The Council of the European Union announced on April 23 that it is formally sanctioning Mikhail Piotrovsky, the long-time director of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The reasons given are that Piotrovsky is “a close associate of Vladimir Putin” and that “he has actively supported and justified Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.” The news was first reported by The Art Newspaper.
According to the Hermitage Development Foundation, Piotrovsky succeed his father, Boris, as director of the state-run museum in 1992, which is around the time he met Putin. He has a background in Arabic studies and archaeology, and studied at Leningrad State University and the University of Cairo.
When Piotrovsky turned 80 on Dec. 9, 2024, Putin sent him the following message, according to a Kremlin news site: “You have devoted your talents as a scholar, researcher and organiser to the noble mission of preserving humanity’s unique historical, cultural and spiritual heritage. Your many years of fruitful work as head of the State Hermitage Museum made an immense contribution to the advancement of museology in our country, serving as an inspiring example of selfless dedication to people and the Fatherland.”
Piotrovsky is one of over a hundred “persons or entities” newly sanctioned by the E.U. related to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Others cultural figures on the April 23 package of sanctions include Sergei Obryvalin, the First Deputy Minister of Culture, who has been “directly involved in the seizure Ukrainian cultural property and its reclassification as Russian”; Igor Solonin, general director of what is now called the Mariupol Republican Order of the Badge of Honour Russian Drama Theatre, which was formerly a Ukrainian theater bombed by Russia in 2022, and then rebuilt in order to “spread Russian culture in the occupied regions of Ukraine”; and Andrey Polyakov, director of the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science, who oversaw archaeological excavations in Russian-occupied Crimea.
The E.U. document elaborates on Piotrovsky’s actions, noting that he has publicly endorsed the war, backed legislation enabling Russia to incorporate Ukrainian cultural items into its state museums, and has authorized the Hermitage to conduct excavations in Crimea.
