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By Kenneth Morton, Kyiv Post Staff Writer
Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb 12, 2004
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The Russian Ministry of Culture has announced that 11 fragments of fresco,
originally from Kyiv's Monastery of St. Mykhailivsky of the Golden Domes and
currently in St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum, will be returned to Ukraine.
The frescos are among the most important surviving examples of the art of
pre-Mongol Kyivan Rus, and their return has long been a goal of Ukrainian
art historians and nationalists.
Four fragments previously in the Hermitage were returned in February 2001,
and are now in the museum attached to the monastery. However, several
fragments remain in Russia, in the Hermitage, the Russian Museum, the
Pushkin Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, and a museum in Novgorod.
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Art historian Serhiy Kot, pictured in front of St. Michael's, has been
instrumental in having Ukraine's cultural treasures returned
Photo Courtesy of Serhy Kot
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Les Taniuk, a former member of Rukh and now head of the Parliamentary
Committee on Cultural and Spiritual Affairs, said of the frescos' return:
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"There are still a lot of objects in Russia that should be returned to
Ukraine. They still have a lot of Cossack items, for example Cossack flags
and coats of arms, as well as a lot of archives from the Stalinist and
post-Stalinist period. It's hard for researchers to write our history
without these archives."
The frescos, which date from the 12th century, spent their first seven
hundred years in the monastery - one of Kyiv's oldest - relatively
undisturbed. The cathedral, known as the Mykhailivsky Zolotoverkhy Sobor
in Ukrainian, was built by the Kyivan Prince Svyatopolk Iziaslavich in the
early 12th century as the main cathedral of the royal monastery.
Its interior decorations, including the frescos, were considered to be among
the highest achievements of the art of Kyivan Rus. The outside of the
cathedral was rebuilt in the 17th century, but the frescos were never
significantly altered.
The cathedral, like many other Christian monuments, was demolished by the
Soviet authorities, in 1936, as part of an uncompleted plan to replace the
medieval center of Kyiv's upper town with a new administrative centre. The
frescos were removed before the demolition, and placed in Kyiv museums.
Three frescos were transported to Moscow in 1936 under unknown
circumstances, and in 1938 five pieces were taken to an exhibition in the
Tretyakov Gallery and have never been returned.
During the Second World War, the remaining frescos were looted by the
German occupying forces, and taken first to Krakow and then to the castle of
Hochstadt. After the war they were returned to the Soviet Union by the
administration of the U.S. Occupation Zone of Germany. But, like many other
looted treasures, they ended up in Russia, whether as a result of simple
confusion or of deliberate policy. Only half of them came back to Kyiv. The
others were taken to Novgorod and Leningrad.
The Mykhailivsky cathedral was rebuilt in 1998, the first building to be
completed in a government-sponsored program of reconstruction of destroyed
ancient monuments. That program was criticized by art historians and
archeologists for its nationalist emphasis. The cathedral now belongs to the
Kyiv Patriarchate.
The reconstruction of the cathedral prompted calls for the return of the
frescos, and the case was raised in a UNESCO committee dealing with
displaced cultural treasures.
Two art historians, Serhy Kot, head of the Research Center on the Return and
Restoration of Cultural Heritage, and his colleague, Yury Korenyuk, began to
work towards having the frescos returned in 1998. Four frescos were returned
in 2001.
Some pieces will remain in Russian museums even after the 11 frescos have
been returned, but Kot and Korenyuk are optimistic that they will eventually
be brought back to Kyiv.
"I believe that eventually all the 26 pieces from Mykhailivsky Cathedral
will return to Ukraine no matter what time it takes and what the political
situation between two countries is," Kot said. At press time, neither the
Mykhailivsky Cathedral or the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture could give
details of exactly when the frescos will be returned. [With additional files
from Viktoria Barchenko.]
RUSSIA TO GIVE BACK SEVEN FRESCOES TO UKRAINE
ITAR-TASS, Moscow, Russia, Feb. 1, 2004
KIEV, -- The Russian Culture Ministry has decided to transfer [give
back] seven frescoes of the St. Michael Golden Domes Cathedral in
Kiev to Ukraine.
The frescoes were taken away to Germany during the Second World War,
and brought to the Russian Hermitage Fine Arts Museum later. "The
frescoes will soon be delivered to Kiev and exhibited at the St. Michael
Golden Domes Cathedral," Ukrainian Culture Minister Yuri Bogutsky
said on Sunday.
Russia transferred four fragments of frescoes dating back to the 12th
century to the St. Michael Cathedral in February 2001.
A grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, Kiev Prince Svyatopolk
Izyaslavovich, established the St. Michael Golden Domes Monastery in
1108. It was one of the biggest monasteries of ancient Kiev.
The St. Michael Golden Domes Cathedral and some of the Monastery
buildings were demolished in 1934-1936 [in a monumental act of historical
and cultural destruction by the anti-church Soviets] for building a [Soviet]
governmental center instead [present Ministry of Foreign Affairs building].
Mosaics and frescoes were removed before the Cathedral destruction.
The mosaics and frescoes are currently stored in the Sofia Cathedral in
Kiev, the Russian Museum and the Hermitage Fine Arts Museum in
St. Petersburg and the Tretyakov Fine Arts Gallery in Moscow.
The St. Michael Golden Domes Cathedral was reconstructed in the end
of the 1990s.
FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY
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