E-Paper
Russian house clears return of Hungarian books
The Federation Council's vote came only several days after the bill had been approved by the lower house, the State Duma. The legislation now requires President Vladimir Putin's signature to take effect.
The upper house of Russian parliament on Wednesday endorsed a bill authorizing the return of a trove of rare books that victorious Soviet troops carried out of Hungary at the end of World War II.
The Federation Council's vote came only several days after the bill had been approved by the lower house, the State Duma. The legislation now requires President Vladimir Putin's signature to take effect.
Hungary has long demanded the return of the books, which were originally in a Calvinist religious college library in the eastern Hungarian town of Sarospatak. They were held during the war in a Budapest bank vault and seized by Soviet troops in 1945. The books have been stored in a library in the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod. Viktor Shudegov, the chairman of the Federation Council's committee for science and culture, said that the Russian public had shown no interest in the collection and emphasized its "historic, spiritual and cultural value" for Hungary. The library is just one of a vast number of so-called trophy art pieces Soviet troops confiscated from the Nazis and their allies. Germany and other countries have also pressed for the return of artworks, books and other cultural treasures they argue were taken illegally.
Russian officials said last year the nation held nearly 250,000 art objects, more than 260,000 archive files and 1.25 million books and publications.
A Russian law distinguishes between illegal trophies -- taken without a military commander's sanction -- and those Moscow sees as a rightful compensation for the 27 million Soviet lives lost, 100 museums destroyed and hundreds of cities ravaged during the conflict it calls the Great Patriotic War.
