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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: H-227Last update of repository: 18 March 2020Gosudarstvennyi khudozhestvenno-arkhitekturnyi dvortsovo-parkovyi muzei-zapovednik “Tsarskoe Selo” (Pushkin, Leningrad Oblast) (GMZ “Tsarskoe Selo”)Previous names
The Tsarskoe Selo State Art-Architectural Palace-Park Museum-Preserve dates back to 1710, when the lands on which it is situated were given as a present by Peter the Great to his wife, the future Empress Catherine I. In 1725 it became one of the country residences of the imperial family. Over the next hundred years a number of palaces, pavilions, and other structures were built here to the design of such famous architects as Johann Friedrich Braunstein, A.V. Kvasov, S.I. Chevakinskii, Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli, Charles Cameron, Giacomo Quarenghi, and V.P. Stasov. The biggest are the Great Catherine Palace and the Alexander Palace. In 1808 the town of Tsarskoe Selo became the center of an administrative subdivision (Tsarskosel'skii uezd) of St. Petersburg Guberniia. In 1811 a lyceum was opened here, which Aleksandr Pushkin attended from 1811 to 1817. After the Revolution, the town of Tsarskoe Selo was renamed Detskoe Selo in 1918, and following nationalization, the palace was opened as a museum of historical life and art under control of the Administration of the Detskoe Selo Artistic Properties (until 1922). Subsequently it was under the control of the Detskoe Selo Palace-Museum Administration and then, after 1928, the combined Administration of the Detskoe Selo and Pavlovsk Palace-Museums. Many of the imperial treasures and palace furnishings, along with books and manuscripts from the palace library, were confiscated. A number of them were turned over to the All-Union Antiquarian Company (Vsesoiuznoe obshchestvo “Antikvariat”) for sale abroad in the late 1920s and others were exported in the early 1930s. In 1937 the town of Detskoe Selo was renamed Pushkin to mark the centennial of the death of the poet Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin, and the name of the palace complex was changed accordingly. During the Second World War the most valuable articles in the museum were evacuated, while the rest were buried. From 1941 to 1944 Pushkin was occupied by the Germans, and the palaces suffered extensive damage. They were plundered and their art treasures were removed (including the panels in the Amber Room of the Catherine Palace, which have still not been recovered). A large part of the library was shipped to Germany by the Nazis, but recovered in Austria by British forces and returned to the USSR; however, not all of the books have been returned to Tsarskoe Selo. Restoration work began after the war, and the first halls of the Great Palace were opened to the public in 1959. Today the main buildings of architectural interest have been restored, although restoration work is still continuing. The present name of the museum dates from 1992, when Palace-Park Museum-Preserve reverted to its traditional name, but as of 2003, the town itself retains the name of Pushkin (and the railroad station Detskoe Selo). 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. N.B. The prerevolutionary records of the Tsarskoe Selo Palace Administration (Tsarskosel'skoe dvortsovoe pravlenie) (fond 487—1710–1919) and the Chancellery of the Chief Administrator of the Palace Administration and Town of Tsarskoe Selo (Kantseliariia glavnoupravliaiushchego dvortsovymi pravleniiami i gorodom Tsarskoe Selo) (fond 486—1817–1865) are held in RGIA (B–3). The earlier administrative archive of the museum (1917–1923, 1937–1981) is held in TsGALI SPb (D–18, fond 411). Documentation on the fate of 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). For the Regional Studies Museum of the Town of Pushkin, which also holds materials relating to the palace museum-preserve, see History-Literary Museum of the Town of Pushkin. |
