Pushkin House
The Pushkin House (
History
Establishment
The Russian Literature Institute began its life in December 1905 as the main centre for
Would it not be more appropriate to erect a monument to Alexander Pushkin not in the form of a statue, but in the form of a special museum? This museum, which is to bear Pushkin's name, will encompass everything concerning our outstanding artists of the word, including their manuscripts, personal belongings, first editions of their works.
The idea won support from all sides and was welcomed by
In 1907
Soviet era
The Pushkin House was originally a
In 1927 Pushkin House moved from the crammed rooms in the Academy of Sciences building to the magnificent neo-Palladian Customs House, built after Giovanni Francesco Lucchini's designs in 1829–1832 and situated just around the Strelka.[2] It was to the original Kunstkamera rooms that Alexander Blok referred in his last poem To Pushkin House, celebrating Pushkin's heritage as a gleam of hope during the chaos and confusion of the post-revolutionary years:[3]
Pushkin House! A name apart,
A name with meaning for the heart!
The Pushkin House remained open during the
Structure
The collections of the Pushkin House, partly housed in a modern block hidden behind the Neoclassical facade, include numerous manuscripts from the 13th century onward, portraits and personal documents of leading Russian authors, as well as a galaxy of rare music recordings. The institution has a complex structure and is subdivided into several departments:
- Department of Old Russian Literature
- Department of Russian Folklore and Records Archive
- Department of New Russian Literature
- Department of Pushkin Studies
- Department of Recent Russian Literature
- Correlation of Russian and Foreign Literature Department
- Bibliography and Sources Department
- Manuscript Division and Archive of Ancient Relics
- Museum of Literature (Литературный музей)
The Pushkin memorial houses in
Directors
Years | Director |
---|---|
1910–1922 | acad. Nestor Kotlyarevsky |
1922–1924 | Corresponding Member USSR Academy of Sciences B.L. Modzalevsky (acting) |
1924–1925 | acad. Nestor Kotlyarevsky |
1925–1929 | acad. Sergey Platonov |
1929–1930 | acad. Pavel Sakulin |
1930–1931 | Corresponding Member Academy of Sciences of the USSR N.K. Kozmin (acting) |
1931–1933 | acad. Anatoly Lunacharsky |
1934 | Lev Kamenev |
1935–1936 | Maxim Gorky |
1937–1948 | acad. P. I. Lebedev-Poliansky |
1948–1949 | Doctor of Philosophy L.A. Plotkin (acting) |
1949–1955 | Corresponding Member USSR Academy of Sciences Nikolay Belchikov |
1955–1965 | acad. A. S. Bushmin |
1965–1975 | Corresponding Member USSR Academy of Sciences V. G. Bazanov |
1975–1977 | Doctor of Philosophy F. Ya. Priyma (acting) |
1978–1983 | acad. Alexei Bushmin |
1983–1987 | Doctor of Philosophy A.N. Jesuitov |
1987–2005 | Corresponding Member RAS N. N. Skatov |
2006–2007 | Ph.D. Yu.M. Prozorov (acting) |
2007–2017 | Corresponding Member RAS V. E. Bagno |
since 2017 | Doctor of Philosophy V. V. Golovin |
References
- ^ a b c d Historical outline from the official website
- ^ Its dome was actually intended to counterbalance that of the Kunstkamera and "to provide a look-out from which a signal was sounded when ships approached". Quoted from The Companion Guide to St Petersburg (2003), by Kyril FitzLyon, Kyril Zinovieff, Jenny Hughes, p. 331.
- ^ Reference Guide to Russian Literature, ed. by Neil Cornwell, Nicole Christian. Taylor & Francis, 1998. Page 175.
- ^ Encyclopaedia of St. Petersburg