Russian Museum Director Facing Trial on Charges of Inciting Religious Hatred

MOSCOW—Yuri V. Samodurov, director of the Andrei Sakharov Museum in Moscow, has been subpoenaed on charges of inciting religious hatred, the New York Times reports. Samodurov, who helped organize an exhibition of previously censored Soviet and post-Soviet art, "Forbidden Art — 2006," faces a hearing today for displaying semi-pornographic works in the show, some of which mock the Russian Orthodox Church.

Samodurov and others say that the exhibition was meant as a protest against the censorship that the art world has faced ever since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000. Several of the works in the show had been previously banned from appearing in a major exhibition of Russian work in Paris by Russia's culture minister, as well as from an exhibition at the second Moscow Bienniale of Contemporary Art.

In January 2003, Samodurov organized a show that took a critical look at the Orthodox Church entitled "Caution, Religion!" A group of men raided the show and defaced many of the works.