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The Manifesto of Vyoshenskaya was Discussed in the Kremlin

The director of the National M.A.Sholokhov Museum-Reserve A.M. Sholokhov took part in the session of the Presidential Council for Culture and Arts of Russia, which took place on September, 25, in Moscow.

Alexander Mikhailovich Sholokhov was appointed a member of the Council for Culture and Arts by the Presidential Decree of 19.09.2012, No 1309. The main task of the Council is to develop proposals for the definition of priorities of the state policy in the field of culture and art, and measures for its implementation, examination of bills for culture and arts and informing the President of Russia on the situation in the field.

At the meeting of the Presidential Council for Culture and Arts a very important issue – preservation of the moral core of the nation – was discussed. The President reminded, that the national culture “to a major extent has ensured the prestige and influence of Russia in the world, has helped her become a great power.” However together with the obvious achievements in the development of culture the society is frequently confronted with the “cultural poverty”.

The members of the meeting spoke about serious problems in the field of culture and art, about the loss of moral values, without which any nation loses identity and a rightful place in the world culture.

A.M. Sholokhov in his speech quoted N.Berdyaev, who prophetically pointed out that “the will of the people is not the will of the human generation…It is the will of the historical whole, the will of all the historical generations, not only living, but also dead, it includes  historical legends and traditions”, and he underlined: ”Based on this understanding and attitude, the most important task today is updating of our cultural heritage by managing it, educating the heirs, whom we are to pass the heritage, because often we do not see, who are the heirs of our heritage, and transferring of our richest thousand-year experience”.

Speaking about the cultural tourism development A.M. Sholokhov noted it to be the most popular method of the  cultural heritage assimilation at present, and the youth tourism, sightseeing, volunteer tourism require special attention. There is an urgent need in the State support of tourist trips and excursions for the younger generation. ”Without a single national system of heritage promotion, information, navigation, without an active support of infrastructure development this area will continue to languish.”

Another proposal of A.M.Sholokhov concerning upbringing and education was to make Literature and History in school as compulsory subjects as Mathematics and Russian Language, to retrieve writing compositions and oral exams in the Humanities.

In order to promote both the cultural heritage objects and the events associated with them, A.M.Sholokhov made a proposal to introduce a government order to the mass media. ”When every May Vyoshenskaya (think for a moment) with the population of 10 thousand people is visited by nearly 5 thousand performers and 100 thousand spectators for the literary folk festival, each time I am pursued by the obsession: can’t the broadcast of such an event be unable to attract enough viewers to support the rating of the central channels? But when I ask this question, I am answered: how much will you pay us to show this?”

V.V.Putin supported the proposal about the state order to promote socially significant projects and cultural heritage objects through electronic media, Federal channels. “You are quite right. Moreover, I think there is no need in additional money, because these national channels have got rather good, major financial support by the Federation, by the budget, because they enjoy significant benefits including those from the signal distribution. That is why a more active work in this aspect must be done with them. We shall try to do this. You are right.”

The President of the Union of the Museums of Russia, director of the State Hermitage M.B.Piotrovsky, told about the meeting of the museum-workers in Vyoshenskaya, where, in particular, the results of the meeting with the Russian President in Saratov and the fulfillment of the order given to them were discussed. The meeting adopted resolutions on various areas of the work and on the Vyoshensky Manifesto. M.B.Piotrovsky said: ”It begins with such bitter words: ”Today we face a real possibility of disappearance of museums, their dissipation in “disneylands” with mythical business plans. It ends with more general words:  “Culture, with museums being its important part, is a quality criterion of the nation.” And this criterion, unfortunately, is not all right.”

V.V.Putin, on reading the Vyoshensky Manifsto, completely agreed with the statement, that “the approach to the cultural institutions must be quite different from that to other very important and necessary activities in the humanitarian spheres such as health care and education. A specific character of the cultural institutions is evident, and it must be taken into consideration”. The head of the government proposed to work out in the documents to be adopted following the meeting a set of measures for preserving the integrity and indivisibility of the museum fund of Russia and historical and cultural territories, protection of cultural and historical urban and natural landscapes, establishing of the museum infrastructure, collecting and investigation museum work.

The President informed, that in October, the Ministry of Culture was to give a report to the Government about the condition of the cultural heritage objects of the peoples of Russia. The document must contain all existing problems and proposals for their solutions.” The document will be open for a wide public discussion. 

Olga Bakhtiyarova

Transcript AM Sholokhov at the meeting of the Council for Culture and Arts under the President of Russia September 25, 2012