A. Green Museum description and photo - Crimea: Feodosia

2024 Author: Graham Hoggarth | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-09 10:26

Description of the attraction

The most beautiful and romantic museum in Feodosia is dedicated to the author of "Scarlet Sails" - Alexander Green. The writer lived in this city for several years. The exposition immerses the visitor in a magical Greenland - the country in which the cities invented by him are located: Liss, Zurbagan, Liliana and others.

Alexander Green

This author's real name is Alexander Stepanovich Grinevsky … He was born into the family of a Polish nobleman who was exiled to Russia for participating in the 1863 uprising. "Green", an abbreviation for the surname, is a gymnasium nickname, which later became a creative pseudonym. Since childhood, he dreamed of the sea and distant wanderings, and at the age of 16 he left his home in order to go to Odessa … In Odessa, he lived for some time at random, then he was able to get a job as a sailor - and made his first trip to the sea. But naval career did not work out - the romantic young man was categorically unsuitable for sailors. He returned home, and then tried his luck again - already in Baku. He changed many occupations, but did not stay anywhere. From despair entered the soldiers - and deserted, military discipline was not for him. But his nature found expression in his revolutionary activity. The young man became SR and received the underground nickname "Lanky". He did not engage in terror, but as a propagandist he was bright, eloquent and convincing. He was several times arrested, spent more than a year in prison, tried to escape twice, was released under an amnesty, and arrested again … It was during these years that he found his vocation - writing. The first stories under the pseudonym "Green" were published in 1907.

Before the outbreak of the First World War, he managed to release two collections of stories, to marry and divorce, to break with the Socialist-Revolutionaries, to converge with the literary circles of St. Petersburg. In those years he wrote mostly realistic stories, exposing the problems of the existing system. It was only after several years of writing that the outlines of "Greenland" began to appear in his works - a fictional romantic country about which he wrote all his subsequent life. In the last years before the revolution, he hides in Finland, and in 1917 he returned to Petrograd.

The revolution was devoid of romance. In 1918, Green was nearly shot for condemning the terror. Then he was drafted into the army, and miraculously survived after typhus. He, like many other representatives of Russian literature, was actually saved by his close to the Bolsheviks. Maksim Gorky … Green settled in the famous House of Arts - in the same place where N. Gumilyov, O. Mandelstam and others lived. This hungry but bright time is colorfully described in the late story "Fandango". He did not accept the revolution, but he did not reject it either - he was no longer interested in politics at all. In those years, Green wrote his most famous work - "Scarlet Sails", about love and the sea, as if trying to escape from a nightmarish reality. He dedicates the story to his third wife - Nina Mironova … His third marriage finally turned out to be strong and he never parted with Nina.

Green gains literary prominence. He is finally published, he receives royalties. The hunger has receded. And in 1924, Green fulfills his dream - he moves from Petrograd to the sea, to Feodosia … He finds a house built in 1891 on Gallery Street. It is in it that the museum is now located. Alexander himself liked the house terribly. He himself describes it in the story "Running on the Waves", and writes about the amazing combination of blissful silence - and the noise coming from the port.

The Greens live very quietly. Alexander is very creative and writes a lot. They are friends with another famous Crimean resident of those years - Maximilian Voloshin … But times are changing rapidly. Every year in Soviet Russia there is less and less revolutionary freedom and more and more ideological pressure. Green's romantic, fabulous works turn out to be incompatible with the new literary politics. The intended edition of the collected works is interrupted, new works by Green are not published. The money again ceases to be enough, and then the family moves to where life was cheaper - to Old Crimea. In 1931, the Greens went to the capital, and then to St. Petersburg. Alexander tries to print his last novel, or at least get a pension from the Writers' Union, but he is refused. During these years he drinks a lot - in the capitals he drinks with his former bohemian acquaintances. But you can drink with them, but there is no help from them. He returns to Old Crimea, and in 1932 he dies - sick and unnecessary in the Soviet Union. Buried Green in the Old Crimea. The wife chooses a place for her grave where she can see the sea he loves.

