
Interior staircase at the Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York. Photo: M. Mobengo, March 2026
A conversation with the Curator of the Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York
MURIELLE MOBENGO:
DMITRY POPOV, You are a curator from Russia, living and working in New York; a translator who brought the Brahma Sutra and the Bhagavad Gita from Sanskrit into Russian; a collector of contemporary Native American art rooted in ancient tradition; a writer who illustrates his own stories.
Revue Révolution’s inquiry, inspired by Yogic philosophy, has long centered on the possibility of reuniting East and West, tradition and contemporary expression, the steward and the creator. Discovering your work at the Nicholas Roerich Museum, I felt I was encountering that possibility made flesh.
This synthesis of roles—curator, philosopher, translator, writer, artist—is itself a kind of Roerich legacy in motion. Before we speak of the museum, may I ask: how did this path reveal itself to you? Was it a conscious effort to integrate these seemingly separate vocations, or did they simply refuse to remain separate?
DMITRY POPOV:
When it comes to choosing my life path—creative or professional—I have never made strictly deliberate decisions or tried to follow a logically constructed plan. I have simply followed what life offered me, in accordance with the call of my heart. By some remarkable stroke of fortune, these different paths and professions gradually wove themselves into a single fabric, where everything turned out to be connected with everything else.
The ability to work diligently when necessary, and to wait patiently when necessary, did not come at once.
In my youth, I passionately tried to write prose and poetry. But when I saw the poverty of what came from my pen, I abandoned the effort in deep disappointment, convinced that I lacked talent. Yet after living for more than half a century—after gathering a vast store of knowledge, thoughts, and feelings within the soul—I suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, discovered the ability to write novels, short stories, and poetry.
As soon as I graduated from university, I went directly to my favorite museum and asked for a job. I was turned down, and life took me elsewhere. But fifteen years later, that same museum offered me a position. I accepted, with all the consequences of becoming a curator.
In high school, I was deeply interested in books, though I never imagined it as a profession. Then one day a man approached me with a proposal for partnership. He had financial means and managerial skill; he needed someone with knowledge and creative potential. Together, we formed a wonderful team and published an excellent library of books on the spiritual culture of humanity for Russian-language readers.
As a young researcher of Nicholas Roerich’s legacy, I met and became friends with the director of the Nicholas Roerich Museum. As soon as the Iron Curtain fell between East and West, I was invited to visit. The moment I arrived, I felt at home—but I said nothing, because by then I had already learned the value of patience. Twenty years later, I was invited to become its curator, and I accepted without hesitation.
In my own experience, life gives us certain abilities and inner inclinations first, but not always the opportunities to realize them immediately. It becomes our art to sense where effort is required, and where waiting is required—whether for a decade or more. Yet it is precisely through this complex creative process that we discover the happiness of true self-realization.
Growing the Silent Oasis
I visit the Nicholas Roerich Museum often. In a city of relentless pace and noise, it is an oasis of beauty, silence, and depth—the kind of place New Yorkers are proud to claim, yet secretly wish to keep for themselves. It is welcoming, warm, rich in contemplation and inspiring stories, and utterly unlike the monumental institutions a few blocks away.
What does it take, day after day, to preserve that quality? Not only the paintings and archives, but the atmosphere itself—the feeling that one has stepped out of time and into a realm where the spirit can breathe. What does a day in your life at the Roerich Museum actually look like? Not the official portrait, but the quieter one: the hidden hours, the decisions, the encounters with objects and texts that no one sees.
Dmitry Popov:
Yes, once again you have touched upon the mysteries that unfold within cultural institutions and within the hearts of those who work in them. This is true of museum curators, publishing editors, and many others. Visitors and readers see only the final result. Some often feel that things somehow happen as they should, almost by themselves, and that the curator or editor is simply the one who allows the process to unfold and, at best, does not interfere with it too much.
