Curating Lessons from Literary Lives: The House Museums of Pasternak and Chukovsky

• In Event: Memory Culture in Post-Soviet Museums

Abstract

For years, the heirs of Boris Pasternak and Kornei Chukovsky struggled to preserve the writers' dachas in Peredelkino, turning them essentially into informal private museums. Perestroika brought success of a sort with both homes becoming part of the State Literary Museum in the 1990s. My paper will discuss how the two writers' biographies--both full of the complexities of creative life under Soviet rule--have been valued, curated, and presented over time.

Author

• Kathleen Elizabeth Smith, Georgetown U