Campaigners from the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles have expressed dismay at the British Museum’s refusal to respond in full to Freedom of Information Requests asking for the release of the loan agreement under which the Parthenon Marble, the River God Ilissos, was loaned to the Hermitage Museum to mark its 200th anniversary just months after Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Neil MacGregor, former Director, stated in public interviews that the British Museum had not consulted with the FCO ahead of agreeing the loan, while the Museum’s website explains that Trustees “immediately accepted” the Russian invitation upon receiving it.
Despite these comments the British Museum has now refused to release the request for the loan from the Hermitage Museum claiming that doing so would “be likely to prejudice relations between the United Kingdom” and the Russian Federation.
These revelations come as hundreds of supporters prepare to gather at the British Museum to call for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures on Saturday 18th of June at 2pm. The gathering will also mark the Acropolis Museum’s 13th anniversary.
In their response to the BCRPM’s FOI request the British Museum went on to say “The State Hermitage Museum is a national museum which forms part of Russian Government administration, and any requests made by its staff in relation to this loan were made in private correspondence to curators at the British Museum, in the reasonable expectation that any such correspondence would remain confidential.
In applying the public interest test to this case, the Museum recognises that there is a public interest in disclosure because of active interest in the Museum’s loans programme, and in this object. However, the Museum takes the view that if it were to release this information at this time, it adds little to public understanding of the relevant issues but could adversely influence diplomatic relations between the UK and Russia.”
BCRPM campaigners were exasperated at the inconsistency between the Museum’s public line, claiming that the loan was purely a cultural exchange between cultural institutions, and that taken by their legal department suggests that this was in fact about real politics.
“While cultural exchange can be an enormous force for peace, what was surely a well-intentioned notion, though hotly contested at the time, now looks like a grotesquely naive failure to steward these hugely important symbols with appropriate care.
It’s shocking that the British Museum will not even come clean about what can only be seen as a great cultural coup for Mr Putin.” Dame Janet Suzman, Chair of BCRPM.
“We at the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles hope that under new leadership the British Museum will take the opportunity to respond with openness and maturity to the peaceful calls for reunification, rather than risking that our shared human heritage be used to burnish the reputations of regimes such as these.
The Acropolis Museum has now been opened to the public for 13 years and has welcomed millions of visitors from all over the globe. There are no reasons left in the British Museum’s armoury to keep this incomparable work of art divided, and mainly between two great museums. The BM is in a unique position to show ethical leadership in tune with the times and the ‘universal’ values that it espouses. It’s time to reunify these sculptures.” Professor Paul Cartledge, Vice-Chair of BCRPM.
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