The Hindu : Roerichs Centre may take Russian Government to court in India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 01, 2004

International

International

Roerichs Centre may take Russian Government to court in India

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, MARCH 31. Russia's Roerichs Centre may take the Russian Government to Indian court over the alleged squandering of dozens of paintings by the famous Russian artist, Nikolai Roerich, and his son, Svyatoslav.

The Roerichs Centre also accused the Russian Government of stubborn refusal to honour the will of Svyatoslav Roerich and hand over a large collection of paintings he donated to the Centre.

The head of the Nikolai Roerich Museum said 46 paintings by the father and son were missing from the State Oriental Museum in Moscow where they had been put for temporary caretaking 15 years ago.

``Twelve paintings by Nikolai Roerich and 34 paintings by Svyatoslav Roerich are missing from the Oriental Museum's inventory,'' Ms. Lyudmila Shaposhnikova told a press conference in Moscow this week. She said the missing paintings were part of the 288-piece collection Svyatoslav Roerich had gifted to the non-government Soviet Roerichs Foundation (renamed International Roerichs Centre after the break-up of the Soviet Union) and the Nikolai Roerich Museum.

Ever since the International Roerichs Centre established the Nikilai Roerich Museum in Moscow more than a decade ago, it has been fighting the Russian Government to get back the collection from the State Oriental Museum.

``The Government has effectively nationalised the paintings without any legal grounds whatsoever,'' said the president of the Roerichs Centre, Yuli Vorontsov.

Mr. Vorontsov, who helped ship the Roerichs collection to Russia when he was Russia's Ambassador to India, said the Russian Government was also trying to take away the museum building from the Roerichs Centre.

Ms. Shaposhnikova accused the Russian Government of pressurising courts into rejecting the Roerich Centre's plea to be recognised as a legitimate successor of the Soviet Roerichs Foundation and owner of the Roerichs collection.

She did not rule out the possibility that the Roerich Centre may take the matter to a court in India since Svyatoslav Roerich was an Indian national.

The controversy has cast a dark shadow over the coming celebration of the 100th birth anniversary of Svyatoslav Roerich in October.

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