05.10 Russia's Culture Minister Says Landmark Painting Won't Be Purged
MOSCOW, October 5 (RIA Novosti) Russia's Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky said Saturday that he treated as a joke a radical Orthodox Christian activists demands to remove a painting of Ivan the Terrible from one of Russias main art galleries.
Kremlin-linked dairy magnate known for his radical Orthodox views, Vasily Boiko-Veliky made a lengthy appeal describing 19th century Russian painter Ilya Repins work Ivan the Terrible Killing His Son as slanderous and unpatriotic earlier this week. He insisted that it is a smear on the nations reputation and urged the culture minister, among others, to remove the painting from Moscows Tretyakov Gallery.
Medinsky, the culture minister, reacted only on Saturday by saying that he considered such statements with irony and doesn't plan to follow them.
I dare to hope that the authors who signed that letter, that they joked, Medinsky said during a Saturday news TV show on Rossia television channel. But frankly speaking, there are bad jokes, he added.
Mainstream accounts of Russian history have it that the notoriously ruthless 16th century monarch did, in fact, kill his son in a fit of intemperate rage, but Boiko-Veliky insists the tsar was in fact an upstanding and landmark historical figure.
In his comment, Medinsky noted that it was the case when the historic fact and artists work should be viewed separately. Although, he added that most likely didnt kill his son but there is no evidence to prove it.
Repins painting is considered a landmark of Russian realist art and features in most textbooks on Russian history, which have traditionally depicted Ivan the Terrible as a cruel tyrant.
Boiko-Veliky, 54, has gained media exposure by combining his business pursuits with hardline Christian activism. In 2010, he ordered all employees in relationships to conduct church weddings or face dismissal.
