RUSSIA: EXHIBITION OF ART TAKEN FROM BREMEN MUSEUM IN GERMANY AT END OF WORLD WAR 2 OPENS

Record ID: 862636

  • Title: RUSSIA: EXHIBITION OF ART TAKEN FROM BREMEN MUSEUM IN GERMANY AT END OF WORLD WAR 2 OPENS
  • Date: 29th March 2003
  • Summary: PHOTOGRAPH OF CAPTAIN VIKTOR BALDIN WITH HIS ARMY UNIT
  • Embargoed: 13th April 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: MOSCOW, RUSSIA
  • City:
  • Country: Russia
  • Topics: Arts,Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVAAJEEYEBDREPEGQQRH9S58NZTG
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Moscow has opened an exhibition of art taken from the Bremen museum in Germany at the end of World War Two.
    The gala opening was supposed to have taken place in Bremen on Saturday (March 29), but the $30 million-dollar collection is now being detained indefinitely in Russia as politicians and legal authorities argue whether to return the rare war trophy.
    The Bremen museum collection's 362 paintings contain works by Duhrer, Goya, Reubens, Delacroix and other western masters - but they have been virtually lost to the art community since the end of World War Two.
    The collection was one of many series of artworks taken back into the Soviet Union after the Red Army conquered Berlin.
    The artwork, mostly sketches, was discovered in Bremen by Viktor Baldin, a Soviet army captain who was trained as an architect. Baldin took the work back to his home, put it underneath his bed and wrote a series of letters to various Kremlin officials for over five decades, offering the collection for storage and possible restitution.
    He received an answer only from Boris Yeltsin in the early 1990s, who agreed to return the artwork to Germany. The artwork was examined, assessed and put into a computer catalogue by Russian Ministry officials ahead of its return.
    Since then, however, the drawings have become the centre of a national debate.
    Russian Culture Minister Mikhail Shvidkoi has been vilified in the Russian press for his ministry's part in preparing the return as the Russian parliament has led a campaign to keep the Bremen collection in Moscow as a just payment for the Nazi's attack on the Soviet Union.
    Over 26 million Soviet citizens died in World War II and the war is still widely regarded as a just fight for national survival. The Russian prosecutor's office has recently stepped into the fray, saying it will reexamine the legal basis for returning the Bremen collection.
    Few in Russia have dared to speak out for the return of the artwork, but one of them is Julia Baldin, the widow of Captain Baldin.
    "I'd like to tell people [who are against returning this collection] to calm down. Let people see this artwork which hasn't been seen for fifty years, which hasn't been seen by an entire generation that doesn't even know this collection exists. Russia has also been a mother that gives to all others, let it continue to be so," said Baldin.
    For now, the Bremen collection can only be seen in Moscow's Museum of Architecture until April 13 - after that its fate is once more unknown.
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