Political Dimension of Heritage Preservation in Russia: Case of Moscow Movement Arkhnadzor

During the last decade cultural issues are being discussed in the Russian public sphere and have become the inherent part of the political agenda both at federal and regional levels. Heritage preservation is an element of cultural policy at large. This article answers two questions. Is there political dimension of heritage preservation? What could be the precondition of politization/depolitization in the field of heritage preservation? In order to answer both questions the author analyzes norms of international law in the field of heritage preservation and also he traced the evolution of the terms heritage and heritage site. Additionally, author analyzes activities of Moscow heritage movement Arkhnadzor as an attempt to find out the political dimension of it. In this paper the issues of heritage conservation were analyzed through the lens of political science and advocacy theory which makes this research new and specific.