Sydney Goodwill Goodwill is love in action
Where there is Peace, there is Culture.
Where there is Culture, there is Peace.
Nicholas Roerich
There are two opposite tendencies inherent in the human nature. One is to conquer and take over that which is thought to be valuable, or to destroy it if it is seen as a danger. The other tendency is based on the general need to create and preserve beauty and culture, and to strive for knowledge.
So far, the entire human history is, in its essence, the history of an endless battle between destruction and creation, the battle for consciousness, for the objective understanding and memory of history. A destructive consciousness leads to destructive actions, to wars, to lies; creative mentality leads to peace, creativity, and to evolutionary development of the humankind as the bearer of one common human culture.
Historians, philosophers, geniuses of art and science have always understood this, and their ultimate common goals have been creation and preservation of beauty and knowledge, and assisting others in their spiritual growth. They saw enlightenment as the most important means against destructive conquest.
Acts of destruction of the “enemy’s” monuments, religious sites, objects of art, and works of literature, more often than not, happen on purpose, with the aim to eradicate the “enemy’s” history, culture, and beliefs, to purge the traces of their presence, and sometimes even the very fact of the “enemy’s” existence.
But still, our history has its examples of preservation of cultural treasures. In the cities-states of the Ancient Greece any destruction of holy places, such as Olympus, Delos, Delphi, Dodona, was forbidden. Inside their walls all military actions were also forbidden, and the conquered enemies could find asylum there. That is where the tradition of asylum originates. In the same way, in the mediaeval Europe churches and monasteries were not to be deliberately destroyed. And “Agni Purana” of the ancient India calls the armies at war not to destroy temples.
The famous philosopher and a military commander of ancient China, Sun Tzu (VI c. BC), the author of the treaty called The Art of War which is still studied in the military academies of many countries, nevertheless stated as one of the main principles of conducting a war on the foreign territory: Culture prevails, military follows.
Sadly, these ancient traditions not always were accepted in relation to “alien” cultures and religions – only within the boundaries of one’s own mega-culture. It is enough to remember huge destructions during the Crusades. It is much later, beginning with Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), there appears the idea of protection of historical treasures of any country as panhuman treasures. Rousseau’s contemporary, a Swiss international lawyer and a philosopher Emer de Vattel (1714–1767), the author of a classic treaty, The Law of Nations, thus formulated this principle:
The conquering country has a duty to preserve all sites which are the pride of the humankind and do not serve the enemy’s strengthening. Temples, cemeteries, civil edifices, and other works of art, known for their beauty, — where would be the advantage of their destruction? Only an enemy of the humankind can thoughtlessly deprive the humanity of these monuments of art, of these examples of the art mastery.
These two men, Rousseau and de Vattel, were the first to introduce into our system of thinking the clear concept of the difference between military and civil, peaceful objects; of the difference between armies at war and a peaceful, civil population; and the concept of protection of civil population and of sites that serve religion, education, arts, and health care.
Since the end of the XIX century, this principle of protecting culture begins to find expression in various international treaties and conventions, for example, in Brussels Declarations of 1899 and 1907, in Roerich Pact of 1935, and in The Hague Convention of 1954.
The Hague Convention of 1954 on protection of objects of art and culture from vandalism and destruction in times of war as well as of peace is based on the three previous pacts of the same nature: The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and on the Roerich Pact and Banner of Peace that was signed on April 15, 1935 by the USA and the twenty states of both Americas.
Even as early as 1923, before the beginning of the Central-Asian expedition, Roerich was actively promoting the necessity of registration and keeping the constantly renewed list of art collections in the USA and their owners. This request in a broader form was stated in the Pact as a necessity of compiling a catalogue of all world treasures, thus preserving this knowledge for all future generations.
What makes the Roerich Pact different from other similar pacts? First of all, its supranational level, the simplicity and universality of its expression, and its concrete, practical nature. It presents Culture as a circle which embraces and unites all people, all nations, with the three pillars of common civilization on which it rests, these being Art, Science, and Religion (Philosophy). On this foundation Culture stands, and, in its turn, it preserves the foundation itself, and through these three main elements it develops.
