-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	[Fwd: Article - #674, Friday, June 1, 2001]
Date:	Fri, 06 Jul 2001 14:18:15 -0700
From:	"D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@gte.net>
Organization:	International Nabokov Society
To:	lnabokv-l@listserv.ucsb.edu>

 

-------- Original Message --------Inside Private Lives of Writersby Simon Patterson
STAFF WRITER
Photo by Alexander Belenky / SPT

In such a writers' and poets' city as St. Petersburg, it is well worth checking out the literary museums which stand apart from the hundreds of others. The city boasts no fewer than seven "apartment museums" of famous authors, from Alexander Pushkin to Vladimir Nabokov.

Most visited of all is probably the Pushkin Museum at Moika 12, but unfortunately the atmosphere of reverence means you get little feeling that someone actually lived there. While the writer died in the apartment in 1837, the museum was opened almost 90 years later, in 1925, and the apartment was reconstructed according to contemporary notes and recollections. Pushkin actually only lived here for five months, moving in on Sept. 12 1836. The highlight of the museum is probably the impressive library, extending to the ceiling and surrounding the walls - Pushkin owned over 4,000 books in 14 differrent languages.

12 Nab. Moiki, 312-19-62. Open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., apart from Tuesday and the last Friday of the month.

The Dostoyevsky Museum at Kuznechny Pereulok 5 is merely one of the many residences of the writer, as he lived at over 20 different apartments in the city. Strangely enough, Dostoyevsky lived in this apartment twice, in 1846, and from 1878 to his death in 1881. The area where he lived is what we think of today as being the "Dostoyeskian" part of St. Petersburg, with the action of Crime and Punishment taking place firmly in the neighborhood in which he lived. The Kuznechny Pereulok apartment was his last dwelling in the city, with his study apparently the way he left it, and a room with a range of glass-case exhibits detailing his works in pictures and documents. A walk around Sennaya Ploshchad, still as much a magnet for derelicts that it was in Dostoyevsky's time, will probably give you more of a feeling of the milieu of the writer than a visit to his old apartment.

5/2 Kuznechny Pereulok, 311-40-31. Open 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m, Tuesday to Sunday.

A definitely Soviet feel remains in the Alexander Blok Museum at Ulitsa Dekabristov, where the writer lived from 1912 to 1921. There is a large, Soviet propaganda-style display devoted to the writer's narrative poem "The Twelve" that deals with the revolution. There is, however, an interesting display of his manuscripts, showing how he constantly rewrote and revised the three books of verse that are his crowning achievement. Ironically enough, the museum itself may now seem more archaic than the poetry it celebrates.

57 Ulitsa Dekabristov, 113-86-16. Open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Wednesday and last Tuesday of the month.

The Anna Akhmatova Museum is probably the highlight of the literary museums, with truly engrossing exhibits, including the arrest order for Mandelshtam and a gulag edition of the great poet's works made by prisoners from bark and charcoal. The museum also frequently hosts exhibits, with a display of photographs from the '30s and '40s by Soviet writer and publicist Ilya Ehrenburg.

34 Nab. Fontanki, 272-22-11. Open 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Closed Mondays and last Wednesday of the month.

The far more modest quarters of Mikhail Zoshchenko on Malaya Ko nyus hennaya make an interesting contrast, with a small two-room apartment, one room of which has been done up as an exhibition hall of his works. The miserable conditions in which the writer lived make it difficult to believe he was once one of the most celebrated Soviet writers. After the attack on him and Anna Akhmatova in 1946 by party functionary Andrei Zhdanov, he was no longer able to publish original work, and lived an increasingly straitened existence until his death in 1958.

4/2 Malaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa, 311-78-19. Open daily, 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. Closed Mondays and last Wednesday of the month.

The Nabokov Museum is obviously limited by the fact that the property was confiscated by the state immediately after the revolution, and thus nothing remains of the writer's possessions. The museum director, Dmitry Milkov, states that he has decided to take a different approach to the concept of literary museum, preferring it to be a venue for Nabokov-related or inspired cultural activities. See the article on the Apertif club on page vii for more on what the museum has been up to recently.

47 Bolshaya Morskaya, 315-47-13. Daily 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.