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Russian artists, and writers as well, had a
hard time winning recognition and taking their rightful place in society. In
Peter's time, as had been the case before him, painters were treated as
craftsmen, and sometimes as simple servants or worse - kept all their lives as
serfs if they happened to have been born such. Each time Peter went abroad, the
idea of establishing an academy came again to his mind. He had almost decided
to do this after his visit to Paris in 1717 when he met several French
scholars. Later they elected him a member of the Paris Academy. When Peter
founded his Academy of Science in 1725, in the statutes dealing with art,
painters were considered as equal to engravers, carpenters, turners, millers
and practitioners of all sort of similar jobs that at that time were classified
as belonging to "The arts." When in 1975 the Soviets celebrated the
250th anniversary of the Academy; Marx, Engels and many others who had nothing
to do with it were praised or mentioned, but not its founder. In their speeches
and articles Soviet academicians competed with party leaders to praise the
communist achievements.
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