Another reaction I often witness comes from the worker who helps us carry out changes in the collection. His commentary is almost ceremonial in its repetition:
“Well, you’ve redone it again. Last time you said it was good. Now you say it is good again. Later you will change it once more anyway…”
He delivers this each time with complete sincerity and the bewilderment of a man confronting one of the eternal mysteries. Why improve what was already good? Why does “finished” never remain finished? In his own way, he asks one of the deepest curatorial questions.
And yet we see the results of our labor in the thoughts and feelings expressed by visitors. Through them, we know our efforts have not been in vain. I always try to learn whether people notice our work, and it turns out they notice everything: changes in the structure and internal logic of the exhibition, the appearance of new works and interpretive materials, redesigned interiors, a new lighting system. None of it is wasted. That is what warms our hearts and souls.
Any practical result visible to the public is only the tip of the iceberg, supported by a far greater mass of work hidden beneath the surface.
How does this process unfold in daily life? Where does it begin, what sustains it, how does it take form? Frankly, for me it remains a kind of mystery—a living mystery.
It is inseparable from constant and careful study of the subject; from unceasing reflection; from meditative contemplation of the whole body of material; from testing ideas through practical combinations—something akin to Hermann Hesse’s Glass Bead Game—and from the discoveries, or recognitions of error, that follow. For me, it is a continuous flow with no clear boundaries or fixed rules.
A thought may trouble me before sleep, and then, while taking a shower the next morning, a possible answer suddenly appears. During the day, I test that solution—or set it aside for further reflection.
In the morning, the mind is open: to new information, new searches, new ideas. What exactly will arrive? Who can know in advance? And that is wonderful. Otherwise, life would become routine.
New information, reflection, hypotheses, verification, conclusions. New tasks, familiar actions, the torments of creativity, hopes, failures, happy discoveries.
All of it is woven into a mysterious enigma. I have tried to describe it to you, though I fear I have done so imperfectly.
Inner Voyage to Native America

Drawing of the Artist himself at the center of a maze. The Native American “Man in the Maze” archetype, found in basketry and Hopi silverwork, represents the journey of life, its choices and decisions. Usually in black and white, the spiral, a universal archetypal shape symbolizes what’s known and unknown, reunited in a single experience that culminates in knowledge. More on the subject in Revue R’s Myth in Motion Factsheet [link]
You also collect contemporary Native American art. I have long admired Haida art, particularly the totemic works at the American Museum of Natural History: the ovoid forms, the intimate dialogue between spirit, human, and animal, the modernity of ancient shapes, and a people who integrated art so deeply into collective identity that it became inseparable from life itself. I find resonances there with certain deeply spiritual art forms in India, from Kalamkari to Kerala mural painting.
What first drew you—intuitively and personally—to this tradition? On the surface, it seems far removed from your Russian heritage and from the Indo-Tibetan world associated with Roerich. Yet there appears to be a pattern here: Roerich drawn to the Himalayas, Blavatsky to Tibet, yourself to Native America. It suggests something deeper—a search for the “other” that expands the self and refines perception, with the East perhaps acting as a mediating and unifying force.
Dmitry Popov:
Oh, it is both simple and profound.
As a child, like many boys and girls in Russia—and indeed throughout Europe since the late nineteenth century—I was fascinated by the world of Native Americans. Everything drew me in: the wilderness, geography, flora and fauna, and above all the way of life of peoples who seemed an organic part of nature itself.
At first, I read with equal enthusiasm about North and South America and their Indigenous peoples; about Africa and its many cultures; about Siberia and its peoples, linked in distant ways through Chukotka and Alaska. But in time, my particular interest settled on North America as a distinct macro-cultural world.
Several factors likely shaped this. One was the extraordinary abundance of material preserved in American and Canadian scholarship and literature. Another was the remarkable diversity of Indigenous lifeways, cultures, and artistic forms across the continent.
Perhaps it also mattered that Russia, like England, France, and Spain, once had historical ties there, and I was naturally curious to explore the story of Russian America more deeply.
In addition, the cultural relationship between Asia and America is undoubtedly far deeper and more complex than we yet understand. One need only think of the important research produced over the last quarter-century on resonances between Navajo spiritual culture and Tibetan Buddhism.
As for Nicholas Roerich, he followed a path very close to my own heart: a deep interest in the cultures of the Stone Age and their archaeology; in the small peoples of Northern Russia and Siberia; in the affinities between Mongolia and the American Southwest; and finally, in Native America as a kind of Farthest East.
And I believe you are quite right to suggest that the Indo-Tibetan East has served as a unifying spiritual force for humanity. Homo sapiens, as a biological species, emerged from Africa, while from the great crossroads of Hindustan and Central Asia countless threads—less biological than cultural—have extended across much of the planet.
We are not speaking merely of love for nature, but of the perception of oneself as part of nature itself.
—Dmitry Popov, Curator & Collection Manager of the Nicholas Roerich Museum
On Collecting, Living With, and Sharing the Work
You mention that the Roerich Museum itself organized some of the earliest exhibitions of Pueblo and Navajo artists in New York. Is your own collection accessible to the public, or do you envision it becoming so? And how do you curate it personally—as a scholar, as a collector, as someone who has clearly lived with these works?
Dmitry Popov:
Yes, returning to Native American art itself, I must admit that what has fascinated me since youth—in both traditional and contemporary poetry, and in visual art old and new—is its inseparable organic connection with nature.
Nicholas Roerich often repeated a phrase, attributed to the ancient Maya, which he deeply loved:
“You who will appear here in the future! If your mind understands, you will ask: Who are we? Ask the dawn, ask the forest, ask the wave, ask the storm, ask love. Ask the earth—the earth of suffering and the beloved earth. Who are we? We are the earth.”
This expresses something essential. We are not speaking merely of love for nature, but of the perception of oneself as part of nature itself—like mountains and plains, forests and rivers, plants, animals, clouds, and winds.
Upon arriving in Santa Fe, Roerich immediately met Edgar Lee Hewett, one of the great figures of ethnology, archaeology, and museum work in the American Southwest. From their first meeting, they were united by a shared love of wilderness, archaeology, so-called primitive cultures, the visual arts, museum work, and religious-philosophical inquiry.
Professor Hewett was also among the first to take Native American artists from San Ildefonso Pueblo and other New Mexican pueblos seriously. He supported them as a collector and patron, and later as a researcher and critic. This naturally touched Roerich, who instructed the directors of his New York institutions first to organize an exhibition of Pueblo artists from Hewett’s collection, and later to begin building one of their own.
My first acquisitions, by a curious turn of fate, were also made in Indian pueblos. At first, I simply bought works that I loved. But my passion for research quickly led me toward a deeper study of Native American artistic traditions, and of the schools, movements, and styles of twentieth-century Native art that grew from them.
From there came the desire to collect works representing these many currents. That systematic approach became the principal driving force of my work in this field.
As a museum curator, I naturally began creating a carefully conceived exhibition on the walls of my own apartment: the Southwest (Pueblo, Navajo), Northern Woodlands (Ojibwe, Cree, Iroquois), Great Plains (Sioux, Cheyenne), Southern Woodlands (Cherokee, Creek), Northwest Coast (Gitxsan, Coast Salish, Haida)…
Of course, I wanted to share this joy with others. Small exhibitions began to appear—independent displays within larger art exhibitions. People responded with thoughts, emotions, and reflections, and this only deepened my enthusiasm.
Gradually, a small private museum with a permanent display and internal storage took shape in my own home.
Preparing to move to New York raised a question: should all of this return to the homeland of the artists? I came to feel that the collection—around one hundred works—could be divided in two, each half still representing Native American art as a whole. I offered one part to an art museum in Russia, while keeping the other close to my heart.
Fortunately, the offer was accepted by the State Museum-Institute of the Roerich Family, and the transfer took place. I sincerely hope that, in time, this small but lovingly assembled collection will find its way to the public.
And so, in New York, my new museum became an apartment on the Upper West Side. For now, only family and guests can see its treasures, while the storerooms await future opportunities.
My most recent major acquisition was a group of paintings and drawings purchased at an exhibition of works by students from Native American art schools in Phoenix. In my view, they added another important and necessary element to the collection.
As for the history of Native American exhibitions at the old Roerich Museum, this year marks exactly one hundred years since the first of them. For that reason, we have decided to organize a June exhibition bringing together Roerich’s own works dedicated to Native America and works by Native artists from my collection.
For me, the opportunity to share these treasures with others is a joy that repays all the effort.
True happiness—still existing only in my dreams—would be the chance to help create a small but vibrant museum of Native American art here in New York. For now, it lives only in the inner space of the self. But there, it is very real, and an important part of my personal world.
True happiness would be the chance to help create a small but vibrant museum of Native American art here in New York.
—D. Popov
Ordo Ab Chao
A Grand Game of the Mind
You trained in mathematics at Moscow State University. There is a widespread assumption that the mathematical mind and the contemplative mind are opposites. Yet you went on to translate the Brahma Sutra into Russian—a text of radical metaphysical abstraction born of deep introspection—and found your way to the Nicholas Roerich Museum.
Was there, for you, a hidden kinship between these disciplines? Did mathematics—with its pursuit of pure logic and its rigorous construction of possible worlds—prepare you for Advaita Vedanta’s vision of a unified substrate beneath all phenomena?
Dmitry Popov:
Mathematics attracted me from childhood as a grand game of the mind governed by absolute logic. It fascinated me immensely.
As for the contrast between mathematical and contemplative approaches, there is truth in it. But I have never understood why one must choose between them, rather than use both opposites as complementary methods.
On the one hand, mathematics demands the strictest logic. On the other, it is not confined to the ordinary reality of our world. In mathematics, everything that can be logically constructed from elementary assumptions—axioms—possesses its own kind of reality.
Thus, parallel lines may never meet, or they may meet at an infinitely distant point. Mathematics moves easily among transcendental numbers, infinitely large and infinitely small quantities, endlessly branching processes, and spaces of many dimensions.
I was especially drawn to analytic geometry and topology. Their worlds contain innumerable forms, spaces, and dimensions. I also loved mathematical logic, which sometimes turns thought itself into its own object of play.
Let us also remember that contemplation has not been entirely absent from mathematics. In mathematical logic, for example, one finds intuitionism, where such questions come very close.
For that reason, mathematics merged quite naturally in my mind with Vedanta and Yoga during my university years. The result of that union has remained with me throughout my life.
More broadly, I believe—and practical experience has confirmed it—that in youth people are often not yet ready to choose their definitive path. A serious education in one of the fundamental sciences, such as mathematics, can offer an excellent foundation while keeping many future paths open.
Harmony, Synthesis & The Non-Dual Gaze

The Banner of Peace, created by Nicholas Roerich in 1930, became the emblem of the Roerich Pact, the first international treaty dedicated to the protection of cultural heritage. Courtesy of the Nicholas Roerich Museum ©
In your 2019 interview for the Russian Art Gallery Journal, you described Roerich’s art as “epic realism” and his worldview as a “synthesis of the spiritual culture of humankind.” You also noted that his career unfolded outside the turbulent mainstream of twentieth-century art.
In 2023, Revue Révolution published a dossier on the disappearance of the polymath. We traced the decline of integrative intelligence from antiquity through the Renaissance and into the modern era, where figures like Roerich became exceptions rather than norms.
What, in your view, nourished Roerich’s polymathy? Was it the ferment of the Russian Silver Age, his own introspective temperament, or something else?
Dmitry Popov:
I believe your intuition about the Russian Silver Age is entirely correct.
