DISPUTE OVER ARCHIVE LEADS RUSSIA TO NIX ART LOANS
The Associated Press reports that the Metropolitan Museum of Art––and possibly other major lending institutions––are deciding whether to discontinue loans of cultural property to Russia. A longtime dispute between Russia and an Orthodox Jewish group over ownership of holy texts collected for centuries by influential rabbis and seized by the Soviet Union is provoking the decision.
Russia has already frozen art loans to major American institutions, including the Met and the Houston Museum of Natural Science, fearing that its cultural property could be seized after the Brooklyn-based Chabad-Lubavitch movement won a lawsuit in US District Court in 2010 compelling the return of its texts.
The issue has become so important to relations between the US and Russia that the Justice Department has signaled for the first time in court papers that by Monday, it may weigh in on the legal case, which the Russians pulled out of in 2009, citing sovereign immunity.
Federal attorneys declined to comment for this story, and Russia’s Culture Ministry did not respond to numerous calls, emails, and faxes from the Associated Press seeking comment.
