The exhibition “The Roerich Pact. History and Modernity” will be opened in the Bonn City Museum on April 14. The same exhibition will get started in the lobby of the Delegates Entrance of the UN General Assembly in New York. This day the exhibition “Peace through Culture” will be opened in the Museum named after Nicholas Roerich of the International Centre of the Roerichs in Moscow. The exhibitions are dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Roerich Pact, World War II 70th anniversary, 70 years of the USSR victory in the Great Patriotic War and 70th jubilee of the UN.

Representatives of the 21 countries signed the “Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Monuments” on April 15, 1935 in Washington. It is the first and last international agreement at this point directed at the absolute safeguard of all objects of cultural heritage in times of peace and armed conflicts. By virtue of the treaty not merely the cultural objects but also working staff come under its protection. This treaty was named as the Roerich Pact in the honor of its initiator and inspirer, a great Russian artist, thinker, traveler and public figure, Nicholas Roerich.

The distinctive flag of the Roerich Pact to denote objects to be protected is the Banner of Peace - three red spheres surrounded by a circle on a white banner of the flag proposed by Nicholas Roerich. The author of this symbol said that it is a symbol of past, present and future, enclosed in the ring of eternity as well as the synthesis of science, art and religion in the circle of culture.

The Roerich Pact gave an impulse to create an international system of humanitarian law on the protection of the world cultural heritage and elaboration of its fundamental mechanisms that serve as guidance for the UNESCO activity. The Roerich Pact laid the ground for signing of the 1954 Hague Convention and its two protocols on the protection of cultural heritage in time of armed conflicts.

The exhibitions “The Roerich Pact. History and Modernity” in New York and Bonn are held within the frameworks of the self-named international exhibition project of the International Centre of the Roerichs and International Roerichs’ Heritage Preservation Committee. The exposition includes documents, narrating about the history of the Roerich Pact and its relevance today, reproductions of Nicholas Roerich’s paintings consecrated to the necessity of preservation of cultural heritage as well as photos capturing the demolition of cultural monuments in the past and nowadays and other documents.

The purpose of the Roerich Pact is Peace through Culture. This Nicholas Roerich’s appeal that was originally made in the 30’s of the last century is now relevant in the same manner as it was before starting of the World War II, when the Roerich Pact was suggested for signing.

The exhibition “Peace through Culture” will be openned in the Museum named after Nicholas Roerich of the International Centre of the Roerichs on April 15. The exposition will include documents that reflect the striving of mankind for peace, from the first Peace conferences in The Hague (1899 и 1907) to the UN recent decisions.

The ongoing armed conflicts in Europe, Asia and Africa provide strong evidence of the fact that political and economic mechanisms cannot any longer be the reliable guarantee for preservation of peace on our planet. Nicholas Roerich stated that “All dream of peace, lasting peace. It will never come through international policing. It will never be established through threats and prohibitions. It may originate in human heart, but the latter can be filled with trust only through Culture. Peace through Culture is our perennial motto.”

The exhibition in the UN Headquarters in New York is organized with the support of Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations. Sponsors of the exhibition are companies “Protobase Laboratories” (www.Protobase.ru), “CapitalBe” (www.capitalbe.co.uk) and “Transaero Airlines” Ltd (www.transaero.ru).

The exhibition in Bonn is organized by the International Centre of the Roerichs jointly with the German Roerich Society of Remscheid city (Germany.)

Additional information is available at:
Telephone/fax +(499) 271-34-23
E-mail: roerich@icr.su