Who is going to Save Palmyra?

It is reported that the army and the militia retreated after evacuating the residents in order not to keep fighting in the historic Palmyra...
 
Mikhail Piotrovsky: If this is true and the army retreated to prevent the monuments of ancient civilization from dying, it is reassuring. This is what Roerich said in his famous Roerich Pact, this is for what Dmitry Likhachev fought developing the Declaration of the Rights of Culture. It is about removing the cultural monuments from the scope of battles. I would say that these monuments of the Middle East are not a code for any particular civilization; they are a cultural code for all mankind.
 
Like many ancient monuments, Palmyra became worldwide famous in the XVIII century. This is a spectacular example of how the interest of European historians and archaeologists has made the city an object of desire for collectors of antiquities. A couple of centuries later, these collectors would be perceived as robbers who had to return everything back. This is a very important lesson: the city became interesting as a result of scientific research.
 
At the beginning of the XIX century, the Russian government bought the famous Palmyrian Tariff from the Turkish authorities. This large stone stele with inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic on the taxes levied on citizens, customs duties and prices of basic commodities is one of the most remarkable monuments of ancient history, which is located at the Hermitage. We can now see quite well that those monuments appear intact and are distributed among the different world museums: some ancient monuments are in the British Museum, some – in the Louvre...
 
Palmyra is now being captured by terrorists who perceive these monuments as mere idols that must be destroyed. They do not read the text of culture – culture represents something hostile for them, as does a whole civilization.
 
Mikhail Piotrovsky: They probably do not read the text of ancient culture, but they sure read the text of modern culture which is entirely based on sensation. They understand perfectly well that for the world culture this is not just the destruction of the idols, but a strong shock. This is why the destruction of monuments is generally staged by them as theatrical as the killing of hostages. They read the modern media culture code and use it.
 
Does it mean that the destruction of monuments becomes the same terrorist media project as cutting off the heads of the hostages?
 
Mikhail Piotrovsky: Absolutely, they want to make us shocked. On the one hand, they claim that they protect their religious feelings. On the other hand, it will cause a powerful media shock. They speak the language of modern media brilliantly.
 
Prepared by Zhanna Vasilieva

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