Save and preserve the Mayakovsky Museum

The poet Mayakovsky outlived Mayakovsky the man by almost a hundred years. And the fate of his museum on Lubyanka - one of the three most visited Moscow museums - is now in the spotlight no less than the poet’s yellow jacket and his calls to throw Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Pushkin off the ship of modernity.

At the beginning of December 2012, it became known from the daughter of the creator of the exhibition at the Mayakovsky Museum that in February it would be closed for two years for reconstruction, and after reconstruction it could even turn into a museum of futurism. Over the past two months, several protests, rallies, poetry readings took place in Moscow, signatures were collected for a petition - all in defense of the museum. PublicPost talks about the museum, how they are trying to remake it and how to protect it.

What kind of museum are activists defending?

The Mayakovsky Library-Museum was opened in 1938 in the apartment of Lily and Osip Brikov in the former Gendrikov Lane (three years earlier renamed Mayakovsky Lane), where the poet lived from 1926 to 1930.

In 1968, the museum’s collections were moved to a new premises - a room in Lubyansky Proezd, which the poet received in 1919 and where he took his own life in 1930. The reason for the transfer of the museum was an appeal from Vladimir Mayakovsky’s sister Lyudmila, who in a letter addressed to Brezhnev wrote: “Here (in Gendrikov Lane - PublicPost) there will be a pilgrimage for those who hunt for the piquant details of the average person. The wave of philistinism will overwhelm inexperienced groups of young people with a muddy wave, creating an opportunity for " leftists" and cosmopolitans to organize here book and other exhibitions, speeches, reports, anniversaries, etc. Kruchenykhs, Kirsanovs, Burlyuks, Katanyans, Brikovs, Papernykhs, etc., and maybe even worse - various Sinyavskys, Kuznetsovs, spiritual Vlasovites, Dubchekov, in a word, traitors of domestic and foreign origin."

However, the new museum officially opened only in 1974. In 1987-1989, it underwent reconstruction, which, according to the architectural critic and art historian Grigory Revzin, turned the museum into “four floors of a total installation” (he also made a famous statement about the modern Mayakovsky Museum: “In Moscow there are good museums, but there is one brilliant").

Photo : www.museum.ru

Chronology of the struggle

That the ingenious museum did not have long to live became known on December 3, 2012: the daughter of one of the creators of the exhibition, Evgeniy Amaspyur, Anna Amaspyur, reported on her Facebook page that they were planning to close the Mayakovsky Museum for major renovations. Anna learned about this at a meeting between the museum’s management and representatives of the culture department, where she was invited along with her father.

Anna told PublicPost that at this meeting the culture department was represented by the first deputy head of the department, Ekaterina Pronicheva, and the head of the museum and exhibition department, Anton Goryanov. To their question about whether it would be possible to restore the exposition after its dismantling, Yevgeny Amaspyur answered negatively: “The exposition cannot be touched! All work to restore communications should not affect the exposition.” The director of the museum, Svetlana Strizhneva, shared the same position - it cost her her position.

According to museum employee Marina Krasnova, Strizhneva was under strong pressure from the department of culture: “She was called to the department and offered to remain in a consulting position under the new director Nadezhda Morozova.” Strizhneva did not want to be the wedding general, and she left the post of director of the museum, which she had held since 1981, of her own free will. Anna Amaspyur assures that Nadezhda Morozova, who became the new director, “walks arm in arm” with Ekaterina Pronicheva from the department, that is, she is simply friends.

Personnel changes and reconstruction plans did not go unnoticed. They began collecting signatures in defense of the unique exhibition, and on December 20, 2012, a rally was held on Suvorov Square , in which museum employees and the Angry Citizens movement took part.

Somewhat later, an initiative group “Mayakovsky Museum. Save and preserve!” was created on social networks. . Activists picketed the museum with posters “ Go for the last time ” (the cashiers claim that after this event there was a full house) and the department of culture under the slogan “ Hands off Mayakovsky .” And on January 20, a rally was held in Novopushkinsky Park against the head of the Department of Culture, Sergei Kapkov .

Photo: Mila Dubrovina/PublicPost

On January 24, Kapkov himself finally arrived at the museum. To questions about when the museum will be closed for reconstruction, how it will be carried out and how the celebration of Mayakovsky’s 120th anniversary, which falls at the beginning of July this year, will take place, he, according to museum employees, answered evasively, but he promised not to touch the museum until the anniversary . And then a post-release of the meeting was published on the website of the Department of Culture with the official position of the department: “Before the start of major repairs, technical photographic recording of the exhibition with the necessary measurements will be carried out... During the repair, the exhibits will be removed from the museum.” PublicPost's culture department did not provide additional oral comments. PublicPost has also not yet been able to contact Sergei Kapkov.

After this meeting with Kapkov, one of the creators of the exhibition, Taras Polyakov, said that the Mayakovsky Museum was dead for him. PublicPost asked what prompted such a radical assessment of the culture department’s plans:

“I asked Mr. Kapkov how he felt about the words of the director of the museum, Morozova, who said in an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets that she was planning to demolish one of the installations dedicated to the poem “Good!” Mr. Kapkov replied that these were all the machinations of the yellow press and does not correspond to reality: “Take into account only my interview.” Then I asked where it was published - it turned out that in the same “Moskovsky Komsomolets” Kapkov promises to preserve all the iron structures - which means that they will leave the frame. , but the exhibits will be torn away from him, which will destroy the unique display cases. It will be impossible to restore them. It became clear to me that Kapkov’s words cannot be trusted, and after that Mr. Kapkov called me crazy.”

At the moment, the confrontation between the museum’s defenders and the Moscow authorities continues. On January 27, protest poetry readings were held at the museum, during which riot police were on duty in the building, allegedly to protect it from the impending pogrom. On the same day, a picket took place in St. Petersburg in defense of the museum , the participants of which dedicated Mayakovsky’s poem “On Rubbish” to the Moscow Department of Culture. An action is planned for the coming days in Syktyvkar - this is how the topic turns from a metropolitan one into a nationwide one.

Photo: Valentina Romanova

Interestingly, Anna Amaspyur assures that there are very few genuine items of Mayakovsky in the museum on Lubyanka - coats, boots and a few other items. All his manuscripts are kept in the collections, and those in the museum are handwritten copies. It turns out that the value of the museum lies precisely in its unique exhibition. Why the Department of Culture needed to dismantle it partially or completely is difficult to say. So far, two versions have been expressed: conspiracy theories and banal economic ones.

According to the first, which was formulated by Stanislav Belkovsky in the same “Moskovsky Komsomolets”, Sergei Kapkov, a confidant of Roman Abramovich, is making room in the center of Moscow for the new “Garage” of the oligarch’s friend Daria Zhukova.

According to the second version, the money allocated for the renovation of the museum (about 20 million rubles) may be spent inappropriately.

Defenders of the museum present the following demands to the authorities: to carry out the necessary repairs of the museum according to the plan developed by former director Svetlana Strizhneva, to create a supervisory board from among the creators of the exhibition and specialists, to give the museum the status of a “memorial museum” of Vladimir Mayakovsky and to hold a competition for the position of director.

According to Marina Krasnova, who was present at the meeting at the museum, Sergei Kapkov assures that he already planned to create a supervisory board and involve specialists in the work. Nadezhda Morozova has been appointed to the position of museum director for one year. It is difficult to say whether the Mayakovsky Museum will repeat the fate of the museum-library on Gendrikov Lane.