The decision to set up Anna Akhmatova Memorial Museum was made
by Leningrad Executive Committee in 1988. They planned to open the museum by
the100th anniversary of Akhmatova’s birth: the next 1989 was celebrated by UNESCO
as Akhmatova’s year. The Akhmatova’s Literary Heritage Committee was founded
in 1988. It was headed by M. A. Dudin who had shown much interest to the idea
of opening the museum. The Culture Fund which appeared during perestroika (the
restructuring of the Soviet economy and bureaucracy that began in the mid 1980s)
seconded the initiative of opening a museum dedicated to a writer who had suffered
from the Soviet regime. The opening ceremony was an integral part of Akhmatova’s
anniversary celebrations (including a scientific conference) taking place first
in Leningrad (the Small Concert Hall of the Philharmonic) and then in Moscow.
Anna Akhmatova Memorial Museum was set up as a branch of The Dostoevsky Museum.
That was done in order to lighten work of Bella Nurievna Rybalko (The Dostoevsky
Museum director) at solving certain organization problems. It was decided to
make Anna Akhmatova Memorial Museum separate after its opening.
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By that time The Institution of Arctic and Antarctic had vacated the Sheremetevsky
Palace where it had been housed since early 1940s. So Anna Akhmatova Memorial
Museum was located in a four-storeyed garden wing of the palace. There was
Akhmatova’s flat there in former times (she lived on the third floor since
1925 till 1952).
During that period of time (1988-1989) Leningrad authorities paid much attention
to the problems of the museum, provided it with money and held their sessions
right in the office of the vice-director of Culture Department. They didn’t
demand museum’s thematic plans of the exposition for approval. There wasn’t
neither censorship nor even a single hint at it as if Leningrad was redeeming
its fault to Akhmatova and trying to convince public mind that it longed to
forget its totalitarian past.
On the opening day (June 24, 1989) the head of Leningrad Council V. Khodaryov
performed a speech written by museum’s workers beforehand. Traditionally there
was a mass-meeting near the entrance of the museum in the garden. Then guests
visited the exposition (the artist T. N. Voronikhina).
Some of our partners (e.g. German Society of Establishing Diplomatic Relations
with Eastern Europe in Maynts) associated the opening of Anna Akhmatova Memorial
Museum with perestroika, the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 and new contacts
of Russia with Western Europe.
We began collecting materials, documents, photographs and personal Akhmatova’s
things right after the decision of the museum’s opening. We had to define
the circle of Akhmatova’s friends and contemporaries in Leningrad and Moscow.
Some names could be found thanks to a samizdat book of reminiscences (the
secret publication and distribution of government-banned literature in Soviet
Union). However those people had already gone or were very old. We were searching
for other names and addresses. From time to time it was difficult to overcome
the atmosphere of distrust; some people were more friendly but in order to
make them give us Akhmatova’s things certain efforts were demanded in any
case. We were struck by the fact that neither Soviet regime anathematized
Akhmatova’s name, nor Zndanov’s decrees didn’t manage to make people stop
revering Akhmatova’s memory. They took out of drawers and from mezzanine books
with her autographs, photographs, manuscripts, things which were kept as family
relics.
On the opening day we put up a list of names of the people who helped us
to form the collection. There were more than 50 names there.
There are about 50000 exhibits in the museum collection nowadays: books
written by the Silver Age writers with autographs, Akhmatova’s editions, photographs
(including documentary photos), manuscripts (Akhmatova’s and her contemporaries’
ones) and other objects.
The museum keeps in touch with people who have Akhmatova’s materials in their
home collections. We are also glad to consider all the suggestions of those
who would like to give any materials related to Akhmatova’s life or that historical
period.
