Az előadás angolul hangzott el.

                             Muscovite Diplomacy with the States of the Orient

In my paper I endavoured to give a brief outline of the diplomacy of Muscovite Russia with the states of the Orient in the period 1480-1680. During these two hundred years Muscovy, a local power of Eastern Europe became a huge Eurasian great power. Moscow’s success, in addition to its undisputed military power, was in no small measure due to its sensible diplomacy. In the official institution of Muscovite diplomacy, in the Posol’skii prikaz, documents, by the tens of thousands, were produced, preserved and handed down to posterity. This invaluable archival material, only a small part of which has hitherto been published, still yields innuberable data for writing and rewriting history of Russia and the adjacent states, among others those of the Orient. It is therefore an eminent task of Russian and international research, present and coming generations as well, to go on with publishing this material and make at least a part of it accessible to scholarly research.

Az előadás angolul hangzott el.

Following the Threads: The Preservation, Restoration, and Identification of Muscovite Art Needlework

Art needlework, in both ornamental and iconographic (litsevoe) form, flourished in Muscovite Rus’. As in the medieval West, needlework was seen as a branch of the fine arts rather than being relegated to minor arts or arts and crafts, as has more generally been the case in modern times. The surviving Muscovite examples are almost exclusively the products of specialized workshops associated with the Kremlin, with monastic institutions, and with household ateliers headed by elite women from such prominent families as the Staritskie and Stroganovs. They used iconographic needlework primarily in producing items for ceremonial church use, but artistic needlework also found widespread application in military banners, ceremonial trappings for horses, elegant collars for the tsars, decorative bands for elaborate court costumes, and iconostases for use at home and on the road. 
Muscovite needlework became a focus of scholarly study in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries as part of the larger process of renewed interest in Russian national culture that led to the rediscovery of icons and Muscovite architecture, support for Russian handicraft industries, and more general national self-consciousness. Newly-established museums often included textiles in their exhibits, and private enthusiasts collected them. Those trying to study early needlework carefully, however, frequently encountered limitations on access to items in church and monastic sacristies. Despite the difficulties, the first publications dealing with early needlework appeared.   With a few exceptions these were descriptive accounts, not efforts to assess needlework within the context of early Russian culture, but they contributed to gaining wider acceptance for needlework as an art form worthy of study.
After the Bolshevik Revolution there was a nationalization of church, monastic, and private collections. One strain of revolutionary thought focused on the need to preserve the national heritage for the edification of the public. Specialists working with the Museum Sector of the Commissariat of Enlightenment and with Grabar’s Central Restoration Workshops laid the foundations for scientific study of needlework, established fundamental principles for preservation and exhibition of textiles, determined acceptable methodologies, began the process of attribution, and undertook a series of major restoration projects. Publications from the 1920s also provide detailed analysis of early needlework techniques, preserving knowledge of practices that had been handed down from one generation of stitchers to another and that would have been lost without these studies, as another post-Revolutionary outlook gained ascendancy.
Not all of the leadership saw preservation, restoration, and educational programs as the best contribution the national cultural heritage could make to the emerging new Soviet world. To some the wealth of art represented a source of much-needed cash. At the same time, the valuable items belonging to the church became a target of ideological as well as financial attack. The confiscation of church valuables began in the spring of 1922 and continued for eighteen months. The giant sweep picked up silver and gold plate, icons and their embellished covers, vestments and altar cloths decorated with gold and silver threads and pearls.   In general religious objects were not seen as having great sale potential; the discussion centered on whether they were historically important enough for a museum collection or should be melted down. Stalin’s “revolution from above” marked the triumph of the second approach. From the late 1920s into the 1930s many restoration and preservation specialists lost their jobs, often in connection with the “class origins” campaign, and the less fortunate were sent to the camps. Those remaining did their best, but soon the upheavals of World War II led to further losses.
In the post-war decades restorers took up the work where it had broken off. New preservation techniques were developed and adopted. Museum textiles belong to the monuments of art most fragile and sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity, ultraviolet rays, and pollution, and they are extremely vulnerable to biological destruction (from mold, bacteria, insects). Currently the task of the restorer is seen as preventing further destruction, delaying the natural aging process, and removing the damage done by use. Thus each item needs careful individual scrutiny to select techniques suited to its fiber, amount of deterioration, the type of dye used, the nature of the visible dirt and damage. Many masterpieces have been restored and exhibited, increasing public appreciation for the stitcher’s art. New techniques have also resulted in the “undoing” of some of the efforts of earlier restorers. The most fascinating aspect of recent studies has been the work of the “thread detectives,” specialists who have combined their knowledge of art history, technique, and materials with examination of historical sources to determine the attribution of needlework masterpieces, often works whose provenance was lost and whose original appearance was significantly altered by subsequent “renewals” over the centuries.
Study of Russian art needlework has also found a focus outside of Russia, yet another consequence of the upheavals of war and revolution. In the 1920s needlework was often stripped of its pearls and precious stones, and then burned to recover the metal content of the thread. But in an ironic twist the selling off of the national heritage in the 1930s resulted in the preservation of textiles that otherwise might have been lost, since art needlework was among the items offered for sale to foreigners at the commission shops.  The Hillwood Museum in Washington, D.C., houses the collection begun by Mrs. Marjorie Post, subsequently expanded by the donation of Madame Rosso’s collection and later additions. The St. Louis Art Museum has a collection of Russian ecclesiastical embroidery purchased in Ukraine. And a part of N. L. Shabel’skaia’s enormous collection eventually found a home at the Brooklyn Art Museum. Foreign shores thus offered protection in the 1940s that Russia could not, and Russian art needlework in the United States is now beginning to receive serious study.