Russia deploys ‘cultural diplomacy’ to heal with France
PARIS — A Russian art collection replete with modernist masterpieces by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso opened Saturday in Paris, heralded in every major French newspaper and television station. Tickets to the unprecedented exhibition are hot commodities, billed as future collectors’ items.
Called “cultural diplomacy” or “soft power,” the blockbuster show was just one half of the major Russian cultural initiatives that debuted in Paris last week, seeking to burnish Moscow’s reputation abroad as a year dedicated to “cultural tourism” has been overshadowed by political disputes.
Across town, a culture center featuring a massive Russian Orthodox cathedral — whose prominent golden domes now compete with the nearby Eiffel Tower — opened on the banks of the Seine on Wednesday after considerable wrangling with city government.
In France, at least, the timing is seen as significant, as relations between Paris and Moscow have reached historic lows after Francois Hollande criticized Russian interventions in the Syrian city of Aleppo as a “war crime” earlier this month. In response, Vladimir Putin subsequently canceled the Paris trip during which he would have christened the church and the exposition.
But the cathedral stands, and the exhibit is the talk of the town.
“Icons of Modern Art” displays 130 masterpieces from the collection of Sergei Shchukin, a wealthy Russian textile magnate who, on frequent visits to Paris in the late 19th century, began to purchase canvases by risque painters whose work was shunned by critics.
The recent collapse in political relations between France and Russia had not affected preparations for “Icons of Modern Art,” said Marina Loshak, director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, which lent works from its collection for the show.
Anne Baldassari, who curated “Icons of Modern Art,” said Mr. Putin may still visit before it closes in February.
The “cultural diplomacy” came as other news dominated the international headlines. In scenes that haven’t been common since the end of the Cold War, Russian warships sailed through the English Channel over the weekend in a theatrical display of Russian military might.
Several nuclear accords with the U.S. were recently unplugged. At the same time, U.S. officials and lawmakers say that Russia appears to be moving ahead with a program to produce a ground-launched cruise missile despite the Obama administration’s protests that the weapon violates a landmark arms control agreement.
And elsewhere in Europe, the reach of Russia keeps inching forward into Georgia with ingenious markings — including barbed wire laid at night, the sudden appearance of green signs declaring the start of a “state border” and elsewhere the arrival of bulldozers — of a frontier that only Russia and three other states recognize as real.