page_title: Baldin Collection
section_title: Latest disputes, 2003–present
hierarchical_section_title: Baldin Collection / History / Latest disputes, 2003–present
caption_attribution_description: An image of Nikolai Gubenko, the last Minister of Culture of the USSR
context_page_description: The Baldin Collection is a group of 364 masterpieces removed from Germany to the Soviet Union by Soviet Army officer Victor Baldin at the end of World War II. The ensemble consists of 362 drawings and 2 paintings by Dürer, van Gogh, Manet, Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian and other famous artists. Historically part of the collection at the Kunsthalle Bremen, the Baldin group came from a much larger cache of artworks stored by the Germans in a Brandenburg castle to protect it from air raids. In 1945 the castle was occupied by the Red Army and the storage vaults were looted, mainly by Russian soldiers but also by the local German population. The works Baldin took were then hidden at a Soviet Research Institute for many years. In 1991 the collection was moved to the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg where its existence was revealed to the world in 1992. It remains there today.
  Since then the Baldin Collection has been regarded as looted art and is the subject of fierce debate among experts, between Germany and Russia, and among politicians inside Russia itself. While Victor Baldin did steal the works, he is also credited with having saved them from destruction.
context_section_description: The potential return of the collection to Germany began to face increasing opposition from Russian nationalist leaders, including Communist legislator and former Culture Minister of the USSR Nikolai Gubenko. Gubenko had been one of those involved in the 1991 transfer of the art to the Hermitage to hide it. The State Duma, which included Gubenko as a member, passed a non-binding resolution on 12 March 2003 asking President Vladimir Putin to prevent the Culture Ministry from returning the Baldin Collection.
  Russian Culture Minister Mikhail Shvydkoy opposed these moves to keep the collection in Russia; he regarded it as illegal loot based on a 1998 law that protected only those artworks from World War II taken by official Soviet trophy brigades and not private citizens. In 2003 he confirmed an order by the Russian General Prosecutor confirming a resolution of the Hanse Supreme court, which had decided the entire 364 remaining items were the official property of the Bremen Kunsthalle. Shvydkoy and the German Minister of Culture Christina Weiss even signed an agreement that 20 pieces of the Baldin ensemble could remain in Russia. Shvydkoy later received an official reprimand and was threatened by deputy prosecutor Vladimir Kolsenikov with criminal charges if he attempted to return the rest of the collection to Germany. In 2005 Aleksandr Sergeyevich Sokolov, Russia's new Culture Minister, then contradicted previous promises and stated that he opposed the return of the Baldin collection to Germany. As of 2010, it appeared that the collection would not be returning to Germany any time soon.
caption: Nikolai Gubenko in 2005
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