The fate of Nina Nikolaevna was not easy. During the years of occupation, she was taken to a German labor camp, and when she returned, like many prisoners of such camps, she was accused of complicity with the invaders and ended up in the Soviet camp. She served almost ten years, was released under the amnesty of 1955 and was rehabilitated in 1997. In recent years, she lived in the Old Crimea and, on her initiative, a small A. Green Museum.

Green's books continued to be published until the anti-cosmopolitan campaign, when they were banned and withdrawn from libraries. Green's full-fledged return to the reader had already at the beginning of the 60s.

Museum exposition

The museum in this building was conceived back in 1966, and opened in July 1970 … Already Anastasia Tsvetaeva called him "magic." This is really far from an ordinary "museum of the writer" with a traditional exhibition of photographs and preserved things. It was created in order to truly transport visitors to the romantic and mysterious world of Green's works. The concept of the museum was invented by G. I. Zolotukhin with the participation of artist S. Brodsky … Savva Brodsky is an illustrator and he owns many illustrations for the works of Green. The museum itself is made rather as an illustration to a fiction book than as an academic preface to it. The museum is designed as a ship, which has a hold, cabins, clipper, etc. This is a real " museum of romance », A museum of ships, travel, sincere love and true friendship.

Visitors are greeted by “ frigate hold ”, With models of ships on the walls and portraits of A. Green himself by the artist S. Brodsky. " Wandering cabin"Is dedicated to the childhood of the writer and the birth of romantic images in his soul. From Vyatka, he went to Odessa, to his dream of the sea. The exposition tells about his travels - to Alexandria, Istanbul, Baku. Among the exhibits are not only Green's relics - in this room, for example, there is a barrel organ, which starred in the Soviet film about A. Green - "The Knight of Dreams".

Clipper room with a huge model of a sailing clipper tells about the first literary experiences of the writer, about participation in revolutionary organizations. The main exhibit belongs to this time - the earliest image of the writer, a photograph of 1906. The exposition tells about his life in the years before the revolution: arrests, propaganda, the publication of new stories, romantic love and marriage - and parting.

Central image "Rostral" room - the famous ship with scarlet sails, the main symbol of the writer's creativity. A. Green wrote this story for many years, started, dropped and again returned to his favorite idea. The story was published in 1923. The museum contains manuscripts of the story, on sheets torn from the office accounting books: in Petrograd in the 1920s, where the writer lived then, there was a sorely lack of ordinary writing paper. In this room you can see the very first edition of the story.

Captain's cabin dedicated to the life of A. Green in the Crimea. There is a photo gallery - from this period of his life there are many photographs left. It was the time of the highest glory - the collected works of A. Green began to be published. Fifteen volumes were conceived, but only eight were published - they can be seen in this room. Green writes in these years his best works - "The Golden Chain", "Fandango", "Running on the Waves."

The next room is memorial office of the writer … Here, according to the descriptions, the atmosphere of his last office is recreated, no longer in Feodosia, but in the Old Crimea, where he ended his life.

The exposition continues to evolve. In 1981, the famous throughout Feodosia appeared brigantine - panel-bas-relief on the wall of the house, a ship, as if floating into the street from the sea. In 1985, a new hall appeared, dedicated to the reflection of Alexander Green's work in the modern world. The center of the hall is occupied by a model of one of the main city of Greenlandia - Zurbagan … In the 90s, a gallery of contemporary romantic painting appeared. Nowadays, numerous exhibitions, literary and musical evenings and other events are held here.

The museum conducts publishing activities dedicated to Greene - after all, in its collection there are many unique documents about the life of the writer. The museum has published previously unpublished memoirs about Green, the biography of the writer, A. Green's works with unique illustrations from museum collections, etc. The museum has a library room, where numerous editions of A. Green's works in different languages are presented.

Interesting Facts

Before his death, Green confessed and received the Holy Communion. The priest said that when he asked Green if he was reconciled with his enemies, the dying man replied: “You mean the Bolsheviks? They are not my enemies, I am indifferent to them."

In 2011, a wine festival was held under the auspices of the museum. The participants were loving couples, and they were invited to taste "Captain Gray's wine"