Проблема возвращения скульптур Парфенона в политическом дискурсе современной Греции

Новая и новейшая история. 2025. Т. 69. № 5. С. 240–252.

Александрова А. К.

The return (restitution, repatriation) of cultural heritage objects to the countries/places of origin is one of the central issues in the contemporary museum practice. This problem is inextricably linked with the process of the museum space decolonization, since it largely concerns objects taken to Europe during the colonial period. Greece has never been a colony, but the Parthenon sculptures, removed from the Acropolis in the early 19th century by the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Lord Elgin and stored in the British Museum, are still seen as a subject of similar colonialist exploitation. The article examines the Parthenon sculptures dispute in the political discourse of contemporary Greece. Although the ownership of the Parthenon sculptures has been a subject of dispute between Greece and Great Britain for two centuries, an active campaign for the return of the sculptures to Athens was only launched in the 1980s, and relative progress in resolving this issue has begun since 2019, when the K. Mitsotakis’ government came to power in Greece. The most significant results so far are the following: 1) recognition by UNESCO that the case has an intergovernmental nature and does not concern only the British Museum, and the initiation of relevant negotiations; 2) return of the Parthenon sculptures fragments from the other European museums; 3) public opinion in the UK, Greece and at the international level largely supporting the return of the Parthenon sculptures to the Acropolis, and active discussion of this topic in a public space, including the media.

Keywords: ЮНЕСКО, UNESCO, the British Museum, Британский музей, Parthenon sculptures, Greek-British relations, restitution of museum valuables, Acropolis Museum, K. Mitsotakis, скульптуры Парфенона, греко-британские отношения, реституция музейных ценностей, Музей Акрополя, К. Мицотакис

Publication based on the results of: From Antiquity to Modernity: Epistemology of the Development of Spiritual and Material Cultures in Non-Western Societies (2025)