Humanity can achieve calm and peaceful existence only through a selfless, generous, and wise attitude to culture as common, without dividing it into my own vs. other. But how difficult it is for people to rid themselves from the ancient instinct of appropriation or destruction of everything alien, strange, dangerous, primitive!
Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947) was one of the most prominent toilers for beauty, culture, and wisdom. For this mission he was born, this was his life-long dream, the moving force of his entire life. He acutely felt in his heart the pain from the destruction of libraries, museums, temples, ancient memorial sites.
Back in 1904, he attempted to present to Tsar Nicholas II the idea of a pact for preservation of culture. Before going to the Tsar, Roerich offered this idea to the St. Petersburg Society of Architects and Artists. He called their attention to the most deplorable conditions of many of old architectural structures in Russia. During his travels and architectural digs on the sites of ancient monasteries and cities, all of them connected with the oldest Russian traditions, Roerich had witnessed tragic and irreversible destructions due to human ignorance, lightmindedness, and neglect.
The Roerich’s project was met with approval, but the war of 1904–1905 put a stop to it.
Later, in 1914, after the destructions of the famous library in Louvain and of the magnificent Reims Cathedral, Roerich went with the same idea to Grand Duke Peter of Russia. Once again, his plan was met with approval, and again a war became an obstacle – this time World War I.
Nevertheless, Roerich did not abandon his idea. The opportunity to continue his labors for culture appeared soon after the Roerich family had moved to the USA. To this peaceful country that had never known any wars except Civil War of 1861–1865, rushed the huge stream of refugees from Europe. Among the refugees were many artists, writers, artistic intelligentsia, and they helped to boost a cultural potential of America.
One of the very first Roerich’s supporters in America was a young journalist Frances Ruth Grant. Without her, such a powerful development and success of the Roerich Pact would hardly have been possible. Her meeting the Roerichs turned out to be fateful for her. Generally, being close to the Roerichs and working with them changed lives and fates of many people.
Frances Grant was born on November 18, 1896 in Abiquiu, a small pueblo in New Mexico, in the American South-West, and died on July 21, 1993 in New York. Her life was a long and unusual one.
It was in November of 1920 that Frances Grant, a young correspondent for the magazine Musical America, was assigned to meet a ship on which arrived a well-known Russian artist Nicholas Roerich, his family, and his collection of paintings for the tour of exhibitions around America. Frances’s assignment was to interview the artist for publication in her magazine.
And thus happened the meeting which changed her entire life and defined her future. The Roerich’s ideas of the role of art, culture, and beauty in human life and history were so close to and in such harmony with Frances’s own spirit that she immediately and with not a shadow of doubt became one of the very first and most active coworkers of the Roerichs.
She gave up her plan to move to Paris as a foreign correspondent, and preferred to work with the Roerichs. As soon as the School (later Institute) of United Arts was established, she became its Executive Director. In 1929, she accepted the position of Director of the publishing department of the Roerich Museum (Roerich Museum Press). She also was in charge of New Syndicate. The purpose of the latter was to provide information necessary for functioning of other cultural organizations created by Nicholas Roerich. Frances published books, booklets, programs of activities; she delivered lectures and radio talks on philosophy and music; she wrote articles, conducted meetings with many cultural figures, with the activists of the women’s movement, with members of women’s clubs. She was extremely active in promoting Latin-American culture and studying Spanish language in New York.
Near the end of the 1920s, Nicholas Roerich sent her on a prolonged trip to Latin-American countries. Her task was to organize exhibitions of his paintings there, and to make the preliminary preparations for promotion of The Roerich Pact and Banner of Peace. The first such trip to South-American republics took place in 1929, the second one, in 1930.
And here it is necessary to clarify some peculiarities of the relationships between the USA and the countries of Central and South America at that time, and also look at the role of the Pan-American Union. Politically, the moment was the best and most timely for promotion of The Pact.
