Literature Museum named after A.S. Pushkin in Brodzyany

Brodzyany Manor, located in a wooded valley of the Nitra River, mentioned for the first time in 1293, once belonged to the Hungarian aristocrats Brogyanyi. The Slovakized form of their surname became the name of the estate. The stone building, which existed since the XIV century as a country mansion, in the XVII century was rebuilt by the next owners - the Kvaššay family ( Kvaššay ^[3] ) - into a Renaissance style castle.

Friesengoffs

In 1846 ^{[~ 1] the} estate was bought by Austrian diplomat Gustav Vogel von Friesenhof ^[5] , who since 1839 served in the embassy in St. Petersburg. The Friesengoff family (Gustav was married to a pupil of the aunt of the Goncharov sisters, Sofia Ivanovna de Mestre, Natalya Ivanovna Ivanova) maintained friendly relations with Natalya Nikolaevna Pushkina and her sister Alexandra until leaving for Vienna in 1841.

In the fall of 1850, the Friesengoffs returned to Russia. Soon Natalya Ivanovna caught a cold and died on October 12, 1850. After the death of his wife, Friesengoff continued friendly relations with the Goncharovs and in 1851 made an offer to Alexandra Nikolaevna. The wedding took place in St. Petersburg on April 6, 1852, and in the autumn of that year, the Friesengoffs left for Austria .

Alexandra Nikolaevna took with her from Russia her favorite books, notes, albums with portraits of relatives and other relics and memorabilia.

The Friesengoffs spent the winter seasons in Vienna, where the baron had his own house, and in the summer they lived in Brodzyany ^[6] . Natalya Nikolaevna Pushkina-Lanskaya visited the castle with her children, the last time - in 1862. Brothers Dmitry, Sergey and Ivan Goncharov ^{[7] [8] also} came to visit their sister. In the 1860s, Baron Friesenhoff became a full member of the Slovak Culture Development Society - “The Matitsa Slovaks ” and took a large part in its activities ^[9] . Later, the Friesengoffs lived with their daughter and son-in-law Elimar Oldenburgsky ^{[~ 2]} in Erlaa Castle near Vienna ^[10] .

Gustav Friesengoff died on January 16, 1889, and Alexandra Nikolaevna died on August 9, 1891. Both are buried in the chapel in Brodzyany ^{[7] [~ 3]} .

Their only daughter Natalya, the duchess of Oldenburg , her husband Anton Gauthier Friedrich Elimar, the Duke of Oldenburg, is buried here.

After the death of her father, mother and husband (in 1895), Natalya Gustavovna remained the sole guardian of the entire cultural heritage of the family and, having moved from Erlaa to Brodzyany, moved most of the collections there, she conserved them in good faith, until her death in January 1937 ^{[ 4]} .

Welsburgs

In 1938, Pushkin Nikolai Raevsky visited Brodzyany. The fact that the daughter of Alexandra Nikolaevna lives in Czechoslovakia, Raevsky learned back in 1933 from one of her grandchildren's nieces, the Goncharovs. The elderly lady, however, did not want to open either the name of the duchess or the name of her castle. Only a few years later, Raevsky found the descendants of Alexandra Nikolaevna Friesengoff. An emigrant Pushkinist turned to Natalya Gustavovna with an official letter from the administration of the French Institute, he was interested in whether there were any Pushkin papers in the Brodzyan archive. The answer, and later the invitation to visit the castle, Raevsky received from Count George von Welsburg ^{[~ 4]} , the grandson of Natalia Gustavovna, who died on January 9, 1937. Raevsky subsequently published the report on this trip in the collection “Pushkin. Research and materials ” ^[11] . The owners of the castle showed him many memorial things: books, canvases, antique objects, utensils, albums with watercolor portraits made by Count Xavier de Mestre , landscapes painted by the hand of great-grandmother, Baroness Alexandra Friesenhoff, Russian engravings from 1839-1844 ^[12] and

The castle had a beautiful library of at least 10,000 volumes, including a separate cabinet with Russian books. Among the many portraits and drawings are portraits of the Goncharovs, Pushkins and Lansky, Friesengoff and Xavier de Mestra , as well as P. A. Vyazemsky , Yu. P. Stroganova and others.

According to Raevsky, the owners of the castle opened him a "real treasure", however, by their own admission, they did not understand the significance of the relics preserved in Brodzyany ^[13] . On his first visit to Brodzyany, Raevsky did not dare to ask him to show him the archive. When asked about letters that could have been kept in the castle (the Pushkinist hoped to find Alexandra Nikolaevna’s correspondence with her younger sister), the count answered “evasively: there are no letters in Russian in the archive” ^{[14] [15]} . The only document in Russian that Rayevsky read was the consent of the Russian emperor and empress to the marriage of the maid of honor Alexandra Goncharova ^[16] . Raevsky intended to visit the Brodzyans again, but the trip, scheduled for the spring of 1939, did not take place due to the entry of German troops into Czechoslovakia ^[17] .