In Russia during the first quarter of the twentieth century—and later in the Russian diaspora throughout much of the century—we encounter a striking cultural phenomenon: an exceptionally broad and universal vision of the world, a holistic and often mystical perception of life, and a desire to synthesize the most diverse traditions of humanity.
This impulse found expression above all in poetry, the visual arts, and philosophy. Many of these figures sought parallel realization in science, literature, essay writing, philosophy, and art.
A number of them drew deeply from the legacy of Helena Blavatsky, who attempted to bring into a single current of thought the wisdom of India and Tibet, Jewish Kabbalah, the insights of the Hellenistic Neoplatonists, and elements of European mysticism and esotericism.
They were also inspired by her call for a synthesis of natural science, religion, and philosophy. To this, they boldly added poetry and the visual arts.
Roerich became perhaps the most brilliant and successful expression of this tendency.
Here I would also like to mention a figure still little known in the West: Daniil Andreev, son of the writer Leonid Andreev, a close friend of Roerich.
This last poet of the Silver Age, while enduring harsh prison conditions for his dissent, conceived an immense spiritual vision: the Rose of the World, a future universal religion embracing the traditions of the past and grounded in a deeper trans-myth of humanity.
For years he composed this work inwardly, holding it in memory. After his release, near the end of his life, he succeeded in writing it down. The book survives, offering many readers profound inner insights.
The Non-Dual Gaze
Our 2026 issue is titled The Non-Dual Gaze. For us, the phrase describes a curatorial methodology: the effort to perceive unity beneath diversity, to recognize that differences are not divisions but expressions within a larger field of relation.
In your experience, can such a gaze be cultivated through art—and perhaps through poetry? Can a curator develop it through discipline, or is it a grace granted only to rare temperaments? And if it can be taught, what might such a pedagogy look like?
Dmitry Popov:
I do not believe that the philosophy of oneness can be instilled through art—or through any external activity. It can only be realized through deep contemplation, which we also call meditation.
It is no coincidence that this tradition appears in different forms among many peoples of the world: in India and Tibet through Hindu and Buddhist yoga; in the Far East through Chan and Zen; in the Americas through the contemplative practices of Native peoples.
It is within this process that the mystery of inner transformation takes place.
There is no place in it for rigid predetermined goals or imposed attitudes, which often become obstacles. This is why gurus, masters, and medicine men alike insist on the importance of openness.
Perhaps only one thing may be brought into contemplation: a question that truly lives within you, and to which you sincerely seek an answer.
It is also vital to abandon the fatal division between so-called objective reality, treated as fully real, and subjective reality, dismissed as illusion. In my experience, these two dimensions are deeply intertwined and mutually dependent.
Ancient humanity understood this intuitively and drew upon it in daily life. Later, dogmatic religious systems often constrained consciousness within rigid formulations. Then the rise of the positive sciences brought extraordinary knowledge of the external world, while the riches of the inner world remained in the care of mystics, poets, and artists.
It may be time to reunite these two halves of human reality within an indivisible and equal unity.
Agni Yoga and the Roerichologist

You once described yourself, looking back, as a “novice Roerichologist.” I was struck by the term. It suggests not merely an admirer or a scholar, but someone on a path of study, transformation, and realization.
Nicholas and Helena Roerich also developed a spiritual discipline known as Agni Yoga—the yoga of fire. Fire is not only the element of transformation and purification, but also of vision: the force that burns through obstruction and illuminates what was hidden.
How did you become a Roerichologist in this deeper sense? Is it a matter of study, of practice, or of both? And what place does Agni Yoga—its teachings, disciplines, and worldview—hold in your understanding of Roerich’s legacy?
Dmitry Popov:
Yes, you are right—this is a very interesting question: how the paths of the follower, the student, and the critical researcher come together within one person.
I encountered Roerich’s legacy during my university years, at a time when I had not yet acquired any real scholarly method. I was simply astonished by the horizons of creative and spiritual understanding that opened before me.
