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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: H-250

Last update of repository: 18 March 2020

Vserossiiskii muzei A.S. Pushkina (VMP)


Previous names
1938–1949   Gosudarstvennyi muzei A.S. Pushkina
[State A.S. Pushkin Museum]
History
The origin of the present museum dates to the end of 1925, when the apartment of Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin (1799–1837) on the Moika embankment (nab. Reki Moiki, 12) was given over to Pushkinskii Dom (Pushkin House—E–28). The apartment is in the house where the poet lived during the last four months of his life and where he died after a duel. It was used, starting in 1926, to house the so-called historico-literary life exhibits of the Literary Museum of Pushkinskii Dom.
        In 1937 an All-Union Pushkin Exhibition was opened in Moscow in the State Historical Museum (GIM) to coincide with the centennial of the poet’s death, and materials from Pushkinskii Dom and from other archives, museums, and libraries were exhibited there. At the same time a Pushkin Exhibition was opened in the Hermitage. In March 1938 the Council of People’s Commissars decreed that all the materials from the Pushkin exhibitions should be used as the basis for a new State Pushkin Museum (Gosudarstvennyi muzei A.S. Pushkina) in Moscow. After the closure of the exhibition in GIM, the fonds of the new State Pushkin Museum were stored there, but due to lack of premises the new museum could not be opened to the public before the outbreak of war. During the war the museum fonds were evacuated to Tashkent, and after the war they were returned to Moscow and stored unpacked in the A.M. Gor'kii Institute of World Literature.
        In 1947 the government decided that all the fonds of the museum should be transferred to Pushkin House (IRLI/PD) in Leningrad, which in 1948, on the instructions of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, further accessioned a very rich collection of Pushkin manuscripts (2,000 units, including 500 autograph literary manuscripts of the poet). Other fonds of the Pushkin State Museum were transferred in the same year to the town of Pushkin, where the All-Union Pushkin Museum was staging an exhibition in the Alexander Palace (1949–1952). In 1954 the latter exhibition was moved to the Hermitage.
        In 1953 all Pushkin materials held in the Institute of Russian Literature (apart from the manuscripts and the poet’s library), together with the Pushkin apartment, the N.A. Nekrasov Apartment-Museum, and the Pushkin Preserve in the village of Mikhailovskoe were transferred to the authority of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR. In 1956 the All-Union Pushkin Museum came under the control of the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR. The present name dates from 1991. In April 1997 the museum was added to the federal register of the most valuable monuments of the cultural heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation.
        Today the All-Russian Pushkin Museum is a complex of museums, which includes the Pushkin Literary Exhibition and five memorial museums which are administrated as branches:
                (1) The A.S. Pushkin Apartment-Museum (Muzei-kvartira A.S. Pushkina), established in 1925 in the same building as the museum headquarters, which exhibits some of the original materials from the museum holdings (see below). (tel. +7 812 571-35-31, 315-95-13; webpages: http://www.museumpushkin.ru/vserossij...; http://www.museum.ru/M140).
                (2) The Memorial Lyceum-Museum (Memorial'nyi muzei-litsei) in the town of Pushkin (Tsarskoe Selo), established in 1949. (196600, St. Petersburg, g. Pushkin, ul. Sadovaia, 2; tel. +7 812 476-64-11; webpages: http://www.museumpushkin.ru/vserossij...; http://www.museum.ru/M143).
                (3) The A.S. Pushkin Dacha-Museum (Muzei-dacha A.S. Pushkina) in the town of Pushkin (Tsarskoe Selo), established in 1958 (known as Detskoe Selo from 1918–1937, and Pushkin since 1937). (196607, g. Pushkin, ul. Pushkinskaia, 2/19; tel. +7 812 451-69-81; webpages: http://www.museumpushkin.ru/vserossij...; http://www.museum.ru/M137).
                (4) The N.A. Nekrasov Apartment-Museum (Muzei-kvartira N.A. Nekrasova), opened in 1946 to mark the 125th anniversary of the birth of the Russian poet, housed in the flat where Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov (1821–1877/1878) lived (191104, St. Petersburg, Liteinyi prosp., 36, kv. 4; tel. +7 812 272-01-65; webpages: http://www.museumpushkin.ru/vserossij...; http://www.museum.ru/M139). Closed for repair since August 2019.
                (5) The G.R. Derzhavin Estate Museum (Muzei-usad'ba G.R. Derzhavina) was opened in 2003 (198005, St. Petersburg, nab. Fontanki, 118; tel. +7 812 713-07-17; webpages: http://www.museumpushkin.ru/vserossij...; http://www.museum.ru/M3078).
        The Mikhailovskoe State Memorial Historical-Literary and Natural Landscape Pushkin Museum-Preserve—Pushkin Preserve (Gosudarstvennyi memorial'nyi istoriko-literaturnyi i prirodno-landshaftnyi muzei-zapovednik A.S.Pushkina “Mikhailovskoe” [Pushkinskii zapovednik]) in the village of Mikhailovskoe remains under separate administration, and exhibits some original Pushkin materials along with duplicates from his personal library. Founded in 1922, it came under the authority of the Main Administration for Scientific, Museum, and Academic Art Institutes (Glavnauka) under the People’s Commissariat for Education of the RSFSR. It came under IRLI/PD (E–28) in 1934. (181370, Pskov Oblast, Pushkinskie gory, s. Mikhailovskoe; tel. +7 811-46 2-23-21; +7 811-46 2-26-09; fax +7 811-46 2-25-60; websites: http://pushkin.ellink.ru/ [also in English]; http://www.museum.ru/M1505).
        When the All-Union Pushkin Museum was transferred from the Academy of Sciences of the USSR to the Ministry of Culture of the USSR in 1953, most of the manuscript materials with the exception of a number of exhibition documents, remained in the Institute of Russian Literature (IRLI/PD—E–28). Archival materials now held in the VMP Division of Fonds are principally those acquired by the museum since 1953.


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