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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: H-65

Last update of repository: 17 March 2020

Gosudarstvennyi muzei L.N. Tolstogo (GMT)


Previous names
1920–1979   Gosudarstvennyi Tolstovskii muzei
[State Tolstoi Museum]
1912–1920   Tolstovskii muzei
[Tolstoi Museum]
History
The Tolstoi Museum was founded in 1912 at the initiative of the Tolstoi Society (Tolstovskoe obshchestvo) on the basis of private funding in memory of the Russian novelist Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi (1825–1910) (often Leo Tolstoy in English). It was nationalized after the Revolution and in 1920 came under the control of the People’s Commissariat for Education of the RSFSR as the State Tolstoi Museum. From 1939 to 1953 the museum was under the authority of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, during which time its academic status was heightened and manuscript holdings extended. The museum was subsequently transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture, but its present name has been preserved since 1920. After the museum was awarded the “Order of the Red Banner of Labor” (Orden Trudovogo Krasnogo Znameni) in 1979, that award became part of its official name. 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.
        The Manuscript Division has been part of the museum since its founding. Its organization and scope were substantially enlarged after the museum came under the Academy of Sciences in 1939, when the museum was designated as the centralized repository for all Tolstoi manuscripts, personal papers, and biographical materials relating to Lev Tolstoi and his family, with the aim of preparing a definitive edition of his complete literary works. Later it acquired all of the Tolstoi manuscripts and related documentation that had been collected in the Manuscript Division of the Lenin Library (h–577) and similarly the manuscript materials that had been collected by the State Literary Museum (h–578). Its central role has continued to the present. The division is currently housed, as it has been for many years, in a separate building a block away from the museum (ul. Prechistenka, 11).
        The museum has four affiliated branches:
                (1) The L.N. Tolstoi Khamovniki Estate Museum (Muzei-usad'ba L.N. Tolstogo “Khamovniki”) in Moscow has scattered archival materials on display, particularly from the years 1893–1895 when Tolstoi lived in the house. (119021, Moscow, ul. L'va Tolstogo, 21; tel. +7 499 246-94-44; webpages: https://tolstoymuseum.ru/about/museum...; http://www.museum.ru/M411).
                (2) The L.N. Tolstoi Center on the Piatnitskaia street, 12 (Tolstovskii tsentr na Piatnitskoi-12) has a number of original manuscript and illustrative materials on display. (115035, Moscow, ul. Piatnitskaia, 12; tel./fax: +7 495 951-64-40; webpages: https://tolstoymuseum.ru/about/museum...; http://www.museum.ru/M369).
                (3) The L.N. Tolstoi Literary-Memorial Museum “Astapovo” (Memorial'nyi muzei L.N. Tolstogo “Astapovo”) in Lipetsk Oblast (over 200 km. southeast of Moscow) at Lev Tolstoi Station has documents, books, and illustrative materials from the fonds of the main museum. (399870, Lipetskaia oblast', Lev-Tolstovskii raion, p. g. t. Lev Tolstoi, ul. Tsentral'naia, 8; tel. +7 474-64 2-60-92; websites: https://tolstoymuseum.ru/about/museum...; http://www.museum.ru/M1791).
                (4) L.N. Tolstoi Cultural Center in Zheleznovodsk (Kul'turnyi tsentr imeni L.N. Tolstogo v Zheleznovodske) (357400, Stavropol krai, Zheleznovodsk, ul. Lenina, 7; tel.: +7 879-32 3-20-87; websites: https://tolstoymuseum.ru/about/museum...; http://kmv.tolstoymuseum.ru/)

N.B. A large part of the Tolstoi library, including books with dedicatory autographs, and also additional documentary materials (especially relating to the estate), are held in the Tolstoi Iasnaia Poliana Estate Museum (often Yasnaya Polyana in English)—(Gosudarstvennyi memorial'nyi i prirodnyi zapovednik “Muzei-usad'ba L.N. Tolstogo ‘Iasnaia Poliana’”), south of Tula. (301214, Tul'skaia oblast', Shchekinskii raion, p/o Iasnaia Poliana; tel. +7 487-51 7-61-25, 7-60-82; e-mail: [email protected]; website: http://www.yasnayapolyana.ru/, as well as other local websites).


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted