Anna Akhmatova Literary and Memorial Museum

Fountain House

The Anna Akhmatova Literary and Memorial Museum is a literary museum in St Petersburg, Russia,[1][2] dedicated to the poet Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966).

The palace

The museum is located in a wing of Fountain House at 34 Fontanka River Embankment. Fountain House was built in the 18th century as a palace for the Count Sheremetev family, whose most romantically known member was a patron of arts Count Nikolai married a peasant Praskovia Kovalyova-Zhemchugova, with whom he seemed to experience real, though tragically brief, happiness. Russian emperors highly valued diplomatic and military achievements of several male members of family.

From 1935 to 1941 it housed the Museum of Popular Science, which closed immediately upon the German invasion. Anna Akhmatova lived in the northern garden wing of the Fountain House in 1918–1920, and lived in the southern wing from the mid-1920s until February 1952.

Then the building as a whole was given over to semi-classified Arctic and Antarctic Exploration Research Institute, and only in the latter part of the twentieth century, after relocation of the institute within the city to a specially designed facility, it became possible to start turning the palace into a museum or museums.

Now the main building is occupied by Saint Petersburg Museum of Music (one of the largest branches of St.Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music), and the wing is dedicated to the museum of the poet.

The poet's museum

The Akhmatova Museum was opened in 1989 as a branch of the Dostoevsky Literary and Memorial Museum.[3] Later it was separated out as an independent museum. The museum's collection consisted in 2009 of about 50,000 items. This includes, among other things, autographed editions of Akhmatova's works, photographs, and manuscripts by Akhmatova and her contemporaries.

Other museums of Akhmatova

In Saint Petersburg, there is museum dedicated to the poet, her circle and her times. It is called "Anna Akhmatova. The Silver Age"[4] and is located on the ground floor of an ordinary apartment building in the vicinity of Avtovo.[5]

In little village Slobidka-Shelekhivska in Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Ukraine, there is a Literary-memorial museum of Anna Akhmatova .[6][7]

References

  1. ↑ Anna Akhmatova Literary and Memorial Museum, St Petersburg Encyclopedia.
  2. ↑ The Anna Akhmatova Museum at The Fountain House, Russian Museums.info.
  3. ↑ The Anna Akhmatova Museum at The Fountain House, St Petersburg City information.
  4. ↑ http://www.akhmatova.org/museums/aa_servek.htm
  5. ↑ http://www.russianmuseums.info/M189
  6. ↑ Олена О'Лір. Анна Ахматова — в українському інтер'єрі // День. — 2 серпня 2012 р.
  7. ↑

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fountain House.

Coordinates: 59°56′20″N 30°18′58″E / 59.939°N 30.316°E