"Gogol in Moscow" Automatic translate
с 12 Апреля
по 2 ИюняМузей Москвы
Зубовский бульвар, 2
Москва
From April 12 to June 2, the Museum of Moscow will host the exhibition "Gogol in Moscow." It is dedicated to the 210th anniversary of the writer and is dedicated to the Moscow period of his life and work - the Moscow circle of friends, addresses and events. The exhibition presents unique exhibits from the collection of the Museum of Moscow, including the first edition of Dead Souls, personal items and documents from other collections and archives, as well as works by contemporary artists dedicated to Gogol.
Throughout the nineteenth century, Moscow, deprived of the status of an official capital, continued to remain a spiritual capital for the Russian people. Gogol repeatedly visited Moscow, the writer was attracted by its architecture and picturesqueness. “After Rome, only Moscow can be liked,” Nikolai Vasilievich said.
The exhibition at the Museum of Moscow has a circular composition: from the “time tape”, which marked the significant dates of the writer’s life with an emphasis on the Moscow period, to works by contemporary artists inspired by the mysterious personality of Nikolai Vasilyevich.
“Gogol is unique in that he was understood differently in different eras. For younger contemporaries, he is a realist, a denouncer of the evils of society, for the Silver Age, he is a mystic who has a dream about Russia, and his heroes are the spirits of evil, small demons that inhabit people. Today, Gogol is part of popular culture, it is first of all his film adaptation, and he himself is a hero of the horror, popular almost like Batman. For us, Gogol is interesting as a genius who was far ahead of his time, among other things, describing the eternal Russian types and creating that modern, living language that we still speak today ”- Alina Saprykina, director of the Moscow Museum and curator of the exhibition.
In Moscow, Gogol was friends, inspired and worked: he wrote the first volume of Dead Souls and Taras Bulba, collected material for the novel Old World Landowners, immersed in the unhurried, patriarchal way of life of Moscow families. Gogol’s circle of contacts in Moscow was not inferior to St. Petersburg: these are Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolai Ogarev, Alexander Ostrovsky, Mikhail Schepkin, Ivan Aivazovsky, Peter Vyazemsky, Ivan Turgenev, Vsevolod Belinsky, Pavel Nashchokin, whose last name was inherited by the lane that now connects Gogolevsky Bul Sivtsev Vrazhek, and many other notable figures. Nashchokin even got into the second part of "Dead Souls" in the image of Khlobuev, who has the talent to spend money "on all sorts of refinement and comfort."
A multimedia installation will tell about Gogol’s acquaintances in Moscow: three friends of Nikolai Vasilievich, the friendship with each of which was unique in its own way - Mikhail Schepkin, Sergey Aksakov and Mikhail Pogodin - will share their impressions and memories of the writer.
Gogol’s routes and the history of Moscow are closely related. The places where the writer visited have been preserved to this day: Slepnev’s house in Sivtsevo Vrazhek, where Sergei Aksakov lived, the building of the university printing house on Bolshaya Dmitrovka, where Dead Souls were first printed. Luxurious estates were gradually replaced by empire mansions. Then, in the first half of the 19th century, the construction of the Moscow Museum complex, Provision warehouses, one of the main preserved monuments of the Moscow Empire, was begun.
In the historical part of the exhibition, documents, books and objects from the collections of the Museum of Moscow are presented, among which are the first edition of Dead Souls, watercolor reconstructions based on archival photographs, portraits of characters and views of Moscow of the 30-50s of the 19th century.
Another section of the exhibition - the image of Gogol by artists of our time - will reflect the influence of the image of N.V. Gogol on contemporary art. Etching by Marc Chagall, where the artist depicts himself with Gogol, works by Anatoly Zverev dedicated to the writer, animated works by Arkady Nasonov, a portrait of Gogol by Dmitry Tsvetkov, made with a posthumous mask, Elena Samorodova and Sergey Sonin with artistic mystification of the image of the great writer “Gogol. Rome. From the Third to the First ”, as well as the conceptual art installation of Alexandra Petlyura.
The exhibition is held with the participation and support of the Russian State Library, the Anatoly Zverev Museum, and the “Shelf” project.