The Anna Akhmatova Museum

change once they learn of the history in which it was composed? After all Shostakovich spent all of his life in the Soviet Union, whereas a new generation of musician is emerging that never knew the USSR.

MS: The children of today know some- thing of the past, although it’s generally lacking in detail. For them, this music is DSCH: What’s the cost of entering, and pure music, it can exist outside a histori- what are the prizes? cal context, like any other music. There is no problem for them. Perhaps some of MS: 300 Rubles for Russian participants, the older kids lived under the age of Per- and 25 US dollars for foreign applicants estroika and Gorbachev, but music and to which you must add travel, lodgings politics remain separate issues for them. and so on. As for prizes: 1st prize is 6000 Rubles, 2nd place wins 5000, third 4000 DSCH: If one passes by the school , what ANNA AKHMATOVA MUSEUM plus diplomas. says “this is a school dedicated to Shostakovich”? t’s a brisk 10 minutes’ walk from the There are also special prizes for the best mesmerising phenomenon that is interpretations of certain Shostakovich MS: First of all the music you’ll hear! INevsky Prospekt, but by the time interpretations, musicality etc There is And then there is a large plaque outside you’ve failed to find any street indications also a Grand Prix - the prize for which is the school indicating the presence of our on Liteyniy Prospekt, have attempted to often a special gift - or 7000 Rubles - this school? employ your best sub-High School Russ- for an exceptional performance. ian - DSCH: Are there special exhibits in the “Gdye Musey Anna Akhmatova pejels- Finally, there’s a gala concert in the main school? ta?” (and, of course, have singularly failed hall of the Moscow Conservatoire, which to match the reply to anything appearing includes a symphony by Shostakovich MS: Of course! There’s a bust of in Berlitz’s Pocket Russian) - well, the Shostakovich in the entrance hall and we unexpected peace of the walled gardens DSCH: And the jury? have a small exhibition too. that formerly housed myriad fountains (thus the “Fountain” part of Fountain MS: In 2002 the President will be Karen House - otherwise known as the Shereme- Khachaturian, a pupil of Shostakovich - Suddenly the doors are flung open to tyev Palace) is quite, quite breathtaking. for the second time in fact. Co-President reveal a string trio at the threshold. Our My advice? Attack the museum from the will be Sofia Khentova, plus another pro- interview is over, the talking ceases and more orthodox entrance on the Fontanka fessor from the Moscow Conservatoire, the strains of Borodin were already flood- Canal bank - number 34 to be precise. as well as the director from the Ipollitov- ing over us as Madame Nikolayevna Ivanov Institute. In total 7 jurists, plus presses a Shostakovich School badge into The somewhat dishevelled state of the representatives from the school. my hand. “Take it, and remember us”, she gardens isn’t reflected in the neighbouring building that houses the Akhmatova whispers, in broken English. I do, and Museum: which shouldn’t imply that the DSCH: Does the Shostakovich family in will. Moscow play any role? Web-tuned Western visitor will be grap- pling with the latest interactive museum MS: Of course, they support it very much. gadgetry. Not at all as glass cases and roped-off ante-rooms predominate in an For more information about the activities environment which is nonetheless wel- DSCH: In more general terms now - of the Shostakovich School in Moscow, as coming, informative and most of all high- could you tell our readers of just how you well as the aforementioned Competition, ly evocative of the periods through which perceive the interest in Shostakovich’s please contact: music in the lives of young people, given this great poet lived and worked. After all, this was a mere communal apartment in that styles and attitudes evolve so insa- Galina Douznova her time and the place in which much of tiably in Russia, as elsewhere? Shostakovich Museum, her inner strife was born. Shostakovich Children’s School #81 MS: It seems clear to me that 1b Allee Temtsougova Akhmatova may Shostakovich’s music doesn’t belong to 111402 Moscow, have a tremen- ‘The Past’ - indeed, it opens up for these Russia dously interna- children first and foremost as a piece of tional reputation, music. - mentioning the DSCH Journal and this but her Museum article caters, linguisti- DSCH: But you can’t disassociate the cally-speaking, to music from the past - so in this case, how masters only of does the kids’ perception of the music

