Explore the Vandalism and controversies of this artwork.
On 16 January 1913, Ivan the Terrible and his Son Ivan on 16 November 1581 was slashed three times with a knife by a 29-year-old iconoclast, son of the furniture maker Abram Balachov. The curator of the Tretyakov gallery Georgy Khruslov, learning of the vandalism of the canvas, threw himself under a train. The painting was restored almost to its original state with the help of Repin.Some Russian nationalists continue to protest the painting's exhibition because they believe it was painted as part of a foreign smear campaign and that the scene depicted is inaccurate.In October 2013, a group of Orthodox historians and activists, led by Vassili Boiko-Veliki, an apologist and supporter of the canonization of Tsar Ivan, addressed the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky to ask him to remove the canvas from the Tretyakov Gallery on the grounds it offends the patriotic feelings of Russians. The director of the Tretyakov Gallery Irina Lebedeva formally opposed the request.In May 2018, the canvas was again attacked in the Tretyakov Gallery by a drunken visitor who broke its protective glass with a metal bar. The painting suffered serious damage; it was pierced in three places in the central part of the work, which depicts the figure of the tsarevich. The gallery said the frame was also badly damaged but that "by a happy coincidence" the most precious elements of the painting, the depiction of the figures' faces and hands, were not damaged. According to some Russian media, the vandal said he had attacked the painting because he thought the depiction was inaccurate. The attacker was imprisoned for two-and-a-half years.
Russian Georgy Khruslov Vladimir Medinsky iconoclast Tretyakov Gallery ru Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Irina Lebedeva Vassili Boiko-Veliki Abram Balachov Ivan the Terrible Russia