On the Issue of Non-Fatal Loss of Artistic Values on the Example of Nikolai Milioti’s Works

Abstract

The article introduces one of the episodes in the life of Nikolai Dmitryevich Milioti (1874—1962), an artist and active participant in art exhibitions of the early 20th century. N.D. Milioti left Soviet Russia in 1921 and remained an emigrant until the end of his life. This circumstance largely explains the fact that his life and work are still poorly studied, including the episode described in this article. The study of Nikolai Milioti’s diary entries and correspondence, stored in different archives, allows us to reconstruct some stages of the artist’s life. Specifically, this publication highlights his participation in the Baltic Exhibition of 1914, after which some of his works “stuck” in the Art Museum of the city of Malmö. Usually, researchers who write on this topic are interested in the fate of that exhibition’s works by Valentin Serov, Alexander Golovin, Vasily Kandinsky, Pavel Kuznetsov, Konstantin Korovin, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Nicholas Roerich, and others. Nevertheless, the name Milioti was then among the artists who would eventually be recognized as the luminaries of Russian art, for his role in the artistic life of that time was considerable as well. The article describes the problem of loss of the artistic values that have not been destroyed or stolen, are not completely disappeared, but are lost, most likely, irretrievably. This problem is still relevant today. As an example, there is offed the history of paintings by Nikolai Milioti, which, along with other Russian artists’ works, were sent to the international Baltic Exhibition in Malmö (Sweden) in 1914, but never returned to Russia. Over the years, attempts have been made to return the works to Russia, but even today, the circumstances indicate that the probability of their return is almost zero.