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Contact information • History • Holdings • Access & Facilities • Bibliography
ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: H-224Last update of repository: 18 March 2020Gosudarstvennyi muzei-zapovednik “Pavlovsk” (Pavlovsk, Leningrad Oblast) (GMZ “Pavlovsk”)Previous names
In 1777 an estate was built in the village of Pavlovskoe for the Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich (who became Emperor Paul I in 1796). In 1793 the village was redesignated as the town of Pavlovsk, where over a period of fifty years a fine park and palace was built by the Scottish architect Charles Cameron, Vincenzo Brenna, A.N. Voronikhin and other architects, sculptors, and painters. The main palace was first erected in 1782–1784 from designs of Cameron, but was redesigned after a fire in 1803. The library was designed by Carlo (K.I.) Rossi. Until 1917 Pavlovsk remained one of the Russian imperial residences. In 1918 the town of Pavlovsk was renamed Slutsk in honor of Vera (Bertha) Bronislavovna Slutskaia (1874–1917), who was killed fighting there during the Revolution. (The town kept that name until 1944, although the palace retained its traditional name of Pavlovsk). In the same year a museum was opened in the palace, which was frequently renamed as it came under the control of different authorities, principally the Pavlovsk Palace-Museum and Park Administration (Upravlenie Pavlovskogo dvortsa-muzeia i parka). Some of the imperial furnishings and many of the most valuable books from the library were turned over to the Hermitage, and some, unfortunately, went to the All-Union Antiquarian Company (Vsesoiuznoe obshchestvo “Antikvariat”), and were sold abroad. There was a major sale abroad from the library by Antikvariat in 1929, and additional withdrawals in 1932. By the beginning of World War II, only approximately one-third of the library remained. When the Nazis invaded the USSR in 1941, the valuables from the palace-museum were removed to the St. Isaac’s Cathedral Museum in Leningrad or buried in the ground. From September 1941 to January 1944, Pavlovsk was occupied by the Germans, and the palace buildings and the park suffered severe damage. A fire in the palace during the war resulted in the loss of a large number of books from the Rossi Library, although the manuscripts were removed in time. Most of the remaining books in the library were taken by the Nazis. Some were found in Kaliningrad in 1945, and others were returned from Austria by British authorities, but many are still missing from Pavlovsk. Some parts of the palace archive and part of the library were turned over to RGADA (B–2), RGIA (B–3), and TsGIA SPb (D–16). After the war the Pavlovsk Museum became a central repository for valuables from the suburban palaces in Gatchina and Pushkin, the buildings of which were used for other purposes, and as a result, some library books and furnishings from those palaces remain in Pavlovsk. Restoration work on the palace began in 1944 and lasted until 1970, when it was reopened to the public. After the war many of the documents and museum exhibits were brought back from the various suburban palaces, particularly Gatchina and Pushkin (Tsarskoe Selo), as part of a general plan to return exhibits to their original locations. Restoration work on the parks continues to the present day. In 1983 the government passed a resolution giving Pavlovsk the status of a state preserve. N.B. A large part of the prerevolutionary records of the Pavlovsk City Administration (fond 493; 21,656 units—1778–1918) and the Pavlovsk Town Council (ratusha) (fond 494; 113 units—1797–1811) are held in RGIA (B–3), which include considerable documentation about the palace. Most of the postrevolutionary administrative records of the Pavlovsk museum for the years 1935–1973 are held in TsGALI SPb (D–18, fond 310). 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). |
