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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: H-222Last update of repository: 18 March 2020Gosudarstvennyi dvortsovo-parkovyi i istoriko-khudozhestvennyi muzei-zapovednik “Gatchina” (Gatchina, Leningrad Oblast) (GMZ “Gatchina”)Previous names
Until 1716 Gatchina was a country house belonging to Natal'ia Alekseevna, the sister of Peter the Great. In 1734 it passed into the hands of the Kurakin family, and in the mid-1760s to Count G.G. Orlov, who began building a palace and park on the grounds, originally designed by Antonio Rinaldi and later transformed by Vincenzo Brenna. Catherine II bought the estate in 1783 and presented it to her heir, Pavel Petrovich (the future Emperor Paul I). In 1796 Paul I decided to transform his residence into a town. In the mid-nineteenth century the whole ensemble was rebuilt by R.I. Kuz'min. After nationalization following the Revolution, the museum was founded in 1918 as the first Historical Daily-Life and Art Palace-Museum in the environs of Petrograd under the name of the Gatchina Art-Historical Museum. Some of the imperial furnishings and library were turned over to the Hermitage, and some, unfortunately, later went to the All-Union Antiquarian Company (Vsesoiuznoe obshchestvo “Antikvariat”) and were sold abroad. In 1923 the town Gatchina was renamed Trotsk, and in 1929 Krasnogvardeisk, which it remained until 1944. The palace, however, retained the name of Gatchina. During the 1930s the museum was known as the Gatchina Palace-Museum. At the beginning of the war, in 1941 the contents of the Palace-Museum were moved to St. Isaac’s Cathedral, while the more valuable exhibits were evacuated for safekeeping to Sarapul. Some of the exhibits and the remaining part of the library were removed by the Nazi invaders. The palace, the pavilions, and the park were badly damaged during the Second World War. Some partial restoration work was done, but from 1950 to 1985 the palace was used for other purposes. As a result of wartime displacements and the fact that the palace was not immediately restored as a museum, many of the archival materials, together with the remaining exhibits, were scattered in different places. Serious restoration work begun in the 1970s, and in 1985 a museum was reopened in the palace. Many of the exhibits and manuscript materials began to be returned from the State Hermitage, the Tsarskoe Selo Museum-Preserve, the museums of the Moscow Kremlin, and other places. However, a large part of the archival materials and library (including portions returned from abroad) remain in the Pavlovsk Palace-Museum, and many others are missing (including those sold abroad). The present name of the museum dates from 1993, and restoration continues. N.B. Prerevolutionary records of the Gatchina Palace Administration and documents on the history of the architectural monuments at Gatchina are held in RGIA (B–3, fond 493). The administrative records of the museum from the Soviet period (1917–1931; and 1934–1972) are held in TsGALI SPb (D–18, fond 309). Documentation on the fate of the palace during and after World War II can be found in the fond of the Central Repository for Museum Fonds of the Leningrad Suburban Palaces under the Cultural Administration of the Leningrad City Executive Committee (Tsentral'noe khranilishche muzeinykh fondov Leningradskikh prigorodnykh dvortsov Upravleniia kul'tury Lengorispolkoma) (TsGALI SPb, fond 387; 1943–1956). |