Naturally, I became a devoted follower of this master. I immersed myself in his fairy tales, parables, stories, essays, paintings, and spiritual writings. At the same time, I began studying the sources that had inspired him: the foundations of Vedanta and Yoga, and the works of Helena Blavatsky, Swami Vivekananda, and Rabindranath Tagore.
But soon, my university training and my critical instincts awakened another impulse: the desire to research the life of Nicholas Roerich, and to study his literary, artistic, and spiritual legacy with greater rigor.
In time, these two paths—the path of the follower and the path of the researcher—merged within me into an indivisible unity.
Today, I cannot imagine one without the other.
Only the path of critical and unbiased inquiry allows us to uncover a great wealth of factual truth, nuance, and historical understanding. Yet only the path of the sympathetic seeker allows us to enter the inner essence of a subject and interpret it with depth.
A truly holistic—or non-dual—view of Roerich is impossible without the union of these two approaches. Taken separately, each remains partial.
Over the years, I have met many followers of Roerich who became fanatical and sectarian, and many scholars who never managed to grasp the living essence of his legacy.
These two paths—the follower and the researcher—merged within me into an indivisible unity. […] A truly holistic view of Roerich is impossible without the union of these two approaches. […] Taken separately, each remains partial.
—D. Popov
Inertia, Fragmentation, and the Crisis of Transmission

Contemporary art finds itself in a peculiar condition. It has no unifying movement, no shared language, no common aspiration toward transcendence. Artists are siloed, discourse is hyper-specialized, and the market often rewards novelty more than depth.
The public, meanwhile, is voting with its feet. Many museums have still not fully recovered their pre-pandemic attendance, and exhibitions requiring heavy conceptual mediation often recover more slowly than narrative-driven or classical shows. On social media, videos mocking the opacity of contemporary art attract millions of views. This is not merely fringe cynicism; it is a symptom.
From your vantage point—inside a museum dedicated to a figure who spent his career outside the turbulent mainstream—how do you understand this condition? Is it part of a natural cycle, a historical exhaustion, or something else?
Dmitry Popov:
Of course, I am aware of the decline in attendance at many art museums following the COVID-19 lockdowns. What is more surprising is that the popularity of our museum has increased significantly, especially among New Yorkers themselves.
It is as though many people rushed to embrace something they had long overlooked. To me, it seemed they were thirsting for transcendence—for spiritual peace, tranquility, and the contemplation of pure beauty.
As for contemporary art, I largely agree with the instincts of ordinary viewers. Art is ultimately made for people, and they are under no obligation to admire something simply because they are told it is important.
They have every right to respond to works according to the actual impression those works make upon them.
Artists, critics, and curators are equally entitled to offer their interpretations. But the final judgment belongs to the public.
The human mind—consciously or unconsciously—strives for transcendence. It is not naturally inclined to accept primitive nonsense as profundity.
One may declare everything obscure to be profound, but that does not oblige anyone else to agree.
It is the old story of the emperor’s new clothes.
Let me give you an example from Museum of Modern Art, a museum I sincerely love. Almost everything that happens there interests me, but not everything gives me joy or the feeling of encountering real art. Much of it can seem more like an amusing game than visual art in the deeper sense.
I believe New York greatly needs a small, conceptually coherent museum devoted to truly transcendent contemporary art—a place where people could discover that contemporary creation is not limited to pseudo-intellectual experiment, but can still produce genuine works that resonate in the heart and enter into dialogue with consciousness.
I also believe this city deeply needs a museum of Native American art.
On the one hand, Native American art is rooted in the ancient history of this continent. On the other, many Native artists also engage modern and contemporary forms. The result is a distinctive body of work that unites ancestral depth with modern invention across numerous schools, movements, and styles.
This is an important current within contemporary art.
I know many American, Canadian, and even Japanese artists whose work has been inspired by Native traditions. That is no accident, but a phenomenon worthy of deeper study.
More broadly, our great cities—especially those that are also global cultural destinations—are in need of small, atmospheric, conceptually thoughtful museums such as the Nicholas Roerich Museum, the Noguchi Museum, and the Marlene Yu Museum.
