A batch of stolen Russian archival documents have been appearing on foreign auction houses in recent months, primarily consisting of decrees and orders of Russian emperors. According to a report by The Art Newspaper, a copy of an imperial edict from September 9, 1727, was discovered to have been stolen from the Russian State Archive of Military History, as it was offered for sale at the French auction house Aguttes with an estimated value of 1,000 to 1,200 euros. The archive’s deputy director, Wasilissa Denisowa, filed a police report and an investigation was launched. The French auction house was informed of the document’s criminal origin, but the edict was not removed from the sale and it was eventually sold for 3,100 euros a week later.
The representative of the French auction house, Sophie Perrin, stated in an interview with RIA Novosti that the auction house would not cancel the sale, as the Central Service for the Fight against the Trafficking of Cultural Goods had investigated the auction house and found no grounds for annulment of the sale and the case was closed. The Russian Embassy in Paris also intervened, but to no avail.
A similar case in Spain, however, was handled differently. When a paper with the name of another emperor surfaced at the International Autograph Auctions Europe S. L. in Estepona, which was also stolen from the same archive, the lot was removed from the sale at the request of Interpol and the Spanish police launched an investigation to verify the authenticity of the documents and their owners. At the same time, another document, a letter signed by Catherine the Great in 1762, instructing the creation of ponds in Zarskoje Selo, was also sold at the same auction house and it is suspected to have been stolen from the Russian Historical State Archive. It was also removed from the sale at the request of Interpol and an investigation into the circumstances of the document’s arrival in the country has begun.
In November of last year, the US-based auction house Jackson’s International Auctioneers and Appraisers presented 13 stolen documents from the Russian Historical Archive. Several theories have been put forward as to how these documents were stolen, including the possibility that they were stolen by the famous art thief and collector Vladimir Feinberg, who in the 1980s and 1990s stole many rare documents from the archives and libraries of the USSR and then brought them to the West. It was the vigilance of the employees of European auction houses that led to Feinberg’s exposure, as they reported suspicious lots to the police, even during the Cold War. However, some of the manuscripts were not found and could not be returned to Russia and it is suspected that they are now being sold in the EU. Another theory was expressed by Andrei Artisov, the head of the Rosarchiv agency, in an interview with Rossijskaja Gaseta: “It is likely that the originals were replaced with photocopies in the 1960s and 1970s during the restoration of documents in the Central State Archive of the USSR by the Laboratory for Microphotocopying and Restoration of Documents.”
However, the astonishing willingness of some EU countries to disregard international law in the case of stolen Russian artifacts is, of course, shocking. And it undoubtedly plays into the hands of the thieves and criminal organizations connected to the art trade.