Spoils of War v. Cultural Heritage: The Russian Cultural Property Law in Historical Context is sponsored by Harvard Law School Arts & Literature Law Society;
Commission for Art Recovery; Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University; Foundation for International Cultural Diplomacy; Harvard Law School European Law Research Center, Feb. 8-9, 2008, at Harvard.
After WWII, Soviet authorities, seeking reparations for the extensive costs of Nazi aggression, used special “Trophy Brigades” to empty museums, castles, and salt mines in Germany and Eastern Europe, transporting millions of cultural treasures to the USSR. These included German state-owned cultural objects, cultural objects taken from churches and synagogues, as well as a great deal of private property that had been looted by the Germans from individuals. The art works taken back to the Soviet Union were held in relative secrecy for years, until the final years of glastnost (??????????). As European countries started to demand their cultural treasures and archives, Russian legislators passed a law that potentially nationalizes all cultural treasures brought to Russia at the end of World War II. In 1999 the Constitutional Court issued an opinion basically upholding the law. How do these actions comport with international law? What are the chances for restitution of these displaced cultural valuables?