The term “pan americanism” was first coined in 1882 as an expression of the idea of common cultural heritage and history of the population of the Western Hemisphere. The first Pan-American conference took place in 1889 in the USA, but the attitude of the southern neighbors to the pan-americanism under the US leadership was a very skeptical one. The thirty years of the US military intervention and occupation of Latin America and the Caribbean following the Spanish-American war of 1898 were still remembered.
This attitude of distrust began changing in 1929. In the beginning of 1929, the new American President Herbert Hoover went on a ten-week long voyage to visit ten most important countries of Latin America. It was a goodwill tour, offering the political and economic partnership with the USA’s hemispheric neighbors. In the region long used to the arrogance of the United States and their habitual intrusion into the inner life of its neighbors, President Hoover began talking about mutual respect and equality of the nations.
And soon, on March 21st 1929, the newspapers in New York declared that Vice President of the Roerich Museum, Frances Grant, “following in President Hoover’s footsteps,” was going to visit a number of Latin-American countries. Her purpose as the representative of the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York was “to help the Pan American friendship” through establishing contacts with museums, educational organizations, and libraries. According to the newspapers, Frances was given this mission by Nicholas Roerich with whom she had recently visited in India.
This was the beginning of the Peace through Culture movement, the movement for the Roerich Pact and Banner of Peace.
The Pan-American Union was the secretariat of the Union of American Republics, and was operated first from the U.S Department of State, and later from the new Pan-American Union building on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. The Pan-American Union was presented as an international organization of 21 republics of the Western hemisphere, with the purpose of developments of mutual understanding, commerce, and peace between them.
The members of the Pan-American Union were Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Costa-Rica, Cuba, Mexica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Salvador, the USA, Uruguay, Chile, and Ecuador.
Following her first trip of 1929 to the Latin-American countries, Frances Grant dedicated a significant part of her energy and time to the development of culture, education, and democracy of this region. She lectured in practically all the main universities in the USA and of the South-American republics; she was the first one to establish the cultural exchange between the U.S. and the Latin-American countries, organizing art exhibitions, musical programs, open forums. Frances knew the importance of spreading the Spanish language in the USA, and assisted in its studying and popularity through her work with schools, universities, women’s organizations, and through her publications and radio talks.
In 1930 she had founded PAWA (Pan American Women Association), first under the umbrella of the Roerich Museum, and after the loss of the Museum, she continued running PAWA as a separate association. She did it until her death in 1993. During the Roerich Museum time, all Frances’s work was done in the continuous contact and under guidance of Nicholas Roerich. Their correspondence never stopped, and the personal meetings and discussion of work with Nicholas Roerich and his son George during their visits to America in 1929 and 1934 were of especial importance.
In 1930, Frances went on her second trip to South America, this time to accompany exhibitions of Nicholas Roerich’s paintings. Using her personal wealth and connections, she built the road for the Roerich Pact. Thirty-nine of Roerich’s paintings were shown in many countries and cities of South America as a Pan-American traveling exhibition, and everywhere Frances Grant delivered talks and lectures on Roerich, his ideas on the Pact and Banner of Peace, and on the vital importance of preservation of culture. And everywhere, following the exhibitions and Frances Grant’s presentations, the Roerich associations and societies appeared, and all of them worked with the center in New York.
In the early 1930s the Roerich Pact acquired a new supporter, a political heavy-weight. This was the then Secretary of Agriculture (later, Vice-President in the Roosevelt administration) Henry Agard Wallace (1888–1965). Due to his correspondence with Roerich and his personal contacts with Frances Grant, Wallace became not only a supporter of the Pact but also a follower of the Roerich’s spiritual ideas. Wallace was unusually strong and persistent in “pushing” the Pact through all governmental structures where there was a considerable mistrust and opposition. Thanks to Wallace, finally President Roosevelt himself not only accepted but highly praised the idea of the Pact.
