Original version

BBC World Service South Asia

Witness History

Podcasts

Factual: Life Stories

Factual: History

History as told by the people who were there

History as told by the people who were there.

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

Witness History: The museum of banned Russian art

Documentaries

russian art cropped.jpg

25/05/2022 GMT

The museum of banned Russian art

BBC World Service - Witness History, The museum of banned Russian art

How Igor Savitsky saved thousands of works from Stalin's censors, and started a museum

The story of Igor Savitsky who saved tens of thousands of works of art from Stalin's censors, and created one of the greatest collections of avant-garde art in the world.

In 1966, a Russian painter and archaeologist, Igor Savitsky, created a museum in the remote desert of Uzbekistan, where he stored tens of thousands of works of art that he had saved from Stalin's censors. The Savitsky museum, in Nukus, is now recognised as one of the greatest collections of Russian avant-garde art in the world. In 2016, Louise Hidalgo spoke to the son and grandson of one of the artists, Alexander Volkov, whose work Savitsky saved. 

(Photo:the Karakalpak Museum of Art, home of the Savitsky art collection. Credit: Chip HIRES/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Witness History

The museum of banned Russian art

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service South Asia

About BBC World Service