MOSCOW, Feb. 2 The Finnish Athenaeum Art Museum has changed the nationality of artist Ilya Repin from Russian to Ukrainian, relying on a church document about the birthplace of his parents, said its communications director with the public Anna Kari.
Finnish media previously reported that the Russian painter Repin, who was born in the city of Chuguev in the Kharkov province of the Russian Empire, is now presented in the Athenaeum as a “Ukrainian.” According to the public broadcaster Yle, Ukrainian activists demanded that the museum change the artist’s nationality.
“We again considered this issue in connection with the organization of the exhibition “A Question of Time” in the spring of 2023. As a result of the consideration, we decided to correct the information about Repin’s nationality from Russian to Ukrainian. As a source, we used a church document, from which it followed that his father and grandfather Repin were born on the territory of modern Ukraine,” Kari said.
By organizing an exhibition featuring one work by the artist, the Athenaeum followed the example of other international museums that have made the same changes to Repin's nationality — the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery in London, the press service clarifies.
Earlier, the Russian Embassy in Finland stated that the museum’s decision to consider Repin a Ukrainian is contrary to common sense and is a Russophobic and opportunistic action in the spirit of “cancel Russian culture.”
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