Under the influence of the ideas of Roerich and the Pact, Henry Wallace wrote and published in 1934 a very interesting book. It was titled New Frontiers, had the Banner of Peace symbol on its title page, and spoke, among other things, about a huge potential that America had for achieving a true civilization, stability, and peace. Wallace wrote: “We can create our new world, if it exists in ourselves…This new world cannot be found on any map. Its discoverers do not have to cross oceans. Some people see it as the mind-set. To find this new world, pure hearts and persistency are needed. What we are approaching is not a new continent but a new state of heart and mind, the result of which will be the new measures of achievement. We have to discover, build, and put into action new, balanced social mechanisms.”
Working closely with Wallace, Frances Grant prepared the acceptance of the Pact. There were several conferences and conventions for promoting the Pact. One of them (the Third convention) gathered in November 1933 in Washington, D.C. Thirty-six countries were represented, and Director General of the Pan American Union declared it to be the most successful of all Washington conventions ever.
The Seventh conference of the Pan-American Union in Montevideo in December 1933 unanimously voted for the acceptance of the Roerich Pact, and invited representatives of the republics in the North, Central, and South Americas to sign the Pact.
These efforts were part of the politics started by President Hoover in 1929. In March 1933 President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, declared the “Good Neighbor Policy” based on a friendly attitude of the USA towards their hemispheric neighbors, on the principles of economic cooperation and nonintervention into their inner affairs, on the idea of the common interests of all counties of the Americas, and on bringing them closer together.
On October 21, 1934 President Roosevelt commanded Henry Wallace to sign the Roerich Pact as the representative of the USA. As Wallace said, the history of the Roerich Pact closely resembled that of the Red Cross. It took sixteen years of efforts to accept the Red Cross. But, as Nicholas Roerich wrote, whereas the Red Cross helps the physically sick and wounded, the Roerich Pact helps to preserve the spiritual health of nations by protecting treasures of the human genius.
It was not by accident that the White House had chosen April 15, 1935 as the date of signing the Pact. The Day of the Pan-American Union was traditionally celebrated on April 14th, and the Roerich Pact at the time of its acceptance was, in fact, a regional pact. In parallel to the “Good Neighbor” policy in economy and diplomacy, the Pact offered a social and cultural program based on the idea of personal and national dignity of the Latin-American states, and on the principles of respect toward them from their more technically and economically developed hemispheric neighbors.
Later, the Pact revealed its broader meaning, inherently built into it by its creator but not immediately clear during the first stage of its realization. It is the panhuman idea of the necessity of preserving culture always and everywhere, unrelated to geography and political regimes, because only culture and mutual respect make us human and not the enemy of humankind.
There is also something else that makes the Pact and Banner of Peace different from all previous pacts, treaties, and conventions. It is the Pact’s visual representation: a simple, ancient symbol, known to people of all religions and cultures; this symbol penetrates human hearts and minds better and deeper than any formulas. It immediately creates a link to its verbal expression which, too, is simple, easily understood, and deep.
Nothing passes without a trace. During the last decade, the movement “Peace through Culture” has grown, and the ideas of the Roerich Pact and Banner of Peace have come back from decades of forgetfulness, especially in the countries of South America. New centers of Bandera de La Paz, new groups and societies appear, their members work together and meet at the conferences in Brazil, Argentina, Chile. In fact, the Banner of Peace flies in the Pope’s home church in Argentina. In Mexico, the Banner of Peace was given to the mayors of practically all cities. His Holiness the Dalai Lama accepted the Banner as the symbol of The Year of Tibet declared by the United Nations some years ago. The symbol of the Banner of Peace is becoming more and more recognizable and familiar, and even people unaware of its rich history call it “the symbol of peace.”
Acknowledgement:
Title Painting: St. Sophia – the Almighty’s Wisdom (1932) by Nicholas Roerich sourced from www.wikiart.org
Co-Authors: Aida Tulskaya (former employee and Board Member of the Nicholas Roerich Museum) and Dot Maver (educator and peacebuilder, co-founder of the Global Silent Minute, Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace, National Peace Academy USA, River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding and Seven Ray Institute, and former Board Member of the Nicholas Roerich Museum).
Article written in October 2015, New York
