The STaTe hermiTage muSeum annual reporT
The STaTe hermiTage muSeum annual reporT
The STaTe hermiTage muSeum annual reporT
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specIal DeVelopment proGrammes specIal DeVelopment proGrammes<br />
<strong>The</strong> 65th anniversary of the victory<br />
in the Second world war<br />
preSenTaTion of <strong>The</strong> proJecT By<br />
<strong>The</strong> archiTecT alexander niKolSKy creaTed<br />
in <strong>The</strong> BeSieged leningrad in 1942<br />
On 5 May 2010, the Project for a Temporary Triumphal Arch<br />
to Greet the Troops was presented in the Armorial Hall of the<br />
Winter Palace. Designed by Alexander Nikolsky in 1942,<br />
during the siege of Leningrad, it is a part of a series of drawings<br />
he made between October 1941 and February 1942.<br />
<strong>The</strong> drawing shows the view of Prospekt Stachek in the Avtovo<br />
District with the residential buildings built in 1937–<br />
1941. Nikolsky’s professional activity in the pre-war decade<br />
was focused on this district, which was also hotly contested<br />
during the fierce defence of the city in the autumn and<br />
winter of 1941. A column of KV-85 tanks is shown parading<br />
along the avenue: they were the first Soviet-made<br />
heavy tanks which defended the frontline in the autumn<br />
and winter of 1941. Ten years after the outbreak of the<br />
war, a monument to a KV-85 tank was erected in Morskoi<br />
Pekhoty Street to honour the defenders of Leningrad.<br />
On 22 January 1942, Alexander Nikolsky wrote in his diary:<br />
“I firmly believe the siege will be lifted soon, and I have<br />
started contemplating the triumphal arches to greet the<br />
heroic troops who liberate Leningrad”.<br />
Triumphal arches were constructed in Leningrad for the<br />
ceremonial greeting of the victorious troops on 8 July<br />
1945.<br />
<strong>The</strong> drawings and watercolours by the artists and architects<br />
who refused to be evacuated from Leningrad and<br />
continued working during the siege are precious witnesses<br />
to the life of the city during that time. Many of the artists<br />
were involved in civic defence, camouflaging the airfields<br />
and other sites, evacuating museum collections, keeping<br />
anti-aircraft watch on the roofs. By December 1941, most<br />
of them had to live a barracks-style life to survive and were<br />
lodging in the Union of Artists building, in the cellars of<br />
the Hermitage, the Russian Museum, the Academy of Arts,<br />
which were used as makeshift air-raid shelters.<br />
Alexander Nikolsky’s drawings became the chronicle<br />
of life in Leningrad in 1941–1942. He was an accomplished<br />
draughtsman, and his clear, well-structured drawings<br />
reveal the artist’s thought and expose the heart of the<br />
composition he had in mind.<br />
Nikolsky’s wartime drawings capture the horrible marks<br />
of war with documentary precision: the ruined buildings,<br />
the camouflaged monuments, the air balloons and barricades<br />
in the city streets and squares in his views of Leningrad<br />
under siege and its everyday life. Of special note are<br />
the illustrations to the architect’s siege diary of 1941–1942.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se pencil drawings recreate the atmosphere of the besieged<br />
city with its everyday heroism.<br />
Alexander Nikolsky. Project for a Temporary Triumphal Arch<br />
to Greet the Troops<br />
preSenTaTion of ediTionS dedicaTed<br />
To <strong>The</strong> Second world war<br />
On 24 May 2010, an evening event marking the 65th anniversary<br />
of the victory in the Second World War organized<br />
by the State Hermitage and the Worldwide Club of St. Petersburgers<br />
was held in Menshikov Palace.<br />
Two editions were presented to the audience: Lev Pumpiansky.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Hermitage: Poems. Letters to the Family (Yekaterinburg:<br />
the Novoye Vremya Mid-Urals Publishing House, 2009) and<br />
Voice of Your Heart (St. Petersburg: Petrocentr, 2010).<br />
<strong>The</strong> collection of works by Lev Pumpiansky (1889–1943),<br />
a prominent Leningrad art historian, Dean of the Faculty<br />
of the History of Art of the Russian Academy of Arts, includes<br />
a poetic cycle dedicated to the Hermitage written<br />
during the years of the siege, and the works published<br />
during his lifetime and letters to his family written between<br />
1906 and 1943.<br />
a warTime vegeTaBle paTch<br />
in <strong>The</strong> hanging gardenS<br />
A special event marking the 65th anniversary of the victory<br />
in the Second World War and the 69th anniversary of the<br />
start of the siege of Leningrad was held in the Hermitage<br />
on 10 September 2010.<br />
A corner of a “vegetable patch of the siege days” was recreated<br />
in the Hanging Gardens of the Small Hermitage<br />
with the help of LLC Neolik and the Prinevskoye horticultural<br />
enterprise. It forms part of the project “Hermitage–2014”.<br />
<strong>The</strong> vegetable garden was reconstructed on<br />
the basis of documents from the Academic Archives of the<br />
State Hermitage, which include drawings by A. Kaplun,<br />
V. Miliutina (1942), and V. Kuchumov (1945). <strong>The</strong> project<br />
was supervised by the Deputy Director for Construction<br />
M. Novikov.<br />
According to the archives, potatoes, cabbages, carrots,<br />
swedes, beetroot, turnips, spring onions, spinach, and dill<br />
were all planted in the Hanging Gardens and the Great<br />
Courtyard of the Winter Palace in 1943. Ash was used<br />
as a fertilizer.<br />
<strong>The</strong> gathering of the harvest in the Hanging Gardens was<br />
timed to coincide with the anniversary of the start of the<br />
siege. <strong>The</strong> vegetables harvested from the “wartime patch”<br />
were used to make pies which were presented to the museum’s<br />
oldest members of staff. L. Voronikhina, Leading<br />
Methodologist of the Education Department, told the<br />
guests about the life of the museum and its staff during<br />
the siege years.<br />
<strong>The</strong> event was organized with the help of Fazer Food<br />
Services.<br />
During the grim years of the siege, Lev Pumpiansky turned<br />
to the “eternal values”, poetic contemplations on the masterpieces<br />
of world art. <strong>The</strong> original plan for the cycle included:<br />
an Introduction, the Antiquity Section, the Middle<br />
Ages, Flanders and Holland, France. A public reading of<br />
some of the poems from the cycle finished by the summer<br />
of 1942 was held on 15 August of the same year. <strong>The</strong> Hermitage<br />
Cycle remained unfinished.<br />
<strong>The</strong> album Voice of Your Heart is a collection of creative<br />
works by the students of the Nikolai Roerich Art College.<br />
It includes pictorial and sculptural studies, posters, literary<br />
sketches and essays.<br />
<strong>The</strong> history of the wartime class of 1943/44 – archive documents,<br />
photographs, memories of the war years which<br />
open the book, – echo the thoughts of the students of the<br />
turn of the 21st century, which focus on the war, the lives<br />
of the people, the “proud and tragic” pages of the life in<br />
the besieged Leningrad.<br />
Harvest from the Hermitage Hanging Gardens<br />
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