The role that the graduates of Bestuzhev Сourses played in the establishment of memorial museums of Russian writers in the 20th century (on the 140th anniversary of women’s higher education)

Abstract

140 years ago, the Higher Women’s Courses with a university teaching program were established in St. Petersburg. The Courses functioned successfully for 40 years until they were merged into the Petrograd University in 1919. A number of former students of the St. Petersburg (Petrograd) Higher Women’s (Bestuzhev) Courses dedicated their lives to creation of memorial museums of Russian writers after they graduated from the “first women’s university” in pre-revolutionary Russia. Among them were Nina Mikhailovna Chernyshevskaya (1896-1975), Sofya Vladimirovna Korolenko (1886-1957), Vera Sergeyevna Lyubimova (Dorovatovskaya) (1888-1955), Nina Nikolayevna Greene (1894-1970), Margarita Fedorovna Nikolaeva (1873-1957). In the process of the establishment of the museums they gathered collections, writings and biographies of Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko, Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Alexander Stepanovich Grin (Grinevsky) and Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov. The majority of the graduates of the Courses (so-called bestuzhevki) were relatives of the writers, poets and public figures; others were very passionate about the work of the authors. The former bestuzhevki were mainly museum enthusiasts: they did not have a special education and often supported each other in their endeavors. Over time, becoming highly professional specialists in the museum field, they had their followers and students. The memorial museums of writers were the places where life of the creative intelligentsia flourished. The main period of the activities of the graduates of the Bestuzhev Courses fell at a difficult period in the development of museum business, and the greater is their contribution to Soviet museum construction in the 1920s-1950s. It is necessary to take into account the part that the former bestuzhevki took in the preservation of museum collections during the Great Patriotic War. The women considered in the article played a key role in the perpetuation of the memory and literary heritage of great Russian writers. The article is based on archival and little-known published memoirs of the former bestuzhevki.