225th Anniversary of the Birth of the Great Russian Poet Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
State Museum of A.S. Pushkin (Moscow)
June 20 – August 29
225-th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Pushkin celebrated in 2024. He is a poet whose name has become a symbol of the Russian language and Russian culture. He wrote such masterpieces as the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin”, the story “The Queen of Spades”, the tragedy “Boris Godunov” , poem “The Bronze Horseman”. Pushkin’s genius inspired composers Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Modest Mussorgsky to create operas staged on many stages around the world.Interest in the life and work of Pushkin among writers, artists, directors, scientists and ordinary readers has remained unchanged for more than two centuries. This exhibition project is dedicated to Moscow during Pushkin’s time – the city where the poet was born in 1799 and where he spent the first years of his life. In 1811, Pushkin went to study at the Lyceum, located near St. Petersburg in Tsarskoe Selo. Years of study at the Lyceum, and then exile – first to the south of Russia, and later to the remote village of Mikhailovskoye – separated Pushkin from Moscow for many years. Having left his hometown as a child, Pushkin returned to it in 1826 as a famous poet. This became a significant event in the public life of Moscow. Pushkin’s further life turned out to be closely connected with the ancient capital: there were friends, literary connections, and publishers here. In the winter of 1828, at one of the Moscow balls, Pushkin met 16-year-old Natalya Goncharova. In Moscow, he married her in 1831. Despite the fact that the last years of Pushkin’s life were spent in St. Petersburg, he visited his hometown more than once. Moscow did not become his permanent place of residence, but it always attracted and beckoned him.Moscow played an important role not only in the Pushkin’s fate, but also of his heroes. The poet’s work cannot be imagined without the “Moscow” stanzas of “Eugene Onegin” or the “Moscow” scenes of “Boris Godunov”, without letters and poetic messages to Moscow friends.Our exhibition project will help you look at Moscow with Pushkin’s and his contemporaries eyes. For this, we will take a walk through the streets and alleys of the ancient capital. We will see a unique city, with widely spread estates, with a varied landscape, where hills alternated with plains, and tall churches with squat buildings, with lively streets and magnificent boulevards.Views of Moscow during Pushkin’s time will give exhibition visitors the opportunity to get acquainted with the historical, architectural and architectural monuments of the ancient capital of Russia. Portraits of the poet’s contemporaries – with his Moscow friends and acquaintances: the owner of the literary and musical salon Zinaida Volkonskaya, talented Russian poets Pyotr Vyazemsky, Evgeny Baratynsky, Denis Davydov and others. These images will allow you to see Moscow in all its diversity: visit living rooms and theaters, attend balls in the Noble Assembly and the English Club, admire the diversity of Moscow landscapes and hear the polyphony of the streets. They will give a vivid idea of both the architectural appearance of the city and the morals of its inhabitants – the inhabitants of “earthly, brilliant, beloved and native Moscow.”
Language: Russian/French/English
The State Museum of A. S. Pushkin – the first museum in Moscow dedicated to the life and work of the great Russian poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin – was founded in 1957 on the territory of the former city estate of the Khrushchev-Seleznevs. This one of the most beautiful urban ensembles of the capital was built in 1814–1817, during the revival of the city after the Moscow fire of 1812. The first permanent exhibition, “The Life and Work of A. S. Pushkin,” opened on June 6, 1961.
In 1997, on the eve of the 200th anniversary of the birth of A.S. Pushkin, the museum was reborn. After restoration and reconstruction, the State Pushkin Museum turned into a modern multifunctional museum and cultural center and opened its doors to visitors again. There is an exhibition “Pushkin and his era” in the halls of the main estate house, where the biography and creative path of the poet are shown against the backdrop of history, literature, art and culture of the 19th century. The exhibition includes fine art, books, documentary materials, and objects of decorative and applied art.
The museum’s collections number more than 160,000 items. These are materials related to the life and work of A. S. Pushkin, his era and posthumous glory, and the history of literature and art. The museum’s holdings are rich in works of fine art of world significance, including works by V. A. Tropinin, O. A. Kiprensky, K. P. Bryullov, L. S. Bakst, K. S. Petrov-Vodkin, K. A. Korovin and other outstanding artists of the 19th–20th centuries. A significant part of the collections that are in the funds are available to visitors, since the museum has had an open storage system for many years. It includes: a collection of paintings and graphics, storage of rare books, collections of P. V. Gubar, I. N. Rozanov, T. A. Mavrina, collections of artistic furniture, metal, glass and ceramics, a cabinet of manuscripts, a genealogical collection.
Today, the State Pushkin Museum is one of the largest literary museums in Russia, where dozens of fundamental exhibition projects are carried out annually, concert programs, literary readings, international scientific conferences and seminars are held. A special focus of the museum’s activities is working with children’s audiences, including interactive programs, subscriptions, theater and museum projects, and New Year’s children’s parties. The museum hosts socially significant events: meetings with contemporary writers, cultural and artistic figures.
The State Museum of A. S. Pushkin includes four branches: “Memorial Apartment of A. S. Pushkin on Arbat” (Arbat, 53), where in 1831 Pushkin spent the first three months after his wedding with Natalya Goncharova; “Memorial apartment of Andrei Bely” (Arbat, 55), where Andrei Bely, one of the most famous poets of the Silver Age, lived from 1880 to 1906; “House-Museum of V.L. Pushkin” (Staraya Basmannaya, 36), in which the poet visited his uncle, writer Vasily Pushkin; “House-Museum of I. S. Turgenev” (Ostozhenka, 37), in which the writer lived in the forties of the 19th century. The museum’s exhibition halls display works by contemporary artists.
