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Culture at the Petersburg Dialogue under the direction of Hermann Parzinger
Press release from 03/19/2010
Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, will be the new Co-Chairman of the Culture Working Group of the Petersburg Dialogue together with Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. He was elected to this office as the successor to Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, President of the Goethe-Institut, at a steering committee meeting of the Petersburg Dialogue in February. This week he met with Piotrovsky at the bilateral steering committee meeting in Berlin for preparatory talks for the 10th Petersburg Dialogue, which will take place under the umbrella theme "Germans and Russians in the Next Decade" from 13 to 15 July 2010 as part of the German-Russian intergovernmental consultations in Ekaterinburg.
Hermann Parzinger says: "In the coming years, we will continue to devote all our energy to the further development of the historically grown and friendship-based relations between Russia and Germany, and the Culture Working Group will make a significant contribution to this with new projects in the areas of film, exhibitions and the preservation of cultural heritage. In addition, the commitment of the Petersburg Dialogue as a non-governmental organisation should have a greater public impact than ever before."
The Petersburg Dialogue is a German-Russian dialogue forum under the patronage of the current heads of government of both countries, which has been meeting once a year in Russia and Germany alternately since 2001. The focus is on promoting understanding between the two nations, deepening cooperation in all areas of society, counteracting prejudices in the perception of the other country and giving new impetus to German-Russian relations.
Parzinger is also the spokesman for the "German-Russian Museum Dialogue", which was founded in 2005 in Berlin by over 80 German museums in order to intensify cooperation between German and Russian museums and also to discuss the many unresolved questions on the subject of looted art at a professional level. The German-Russian Museum Dialogue has initiated research projects to investigate the fate of these cultural assets. Further activities are being planned to address the loss of Russian cultural property during the Second World War.
Hermann Parzinger is held in high esteem in the Russian Federation. On 4 November 2009, President Medvedev presented him with the "Order of Friendship of the Russian Federation" at a ceremony in the Kremlin. Parzinger received this highest Russian honour for foreign citizens for his outstanding scientific achievements and his multifaceted commitment to scientific and cultural relations between the two countries, which has taken him to Russia regularly for 15 years. He is an honorary doctor and holder of the Silver Medal of Honour of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an honorary doctor of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and holder of the Medal of Honour of the Republic of Tuva. As an archaeologist, the Leibniz Prize winner has long been dedicated to researching the Eurasian cultural sphere. In the exhibition "Under the Sign of the Golden Griffin. Royal Tombs of the Scythians", he presented the results of his excavations in 2007/2008. The monographic publication of his research on the princely tomb of Arzhan in Tuva in southern Siberia was recently published.
