Hermitage

The word Hermitage is French, borrowed by Peter the Great to signify a place of repose, away from all formality, like the hermit who lives in his secluded cave, in his hermitage. Many Russian Imperial Palaces have an hermitage but not all are museum, some are simple quiet pavilion where the Tsar could have a meal with close personal friends like the one at Peterhof, away from courtiers and Court Minister and obligations.

I have just finished reading a wonderful book on the history of the Hermitage museum in St-Petersburg.  The book is entitled The Hermitage, the biography of a great museum by Geraldine Norman published by Pimlico, Random House, 386 pages.  The book was written with the help of the current director of    the museum Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky the son of the past director Boris Borisovich Piotrovsky.

Norman did a lot of research into the history of the Hermitage and its development from a private museum belonging to the Imperial Family and its evolution through the ages. She also devotes a large part of the book to the Hermitage under Communism and what happened to the staff of that great museum after the revolution of 1917, their work, their struggles during the 900 days of Siege of St-Petersburg by the Nazi army. Their struggles with the NKVD and the KGB, all arbitrarily arrested, others disappeared in the prisons of Stalin during the purges. All to be rehabilitated in 1956, innocent of any crime, many it was discovered had been summarily shot or sent for years to the Soviet concentration camps in Siberia, the Gulag, sometimes for no other reason than the family name was suspicious.

A fascinating history, how the collections survived revolution and war, a modern day miracle really, this due to the Ermitazniki, the staff devoted to the point of dying to protect their collections, like Yakov Smirnov who died of hunger in the winter of 1942 during the siege of the city preferring to continue to work at the museum despite the lack of food and all other necessities, lunacy or devotion.

I wish I had read this book prior to my visit to the Hermitage, though now I can recall what I saw like the magnificent painting of The Prodigal Son by Rembrandt, painted in 1663.  

   The collection today in the Hermitage is very different of what it was in 1917 at the start of the Revolution. Quickly after the overthrow of the monarchy, the Hermitage became the store house of all the treasures and art collections of the different aristocratic families whose palaces had been confiscated. A vast treasure trove of numerous rare and precious objects.  Then the Communist faced with a difficult cash shortage decided to sell many paintings and diverse other collections between 1924-28 for quick cash often not understanding what they were selling and at bargain prices. The Hermitage was also forced by the authorities to share with museums in Moscow its collections. Then in 1945 the Hermitage was the recipient of stolen art or war booty the Soviet Army brought back to the USSR from all over Europe. Throughout all this turmoil the museum staff and its director fought a desperate fight against the often uneducated and ignorant Commissars of the regime to protect their valuable collections, saving the most important objects from the commercial venture. Many, for their opposition to the ''sell all'' orders were arrested and persecuted as was the case of one director of the Hermitage, Sergey Troinitsky who even after his return from the Gulag was denied housing and died in appalling poverty in Moscow.

Today it remains a breathtaking experience to visit this grand museum. Not to forget that the Hermitage was built in various phases, the Old, the New and the Grand Hermitage as the Tsars accumulated treasures for their personal pleasure and prestige, attached in various wings of the fabled Winter Palace. Today the palace is part of the museum, the two intertwine.  Though faced with such magnificent display one can only wonder about life under the Tsar before all the tragic unhappiness of Communism, the death of millions, the difficult years. Norman concludes that the Russian people have a deep affection, love and understanding of culture so much that it would have been unthinkable even under Lenin and Stalin to get rid of these art treasures and palaces which represent so much of the Russian national history and soul.