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200th Anniversary of the birth of celebrated
Russian poet and writer Alexander Pushkin
18 May, 1999 -
December, 1999
Currently on show in the Hermitage Museum are three exhibitions in commemoration
of the 200th anniversary of the birth of celebrated Russian poet and writer
Alexander Pushkin:
Alexander Pushkin and the Winter Palace,
Alexander Pushkin and his Time in Coins and Medals.
Participants:
All-Russian Alexander Pushkin Museum, St Petersburg
Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
Tsarskoye Selo Museum Reserve
St Petersburg Union of Artists
Moscow Union of Artists
Alexander Pushkin and the Winter Palace,
including paintings, drawings,sculptures and applied art.There are portraits
of Pushkin's numerous famous contemporaries. When he was young and single,
the poet made frequent visits to A. O. Rosset, maid of honour to Empress
Alexandra Fyodorovna. Attending the obligatory balls and ceremonies in
the Palace, he came into contact with Emperor Nicholas I, Empress Maria
Fyodorovna, the heir to the throne Alexander Nikolayevich, ministers and
diplomats. Many of his friends from his days at school
at the Lycee had achieved high position and were to me in the Winter Palace
- among them State Chancellor Grand Prince Alexander Gorchakov and prominent
Russian statesman Mikhail Speransky. Other friends were also received
at Court, such as the daughter and two grand-daughters of celebrated Russian
Fieldmarshal Mikhail Kutuzov. In the year before his tragic death after
a duel (1837) the poet frequently visited his wife's aunt Yekaterina Zagryazhskaya
at the Winter Palace, where she was lady in waiting to the Empress. Zagryazhskaya
often helped Pushkin when he was in straitened financial circumstances.
To complement the portraits are several unique paintings by pupils of
Alexey Venetsianov showing the state rooms in the Imperial residence as
they were before the fire of 1837, allowing us to see these rooms just
as Pushkin saw them.
Alexander Pushkin and his Time in Coins and Medals
presents over 350 numismatic items, including little known medals and
badges devoted to the subject of Pushkin. This rarely exhibited material
covers the last 150 years. The earliest object associated with Pushkin
is a medal commemorating the 25th anniversary of his death. Designed by
I. Chukmasov, it was struck at the St Petersburg Mint in 1862. A badge
for members of the Legislative Committee set up by Catherine II is also
of interest, for it was Pushkin who first made reference to it in his
historical work Stories of Pugachev. The exhibition includes works by
several contemporary artists and a number of pieces produced over the
last few decades
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