26 DSCH JOURNAL No. 15 - July 2001 the Russian tongue. Take a native speak- my scant printed guide informed me, the er with you and the various rooms and museum’s collection numbers over 13,000 exhibits will open up their stories and items of memorabilia as well as another secrets to you too. 25,000 miscellaneous items. A set of stunningly anonymous stairs lead Further armed with a little of her story, to Akhmatova’s living quarters, or rather the history of Leningrad and the Arts here an expanded version of same, now con- in particular and there is plenty to seize sisting of a cold, functional corridor (some everyone’s attention, thanks to the pictures have been hung there to attempt to painstakingly assembled collection of break up the stark monotony - but have hundreds of exhibits and artifacts. Little failed) and six separate rooms - some self- purportedly sold to buy a train ticket and has been changed since her death in the contained, some interlinked (original or unearthed much later in a Moscow pawn 1960s and much of the furniture and not is hard to fathom), but all dripping shop. many of the paintings and drawings that with evocative objects and writings con- The wholly documentary displays that fol- adorn this place provide graphic outlines cerning the elusive poetess. low through the remaining rooms of the to Akhmatova’s verses. museum seemed to me relatively soulless Personally I began to sense the unmistak- in comparison, however many chilling The museum was opened in 1989, coin- able presence of Akhmatova from the third moments rise from the light-blanched ciding with the 100th anniversary of the of the rooms on show - where she passed pages of editions such as Literaturnaya poet’s birth, in the southern garden wing many of her days from 1923 until 1938. Gazeta - State denouncements follow of Sheremetyev Palace which, in spite of Now the room is dedicated to Punin - State threats follow accusations of the the best efforts of the worst kind of Rus- bureaux and books and easeled sketches basest kind as the cold, knurled hand of sia’s steel grey, icy days remains one of depicting the multi-layered talents of her the Terror slammed into Akhmatova and the most beautiful of St. Petersburg’s 18th partner. In 1938 she moved along a couple many of her artistic counterparts - century private resi- of rooms into a stun- Shostakovich included, of course. dences. This isn’t the ningly light, airy study- only place where cum bedroom, main- Before leaving the building you might Akhmatova lived in St. tained in its original wish to ask the staff for a viewing of one Petersburg (or rather, textures and furnishings of the many specialised documentary Leningrad), but she did today. A magnificent films they hold in their library (some in spend the majority of her portrait in oils graces the English, most only in Russian) - I chose a life here. It takes only a window’s shadows just powerful portrait of Josef Brodsky and did few steps along the com- as her own form would not regret the choice, given the strong con- munal corridor for the have filled this apart- notative and biographical links between special aura of the place ment. I stared out into the two poets. to seep deeply into even the garden and found the most hardened of myself in the grip of a Back out into the Petersburg morning I Western sensibilities. winter - frozen with anguish and lamenta- feel suddenly more in communion with tion for a lost generation - Stalin’s. these streets and as I pass the canalside In fact Akhmatova moved into the build- where so many of Russia’s great creative ing in the mid-20s and lived here until Stay there, “with her” for as long as you minds have wandered, so often in des- 1952. The apartment in which she lived feel able and these four walls will gradu- belonged to her husband, the art critic and ally possess you. See, too, a classic sketch perate contemplation, my mind settles research scholar at the city’s Russian (Art) of Akhmatova undertaken in faraway Paris inevitably on Akhmatova and on these Museum, Nikolai Nikolaevich Punin. As or an elegant, china figurine of the poet, words from her Requiem:

Lest in blessed death I should forget The grinding scream of the Black Marias,

The hideous clanging gate, the old Woman wailing like a wounded beast.

And may the melting snow drop like tears From my motionless bronze eyelids,

And the prison pigeons coo above me And the ships sail slowly down the Neva

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DSCH JOURNAL No. 15 - July 2001