Description of the attraction
Nabokov's house is located in St. Petersburg at 47 Bolshaya Morskaya Street. Between 1897 and the October events of 1917, the house became the property of the Nabokov family, which they received as a dowry from V. Nabokov's mother, Elena Rukavishnikova. It was here that Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born in 1899. He lived in this house for the first 18 years. But during the October Revolution, the family left Petrograd and went into exile. After these events, the home continued to live in Nabokov's literary activities, appearing in almost every of his creations. A particularly detailed description of the house can be found in the autobiographical work Other Shores. For Vladimir Vladimirovich he remained forever "the only house in the world." For a long time living in America and Europe, the writer lived in hotels, never acquiring another home.
The opening of the V. V. Nabokov took place in the summer of 1998. Now it is located only on the first floor of the Nabokov mansion. It was once a “family” floor. Now the 2 upper floors ("parent" and "child") are occupied by the editorial office of the newspaper "Nevskoe Vremya".
Previously, on the ground floor there was a telephone room, a dining room, a green living room, a library, a committee room in which the leadership of the Cadet Party gathered, a buffet and a kitchen. Little has survived from the interior decoration of these premises: furniture, a rich library, art collections - all this was lost in the years after the revolution, or scattered across other museum collections. Now the museum is making great efforts to preserve and restore the unique interiors of the Nabokovs' house, as well as to replenish the museum collection.
Collection of the Museum V. V. Nabokov was formed under unusual conditions. After the house and property of the Nabokov family was nationalized in 1917, the most valuable items of the art collection and book collection were transferred to libraries and museums in Russia, including the Russian National Library, the Russian Museum, and the Hermitage. Most of the photographs and documents ended up in foreign private collections of Vladimir Nabokov's relatives. Some household items from the Nabokov house were preserved in the families of Petersburgers who worked in this house.
In 1998, when the museum was being formed, there was almost nothing left in the house. The museum collection began to be actively created in 1999, when the local population collected and donated to the museum rare things and materials related to Nabokov's house and the history of his family. N. I. Tolstaya, M. V. Ledkovskaya, L. Matskevich, A. Kolosov, S. A. Krolenko, E. Filaretova and many other donors.
In addition, most of the museum collection now consists of personal belongings, manuscripts of Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov and representatives of his family, which came from foreign donors. Dmitry Vladimirovich Nabokov handed over the subjects of his father's writing: pencils, pince-nez, manuscripts with work cards, the Scrabble game with the writer's autographs and a butterfly net. Brian Boyd donated V. V. Nabokov: jacket, jacket, boots - which were given to him by the writer's widow, Vera Evseevna Nabokova. The museum also received a unique collection of the first editions of V. V. Nabokov (including periodicals). In addition, a valuable part of the collection of the Nabokov Museum is the only collection of butterflies in our country by V. V. Nabokov, which came from N. A. Formozova from Moscow (zoologist, professor at Moscow State University). Formosov received this most interesting collection from the American Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, where Vladimir Nabokov worked as a curator for 7 years.
The Nabokov Museum is not only exhibits and a house associated with the life and work of Nabokov, but also a place where a research library for scientists is organized, where various events are held: readings of V. V. Nabokov and those from whom he was in admiration (for example, A. P. Chekhov and D. Joyce), international lectures and conferences (for example, "Nabokov and Russia", "Nabokov and France", "Nabokov and England", etc. etc.), the Nabokov International Summer School, held annually, exhibitions of exhibits related to Nabokov.
