Maria Zakharova, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, described the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which lists painters Ilya Repin and Ivan Aivazovsky as Ukrainian artists, as anti-scientific approach. He was quoted DEA News.
Zakharova suggested that the move could be political. “We’ve now seen how the world’s largest museum engages in anti-science activities: It’s not just substitution, forgery, error or politicization. This is an anti-science activity,” she shared.
The representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that the artists repeatedly called themselves Russian. “Apparently they added something to this concept. Or will we take the right from them, as always, in order to preserve the memory and truth of the departed people? he thinks.
He also compared these actions of the museum to crimes worse than tampering. “This, in this case, is not simply a falsification that conforms to the Western line of eradicating Russian culture. This is outright fraud and sabotage – that’s what law enforcement should do, ”the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry concluded.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York attribution of Ilya Repin and Ivan Aivazovsky to Ukrainian artists, recognized previously. On the museum’s website, the title of Aivazovsky’s painting “Ship in the Moonlight” states that its author is Ukrainian. A similar nationality of the author is indicated on the page by Repin’s painting “Portrait of Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin”.