inventory and the German losses, concludes: "Nevertheless, the cultural loss of global significance such as" Sistine Madonna "we have not suffered.

Even if we counted distract from human material losses, the Germans should we still have a scorched earth. The invaders smashed and burned down the historical and cultural layers in the west of Russia "the mainland" as they say archaeologists. Now there remains a city without a past. They are from the past were the old names and the history book without a real environment. It could not be. Of the 1418 days of war on our territory, it was raging 1000 days, and on the German held for 100 days. Modern German historian, wrote that Germany did not pay a tenth of what was happening in the occupied territories.

Position of the German side: "Give, and no nails!" We explain: "In West Germany there is no cultural values of Russia." This is true with a trace of guile. The Germans know where we went and swam away, and German cultural treasures after the war, but whether from a sense of Atlantic solidarity, or for other reasons, hesitate to demand their return. Americans also have been slow to follow the "global rules". But now with a weakened Russia could claim only that the soul desires.

In 1945, Germany was divided into four occupation zones. In the Soviet zone of Germany came third part, the rest was occupied by the Western allies. Germany began the export of material and cultural values in order reparations, seizures, confiscations, as well as individual initiatives. Our soldiers were interested in only "convenience goods": bicycles, radios, cameras ... Enterprising and clever Americans worried "eternal values". Over the ocean sailed most of these eternal values. Enough to look through our newspapers from 1947 to 1950

Position of the ministry's officials: "To give everything, but subject to the visibility - all under the law." To facilitate the transfer of "the Baldin collection to the German side, eccentric V. Baldin designated looter - he de smuggled collection from Germany (it would be better left lists of soldiers on cigarettes or other use of paper, and not give them their rations and chrome officers' boots ).

Officials warmly welcome any humble offerings to the German side, symbolizing that mimic or simulate a counter-process of the return values. Last year, officials in each ministry's statement, "rinsed" chest of drawers and panels from the Tsarskoe Selo palace, supplied to us by the Germans. This enthusiasm for a copy of the Amber Room, paid the German side, it is the turn to enjoy building up the church of the Assumption in Volotovo field near Novgorod. And in August, despite the ridicule the media, Minister of Culture admired second-tier graphics, came from Germany.

The fifth character, the electorate, yet silent. Russian question: "What?" Answer: "Do nothing and wait." In the mid 1950's. U.S. experts examined the question of what to do, that dried up the hatred of Armenians by the Turks for the massacre of 1915-1916 gg. Conclusion scientists - this happens when he dies last witness the carnage. Historical experience has shown that this term is not enough. Shall die, those who heard first hand about those terrible events. We think it will happen by 2020. By this time, come to power another generation, and it decides how to proceed with the trophy property in 1945.

Published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 31.10.2003
Source: http://www.ng.ru/antiquare/2003-10-31/22_baldin.html

[Тютчев]

Russia will assert itself on the Baldin collection. The rest will pay Germany. Alya Kharchenko, Rita Rusakova //Kommersant.

  12.02.05

Yesterday, Deputy Head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Law in Mass Communications and Protection of Cultural Heritage Anatoly Vilkov gave a press conference on the issues of restitution. The main news was the news about the return of Germany's famous Baldin collection.

The content and mood of the meeting with the catchy title "Will Russia return the displaced values" resembled a formal report. According to Anatoly Vilkov, "according to recent estimates, in Russia as a compensatory restitution stores 250 thousand from the subjects of art treasures, more than 270 thousand archival cases and 1 million 250 thousand books and publications. This is something that Russia's law on the return of displaced values are not negotiable.

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Much of that subject has already returned (see the removal). But the main news was the message Anatolia Vilkova that the Baldin collection may be returned to Germany in the second half of 2005. "Collection from the collection of the Bremen Kunsthalle Captain Baldin in 1945 had brought illegally, and to talk about the legal rights of Russia to these works of art can not" - said Mr. Vilkov.

Baldin collection consists of 362 drawing and two paintings by European masters of the XVI-XX centuries, including Titian, Rembrandt, Durer, Rubens, Delacroix, Boucher, Corot, Manet, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec. After the war the collection was stored in a workshop in Zagorsk where Baldin worked as a restorer. In 1947 was transferred to the State Museum of Architecture named Schuseva. Viktor Baldin long tried to return the collection to Germany. Statements in 1963 became director of the Museum of Architecture Baldin to Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Suslov, Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev failed. Hope for the return of the collection during his lifetime Baldin not true. In 1991 the collection was transferred to the balance of the USSR Ministry of Culture, headed by well known for his uncompromising stance towards the return of displaced valuables Nikolai Gubenko. In 1994, the state commission on restitution of cultural property has decided "to consider the possible return of the Baldin collection of the Kunsthalle Bremen in Germany to the Government. In 1999, the RF Constitutional Court ruled that the issue should be settled by the law "On Export and Import of Cultural Property. The latest scandalous twist resistance ardent advocate of the restitution of the Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoi and chairman of the Duma Committee on Culture and Tourism Nikolai Gubenko. In March 2003, before heading to Germany, the collection was exhibited to the public at the Museum of Architecture. Then, because of the intervention of Mr. Gubenko and deputies protested against the donation of collections in Germany, all collapsed again.

Noting that the transfer of the collection in 1947 in the State Museum of Architecture named Schuseva gave the USSR the right of possession, but not the disposition of property, Anatoly Vilkov concluded that "the collection should be returned to Bremen on terms that were reached by the parties during the lengthy negotiations." One of the main conditions will be 20 works, which the German side agreed to leave Russia as compensation. "As the cost of these pictures should be approximately a quarter of the entire collection", - said Anatoly Vilkov. And the whole collection, for evaluation by the auction house "Gelos" in March 2003, worth $ 23 million

The final decision on the fate of suffering pictures will be taken in the second half of the year on the Interagency Council on the displaced values.

Alya Kharchenko, Rita Rusakov

Who is satisfied Russia

Russia since 2002 granted six claims of foreign states for displaced cultural values. In particular, the Netherlands back in the territory of Russia 22 archival stock, Belgium - 40 archives, also returned to the archives of Luxembourg. Ukraine were returned to 11 fragments of frescoes Upper St Michael's Cathedral, Germany - unique stained glass church Marienkirche in Frankfurt an der Oder. Also consider the claim for the return of cultural property from Germany, Hungary, Austria, the Netherlands, USA, Poland, Britain and Greece. In particular, it has already decided to return the Rothschild dynasty, their family archive, which was in Russia with funds by the Gestapo. Consider the claim and brothers Goldschmidt from the United States at the painting of Goya, which is kept in the Pushkin Museum of Fine