Vasilii Vereshchagin publishes in Golos a rejection of the offer of the Academy's professorship, 'considering all ranks and distinctions in art absolutely harmful'. This public statement incurred him the wrath of the Academy which, through the article of the academician Nikanor Tiutriumov published in Russkii mir, accused him of profit-seeking and of using the collaboration of artists in Munich in order to produce a large number of paintings of his Turkestan series. The heated polemics which ensued included articles by Stasov, Nikolai Aleksandrov, Aleksandr Geins and a letter signed by eleven prominent Russian artists, including Ivan Kramskoi, Nikolai Ge, Grigorii Miasoedov, Pavel Chistiakov, and others, as well as the results of an investigation by the Munich Art Association which reinforced the reputation of Vereshchagin.