Earlier announced article has finally been published!
Please see the original text on
the Montgomery magazine web site, or read it below:
By Andrei Romanov | Photography by Victoria Whitaker
More often than not, the most peculiar places you
discover provide the most memorable experiences. In a city that prides
itself on its multicultural awareness, there is such a place. It’s an
oasis of another culture, and one that has yet to be discovered by the
local population.
The Washington Poetry & Music Museum, established in 1997, is
also home to a man of passion and vision. Part of what Russian writer
and poet Vladimir Nabokov termed “the wave of Russia gone out of its
shores” that “spilled all over the world,” Dr. Uli Zislin brought with
him as much of Russia as he possibly could. He simply couldn’t leave
behind the books, photographs, paintings, recordings and personal items
of his favorite poets that he had been collecting for years. This became
the foundation for the only private museum of its kind in the country.
Hidden in Zislin’s modest rental apartment on Veirs Mill Road in
Rockville, the museum is dedicated primarily to five of the great
Russian poets of the late 19th- and early 20th-century Silver Age: Anna
Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva and
Nikolai Gumilev. Zislin’s priceless collection of their work and
associated ephemera is a true feast for lovers of Russian culture and a
cultural discovery for everyone else.
The Communist regime tried to stomp out the influence of the Silver
Age by banning and censoring work, and these poets suffered tragically
for their art. Osip Mandelstam was sentenced to a gulag and died at age
47 in 1938. Marina Tsvetaeva suffered through exile, isolation, the
arrest of her husband, daughter and sister, and the execution of her
husband; in 1941, she committed suicide at the age of 49. Nikolai
Gumilev was executed in 1921 when he was 35. Anna Akhmatova, who had
also been Gumilev’s wife, was subjected to continued repression by the
Stalinist regime: Their son was expelled from the university and
sentenced to 10 years in a gulag, and her work was condemned and
censored for most of her life. Boris Pasternak, best known outside of
Russia as the author of Doctor Zhivago, lived through a massive campaign
against him by the Soviet State that hastened his death. Their
manuscripts and books, documents and letters, photographs and paintings
were confiscated and destroyed during searches.
Fortunately, the work of these persecuted poets was distributed and
recited clandestinely among the intelligentsia and published abroad,
most notably in the U.S. Zislin was among those few in the Soviet Union
who knew and cherished their masterpieces. His lifelong interest in
these masters and his sense of moral duty to them and the people
deprived of an opportunity to enjoy their works became the driving force
behind his U.S. museum.
Now in its 15th year, the museum has recently expanded to include
materials related to the poets of the earlier, 19thcentury Golden Age,
as well as famous Russian composers. Walls are lined with books,
pictures and posters, and artifacts grace every table, shelf and stand.
Highlights include rare book editions, manuscripts, autographs,
biographies, letters, translations into many languages, portraits,
photographs, audio recordings and video film. Visitors will be amazed to
discover a two-volume 1891 edition of poems by Mikhail Lermontov; a
bronze medal issued in 1899 in commemoration of Alexander Pushkin’s
centennial birth anniversary; eyeglasses worn by Anastasia Tsvetaeva, a
writer and sister of Marina Tsvetaeva; a sheet from the manuscript Amor,
a novel Anastasia Tsvetaeva wrote in a gulag, and a pen she used to
dedicate copies of her books.
Over the years, the museum has received many donations—so many that
today, part of the collection is in storage. Zislin has no room for
anything else. Really there is not much room for the man who lives in
the museum. After a 2005 visit to the museum, a poet and descendant of
the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, who is also named Alexander
Pushkin, wrote the following epigram:
Mesmerized by Uli’s passion,
Captivated by his zeal,
I am troubled by one question:
Where’s his room in this museum?
Cultivating Culture
Zislin’s passion extends beyond the walls of his private museum. To
commemorate the Russian poets’ legacy and in recognition of the support
they received in the U.S., Zislin founded the Alley of Russian Poets in
D.C.’s Guy Mason Park. Started in April 2003 as a row of five trees
dedicated to each of the museum’s Silver Age poets, the alley has grown
to include trees dedicated to the poets of the Golden Age and includes a
stone commemorating five Russian composers—Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Sergei
Rachmaninov, Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev.
Each year in October, Zislin organizes the Tsvetaeva Bonfires to
continue the tradition of Tarusa, a Russian village, where sisters
Marina and Anastasia Tsvetaeva spent their childhood summers. People
gather to remember Marina, reciting her poems and adding their own
tributes. James Foy, a retired professor from the Georgetown School of
Medicine who is also a physician-poet, notes that last year’s
“recitations by young students from the local Russian School were an
important contribution, touching and from the heart.” Oct. 7, 2012 will
mark the 17th Tsvetaeva Bonfire in Washington, D.C.
Seeing the level of interest that American visitors have for his
museum and how little the general public knows about Russian culture,
Zislin has decided to donate his collection to his home city of
Rockville. He hopes it will become the foundation of a Museum of Russian
Culture. “There exist museums dedicated to Russian music or Russian
literature, but nowhere in the world is there a comprehensive Museum of
Russian Culture,” says Zislin.
Foy remarks, “The world has recognized Russian music, drama, ballet
and letters as an essential ingredient in education and entertainment.
Uli is an ambitious emissary for the tradition and is determined to
further its claims on our intellect and in our hearts.”
For more information or to schedule a time to visit the Washington Poetry & Music Museum, visit www.museum.zislin.com
This story was published in the July/August 2012 issue of Montgomery Magazine
.
