Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Naryshkin meets SPK President Parzinger at the end of the Year of the Cross
Press release from 07/02/2013
As part of his visit to Berlin to mark the end of the cross year Russia Year in Germany / Germany Year in Russia, the Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Sergey E. Naryshkin, in his capacity as Chairman of the Russian Historical Society, visited the President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation Hermann Parzinger today. Both emphasised the good cooperation between Russian and German museum colleagues. They also expressed the hope that joint projects that promote international understanding and advance international research can also be realised in the future.
In this context, Hermann Parzinger said: "I would like to thank my Russian colleagues for their constructive and trusting co-operation and their gratifying openness in preparing the joint exhibitions. We have researched important epochs of our common history and made them accessible to a broad public. The collaboration was characterised by great collegiality and transparency. This is a good basis for further cooperation."
The Director of the State Historical Museum in Moscow, Alexey Levykin, and the Director of the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Chubaryan, as well as the President of the German Historical Museum Foundation (Berlin), Alexander Koch, also took part in the talks. They discussed the plans for events in Germany and Russia to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War next year and the possibilities for cooperation on this topic. In addition, the wish was expressed to utilise the successfully established German-Russian network of specialist colleagues in longer-term joint projects. Parzinger explained: "I would like to thank Mr Naryshkin for his visit, which is a good starting point for further scientific and cultural cooperation in the future."
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and its National Museums in Berlin have realised three exhibitions as part of the Year of the Cross: The exhibition "Bronze Age - Europe without Borders" opened on 21 June 2013 in the presence of Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. It will be on display there until 8 September and will be shown at the State Historical Museum in Moscow from 15 October 2013 to 13 January 2014. The exhibition "Russians & Germans. 1000 Years of Art, History and Culture" was organised under the patronage of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Joachim Gauck, and the Russian President, Vladimir V. Putin. It was on display from 6 October 2012 to 13 January 2013 at the Neues Museum on Berlin's Museum Island, where it attracted around 160,000 visitors, and before that (21 June - 25 August 2013) at the State Historical Museum in Moscow. "Russians & Germans" was developed by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the State Historical Museum in Moscow and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation under the auspices of the Museum of Prehistory and Early History of the National Museums in Berlin. The exhibition "Call for an Alternative" with works by Joseph Beuys was also one of the central events of the Year of Germany in Russia 2012/2013 and was the first exhibition in Russia to present the work of this important German artist of the 20th century so comprehensively. The Moscow Museum of Modern Art organised the exhibition in cooperation with the National Gallery of the National Museums in Berlin and the Goethe-Institut.