The museum said on Monday that the National Gallery of London has renamed “Ballerinas of Ukraine” a painting by impressionist Edgar Degas, hitherto known as “Russian Ballerinas.”

The agency told AFP it was “updating the title of the painting to better reflect the theme of the artwork.”

The painting by the French painter (1834-1917), now titled “Ukrainian Ballerinas”, shows ballerinas with blue and yellow bands in their hair, the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

“It’s almost certain that the dancers were Ukrainian, not Russian,” the museum’s website said.

“Since Russia started the war in Ukraine, I think this business and the ballerinas are not, and never have been, Russians,” wrote Tanya Kolotusha, a Ukrainian, London resident, on Instagram, and demanded the museum change. name. from wood.

“The Russians have captured many elements of Ukrainian culture,” he said. The National Gallery said it changed the name of the piece the next day.

“It is important to save and correctly identify our cultural heritage,” Kolotusha told AFP on Monday. He denounced the current invasion as “an attack on culture”.

In an article published in the German newspaper Der Spiegel at the end of March, Olesya Khromeychuk, director of the Ukrainian Institute in London, also highlighted the position of culture in the war in Ukraine.

“He has one of the largest armies in the world, but he also uses other weapons. Culture and history play a dominant role in his arsenal,” said Vladimir Putin.

“Every step taken, for example, from galleries or museums in London, where USSR art and films are displayed, exposes deliberately false or simply lazy interpretations that present the region as an eternal Russia as the current Russian president would like to see it,” he added.