People are limited in how much information and emotional intensity they can meaningfully absorb in a given span of time. In vast museums, impressions can blur into an almost meaningless accumulation unless visitors develop a clear path of attention.
In smaller museums, curators often help shape that path for them.
Finally, in an ideal situation, museums should also help support emerging artists. Alongside thematic exhibitions, they should present solo shows by young talents at the beginning of their journey.
And it is wonderful when a museum includes not only a gift shop, but a true gallery space—one that helps artists practically, while allowing people to bring authentic works of art into their homes. That is something fundamentally different from even the finest poster.
The Myth of Tantalus
— on resources, patronage, and the projects that still live only in the inner space of the self
It is a tradition at Revue Révolution to conclude our interviews with a simple question: What do you need?
Dmitry Popov:
Before answering directly, I would like to note two things about who usually needs what—and whom.
First: anyone who possesses the knowledge and skills to realize a project of genuine value also needs resources in order to bring it into being. Most often, this means finding a like-minded person who may not share the same expertise, but who has the necessary means to support the work.
Second: sometimes the reverse is true. Those who possess resources seek out someone capable of giving form to their aspirations.
Let me offer examples from the life of Nicholas Roerich.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the young Roerich—recently graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts and St. Petersburg University—received a modest position within the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. He quickly distinguished himself and was appointed director of its art school. In only ten years, he transformed it from a modest institution into one of the most important artistic centers in Russia after the Academy itself.
After the Russian Revolution, having lost both homeland and status, Roerich arrived in New York with immense knowledge and ability, but no money. Here he met people willing to help realize his ideas, and others happy to finance them. As a result, he was able to establish an institute of art, a museum, an exhibition center, a publishing house, and much more.
After his death, two of his closest American friends—Zina Fosdick and Catherine Campbell—who, incidentally, could scarcely tolerate one another, nevertheless joined forces to create a museum in New York dedicated to his legacy.
One brought energy. The other brought money.
The city, the country, and the wider world received the Nicholas Roerich Museum—where I now have the good fortune to serve as curator.
So it seems that any serious cultural project requires three things: knowledge, human effort, and financial support. Rarely are all three found in one person. More often, they must come together through two or three people.
To bring Roerich’s art and philosophy to a new level of visibility and impact—what would help the museum, and this work?
Dmitry Popov:
Anything that helps make Roerich’s life and creative legacy better known.
Like all meaningful things, it must first become visible. People need to know that it exists. After that, they will decide for themselves what place it may hold in their own lives.
But form matters too.
On social media, it may appear as a shower of bright sparks. In video, as a vivid and moving story carried by beautiful images. In essays and interviews, as something that captures attention. In serious monographs, as a rich body of facts, thoughtful interpretation, and an engaging style of presentation.
All of this is valuable, and we welcome any sincere help in that effort.
And for yourself—as curator, translator, collector, writer, artist—what do you need to continue your own path?
Dmitry Popov:
Ah, that may be the most difficult question. (Dmitry smiles.)
For creativity itself, one needs very little: silence, peace, and time.
But projects—whether modest or ambitious—also require the practical means I mentioned earlier.
There are other challenges as well. For example: how does one interest a literary agent or publisher in books written in Russian, which first require a truly literary translation into English?
And of course, one may still dream of meeting a patron moved by the idea of creating a museum of contemporary Native American art in New York.
For now, that remains an important part of my inner life.
Finally: is there anything I have not asked—anything urgent, any aspect of Roerich’s legacy or your own work—that feels most alive, and most in need of articulation at this moment?
Dmitry Popov:
I must admit, this is remarkable.
I have given many interviews in my life, and almost always I felt there was something more I wished to add.
For the first time, I can say that your questions have already given me the opportunity to express everything I wanted to say on this subject.
Thank you, Dmitry Popov.
Murielle Mobengo
Editor, Revue Révolution

