Moreover, they were persecuted from within the writers' profession. That was only the beginning and soon afterwards the persecutors themselves became victims of the system, and the State, which had tested the intelligentsia for lice, so to speak, was satisfied with the experiment and continued with its prosecution of the so-called "Leningrad affair," etc.
History has a habit of repeating itself. We have already seen the tragedy. Do we have to wait for the farce?
What do those responsible for cleaning up the stained uniforms want: average guy middle managers heading up a huge corporation which combines world-scale treasure troves and super-modern technologies? Or, perhaps, it is more acceptable to have an art historian in civilian clothes? No doubt it would be possible to find a decent and convenient candidate for director of the State Hermitage. But Piotrovsky occupies a place not only in the museum itself, but also in Russian cultural space. And no order from on high can deprive him of that place.