World War II and Post-War Time

During the Second World War, the occupation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia and the post-war reconstruction, a huge part of objects from the Brodzyan castle disappeared. Family values ​​sent by the owners of the estate to Vienna in early 1945 did not reach the destination station. Partially, furniture and other items that remained in the castle were bought up at the post-war auctions by local residents ^[7] . At the end of the war, Romanian soldiers were stationed in Brodzyany, who used books from the library to kindle, many documents were simply thrown out into the street. Missing albums with drawings by Xavier de Mestre, miniatures and portraits ^[18] . Rayevsky, at the end of the war, was arrested and deported to the USSR.

Among the surviving family relics is a herbarium of herbs, collected in August 1841 ^{[~ 5]} at Mikhailovsky by the first wife of Gustav Friesengoff, Natalya Ivanovna, Pushkin’s children, sisters Natalya Nikolaevna and Alexandra Nikolaevna and the inhabitants of the neighboring estate - Trigorsky . On each leaf of the herbarium it is indicated when and who found the flower.

Another reliable relic is the pencil marks of the growth of Natalya Nikolaevna and her children ( Alexander and Natalya ) preserved on the doorjamb in the living room.

The idea of ​​creating a museum arose in the mid-1960s. But the castle, which was empty for a long time, required major repairs and restoration. In addition, then the location of most of the materials of cultural and historical value from the heritage of A. N. Friesengoff was not known. Only in the 1970s. restoration of the castle began, for which the Czechoslovak government allocated 5 million crowns. The development of plans for the exposition and its filling was done by the Slovak Matica in the city of Martin, the cultural center of Slovakia. The literary critic, Slavist and Pushkinist Lev Sergeyevich Kishkin, who was engaged in the search for Pushkin materials in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, actively participated in the organization of the museum ^[19] .

The A. S. Pushkin Literary Museum was opened on November 15, 1979. A monument to A. S. Pushkin (sculptor L. Snopek, architect M. Kusa) was erected in the adjoining park ^{[20] [21]} .

The Pushkin section is located on the second floor. In addition to the genuine furniture and personal belongings of Alexandra Nikolaevna found in it, you can see her albums with images of members of the Pushkin family, his relatives and friends, wall portraits of Alexandra Nikolaevna, Natalya Nikolaevna, Vyazemsky , Zhukovsky , Turgenev , etc.

In one of the albums, photographs of Natalia Nikolaevna and the poet’s children - Maria, Alexander, Gregory and Natalia, taken around 1861 ^[22] .

In the bookcase, instead of the lost Russian books by A. N. Friesengoff, there are about 200 duplicates from the book collection of A. F. Smirdin who ended up in Czechoslovakia ^[23] .

In one of the memorial rooms you can see an old piano with notes of Alexandra Nikolaevna, taken out of Russia by her and, possibly, previously located in the poet’s apartment on the Moika.

A separate room is dedicated to the life and work of the poet and the perception of his works in Slovakia. It contains many books, reproductions of manuscripts and drawings of Pushkin, illustrations for his works, images of Pushkin’s places, portraits, a famous bust of the poet's work by I.P. Vitali , etc.

The Mikhailovsky Herbarium, in the collection of which all four children of Pushkin and Natalya Nikolaevna took part, is not presented at the open exhibition - flowers and herbs are too fragile and short-lived. The herbarium is placed in a special repository and visitors to the museum can see its composition sheets in a video film dedicated to the history of the estate ^[24] .

The museum exposition traces the centuries-old history of literary and cultural ties between Slovakia and Russia. Separate stands are dedicated to Leo Tolstoy , and here you can see the manuscripts and personal belongings of his doctor and like-minded person Dushan Makovitsky , who lived at the beginning of the 20th century in the city of Zilina , 75 km from Brodzyan.

The history of the development of Slavic literature is illustrated by materials on its significant figures, starting with the creators of the Slavic writing of the brothers Cyril and Methodius , whose activities in the second half of the 9th century were associated with the Great Moravian Slavic principality .

The exhibition of bookplates “Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin on book signs”, organized with the participation of the Circle of Slovak Bookplates and Bibliophiles of Bratislava, was timed to coincide with the opening of the museum.

After a decade of successful operation ^{[25] of the} only Pushkin Museum outside the former USSR and Russia, a new exhibition design was developed ^[26] . The authors of the project suggested creating individually unique architectural compositions of each hall and each literary and historical stage in order to achieve a “memorable effect” in the development of Slovak-Russian literary relations. As a result, each room acquired a certain dominant - an architectural symbol that characterizes a specific literary and historical stage.

The opening of a new exposition of the Slavic Museum named after A.S. Pushkin took place on November 11, 1989. New sculptural portraits of writers (including L. Tolstoy, F. Dostoevsky, M. Gorky, V. Mayakovsky) were created in the park, created by the best sculptors of Slovakia .

• Raevsky N. Portraits spoke up. - Alma-Ata: Publishing House "Zhazushi", 1974, - ss. 12-53
• Kishkin L.S. Czechoslovak finds. - M.: Soviet Russia, 1985, 224 p.
• Kishkin L.S. People of the Pushkin era. - M: Russian Way, 2008, - ss. 118-137
• Obodovskaya I.M., Dementiev M.A. After the death of Pushkin. - M.: Algorithm Publishing House, 2008, 384 p.
• Literárne múseum AS Puškina. Vzt'ahy Slovenska k ruskej a sovietskij literatúre, Partizánske-Brodzany. Prepravil Imrich Sedlák. Matica Slovenska. Martin 1979