‘The defences of culture’

Abstract

The General Conference of Unesco at its twenty-second session (October-November 1983) adopted a resolution which recognized that 1985 ‘marks the fortieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, the most devastating and bloody of all wars, that cost the lives of over fifty million human beings and annihilated untold riches brought into being by the labour of many generations’. The resolution called upon Member States to commemorate this anniversary and recommended that Unesco take part in the commemoration as well. Museum is happy to be associated with this initiative, thanks to the contributions of two distinguished Soviet colleagues, Irina Antonova and Boris Piotrovsky. These two articles take us back graphically to those years of reconstruction and hope, when profound shock at the damage suffered by the cultural heritage moved whole nations to rebuild their shattered cities and the international community to define Unesco's first international normative instrument in the cultural field. Adopted at The Hague on 14 May 1954, the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict marked the culmination of twentieth-century efforts to safeguard unique historic or artistic treasures from the ravages of war. The Convention sets out in great detail the specific problems raised by the protection of the cultural heritage and lays down practical measures to solve them. Yet it has been acceded to or accepted by only seventy-three states. Wars and acts of military aggression continue to impoverish the collective memory of humanity, destroying masterpieces of its creative genius and laying waste to the ancient fabric of its cities, as the destructive power of military technology daily assumes more awesome proportions. So this year's commemoration must also serve as a sobering reminder of the very considerable efforts still needed to be made, an uphill struggle to ‘build in the minds of men the defences of culture’ as Dr Manfred Lachs, Judge at the International Court of Justice, The Hague, has paraphrased the famous sentence in the Preamble to Unesco's Constitution (‘That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed’). He was delivering an address at Unesco Headquarters on 14 May 1984, at a ceremony held on the thirtieth anniversary of the Hague Convention. An extract from his address is reproduced below.