Crimea digs: Hermitage archaeologist detained
Alexander Butyagin, a archaeologist at the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, has been detained in Poland at the request of Ukraine, which now plans to seek his extradition. Butyagin has led excavations in Crimea since 1999, but as Ukraine has not granted permits for such work since the Russian occupation in 2014, it regards the excavations as the partial destruction of cultural heritage sites.
Ivory tower no bulwark against politics
In a Facebook post, anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova accuses Butyagin of a naivety typical of academics:
“Many of my excellent colleagues in Russia live in an ivory tower. They are convinced that one should devote oneself to one's life's work and keep away from politics. Then, they believe, politics will spare them. ... Butyagin is an excellent historian who (without any irony) unearthed his life's work in Crimea. The objects he found remained, incidentally, in Crimea. He refused to abandon his life's work – and many of my colleagues living in their ivory towers would have acted in the same way. ... Butyagin knew about the investigation against him, but he believed in the impenetrability of the ivory tower's walls.”
Russian scientists worried this could set a precedent
In a Facebook post, the Ukrainian military analyst Aleksey Kopytko explains why Russia's academic community is upset:
“Butyagin has not only got himself into trouble, but also all those in a similar situation – namely those who have either been in the occupied territories or taken part in official projects that could be interpreted as supporting the war of aggression or the occupation. ... This means that because of Butyagin, the European authorities will now in all likelihood find it easier to expel, deny entry to, or even extradite to Ukraine people who were previously considered practically untouchable – 'people from science and culture' and 'representatives of creative professions'. ... Hence all the wailing about being 'apolitical' now.”