Museum Program for 2013

1. Continue converting the Museum video archives into digital format.

2. Publish new articles about the Museum rarities.

3. Prepare and host a gathering devoted to the 10 year anniversary of the Alley of Russian Poets, Composers, and Artists in Mason Park (Washington, DC). The Russian school "Bukva" and its principal, Tserina Tannen, are among honorary guests.

4. Organize the 18th Tsvetaeva's Bonfire with performances of the students from the Russian school "Bukva". The bonfire date is October 6th, 2013.

5. Organize an event devoted to 121st birthday of Marina Tsvetaeva.

6. Continue collecting materials for the new book. 

7. Collaborate with Creative Director, Marina Guseva (301-328-3668, mgusev[at]gmail.com) in search of a new Museum manager.

8. Continue inviting visitors to the Museum.

9. Continue helping build Russian collection at the Rockville Public Library and continue support of the Russian librarian, Sergei Markov (semar1[at]comcast.net), in his efforts to expand the collection and host events dedicated to Russian culture. 

The Museum That Makes The World Less Small

G.M. Temnenko

Simferopol City, Russia

Master of Linguistics

Dean of Taurides National University

Division of Cultural Studies

Department of Philosophy

"The World Is Small, As Always." Thus reads the title of a book by Uli Zislin, published in Chicago in 2008. Uli Michailovich himself has lived in DC since 1996. In Moscow he was a Master of technical sciences, engineer-architect, inventor, poet and bard, and also a collector. In America he is the founder and the curator of the "Washington Museum Of Russian Poetry and Music," which has existed since 1997.

 The informal brotherhood of people for whom poetry, music and culture are as necessary as air knows no national boundaries. For those who belong to it, space and time are experienced differently than they are for everyone else.

Washington Museum of Russian Poetry and Music turns 15!

Facts about the Museum:

1. Museum was founded in 1997.

2. First visiting group, of 7 people, came to the museum on October 20th 1997, after the 2^nd Washington Tsvetaeva Bonfire, where the opening was was announced.

3. 213 tour groups visited the museum, altogether 600 to 700 people, from 21 states of America (32 cities) and from 14 other countries, including:

- Russia (18 cities)

- Europe (England, Germany, Bulgaria, Latvia, Ukraine, Slovakia, Montenegro)

- Asia (India, China, South Korea, New Zealand, Kazakhstan)

- Israel, Republic of Georgia

4. Several thousand people were present at the museum’s excursions, of which there were about 200 (America, Russia, Canada, Israel).

5. Museum has hosted 10 literary-musical programs on Russian TV America, and dozens of performances on radio in New York, Boston, Voice of America, etc.

6. Museum featured more than 200 publications in USA, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, and received more than 2000 donations from these countries.

7. Museum initiated:

- Creation in Washington, DC in 2003 of an “Alley of Russian Poets,” which also included Russian composers and artists;

- First international Tsvetaeva Bonfire in 2002;

- All-American Festival of songs to the poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (15 participants, 9 nights, 35 poems of Tsvetaeva were sung);

- Russian section in the new Public Library of Rockville in greater Washington;

- Creation of a project “American museum of Russian Culture” for the American public.

Washington Museum of Russian Poetry and Music was dedicated to Russian culture, however, the greatest space in it, besides Pushkin, is occupied by Russian Poets of Silver Age of Russian Culture, namely Marina Tsvetaeva, Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, Nikolai Gumilev.

October 7, 2012 (first Sunday of the month – Tarusa tradition) the Museum conducts in Washington the 17^th Tsvetayeva bonfire: 120^th anniversary of Marina Tsvetayeva, 100^th anniversary of Ariadna Efron, 15^th anniversary of the Washington Museum.

Museum has a web site: www.museum.zislin.com

Russian language blog: http://museumprojectsru.blogspot.com

and a collection of videos on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/zislinmuseum/videos?view=0

Museum Celebrates 120th Birthday of Russian Poet Marina Tsvetaeva

Mark your calendars!
Sunday, October 7^rd, 2012, at 2:00 PM. Rain or shine!
At Rock Creek Regional Park near Meadowside Nature Center enthusiasts of Russian poetry and music will gather for the 

17^th annual Tsvetaeva Bonfire

Bonfire from previous years.

Guest performers are the students of the local Russian school "Bukva".

Location of the Bonfire Gathering: 5100 Meadowside Lane, Rockville, MD. (Enter Meadowside Lane from Muncaster Mill Rd. (Route #115). Enter Route #115 from Shady Grove Rd., Georgia Ave. or Avery Rd.)

Also, on Sunday, October 14 at at 2:00 РМ 
Everyone is invited to lay flowers by Tsvetaeva's tree at the Alley of Russian Poets in DC in Guy Mason Park. Enthusiasts of Russian poetry will be reading poems by Tsvetaeva and other poets.  

Location of the Alley of Russian Poets: 3600 Calvert St., DC 20007. Guy Mason Park.

For additional information about these events please contact Uli Zislin at  301-942-2728 or museum@zislin.com
Media sponsors of Russian News are RussianDC.com and RussianWashingtonBaltimore.com

17th annual Tsvetaeva Bonfire

This year museum celebrates: 

 120^th Birthday of Russian Poet Marina Tsvetaeva

                15 years of “Washington Museum of Russian Poetry and Music” 

Everybody is invited to the 17^th annual Tsvetaeva Bonfire!

It will take place on Sunday, October 7^rd, 2012, at 2:00 P.M., at Rock Creek Regional near Meadowside Nature Center  

For further information contact Uli Zislin at 301-942-2728 or museum@zislin.com

The Washington Museum of Russian Poetry and Music (Repost)

(Originally published by Tabatha Yeatts in her blog).
 
I'll be a doctor for others, and a poet for myself.
~ Dr. Zhivago

This month, I visited The Washington Museum of Russian Poetry and Music, which is currently housed in composer/performer/author Dr. Uli Zislin's home. Dr. Zislin is devoted to sharing Russian culture and he would dearly love to find another space for his museum -- one that people can visit more easily, without making an appointment! If anyone reads this who is also dedicated to sharing Russian culture and would like to help Dr. Zislin relocate the museum, email me or Dr. Z.

I thought I'd share works by poets spotlighted in the museum:

Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) is famous for writing the novel Doctor Zhivago, for which he won a Nobel (although the book was banned in the USSR). He wrote poetry as well:

February. Get ink, shed tears.
Write of it, sob your heart out, sing,
While torrential slush that roars
Burns in the blackness of the spring.
Go hire a buggy. For six grivnas,
Race through the noise of bells and wheels
To where the ink and all you grieving
Are muffled when the rain shower falls.
To where, like pears burnt black as charcoal,
A myriad rooks, plucked from the trees,
Fall down into the puddles, hurl
Dry sadness deep into the eyes.
Below, the wet black earth shows through,
With sudden cries the wind is pitted,
The more haphazard, the more true
The poetry that sobs its heart out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Muse
By Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)
Translated by Eric Gillan

When late at night I wait for her arrival,
It seems my life is hanging by a thread.
I offer youth, my freedom, glory,
To my adored guest with flute in hand.
And here she comes. She throws back her cloak
And pours a steady gaze on me.
I ask, "Did you dictate to Dante
The pages of "Inferno?" She answers, "Yes. I did."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Giraffe
by Nikolai Gumilev, (1886-1921)
Translated by Katharine Gilbert

Today, I see, your gaze is particularly forlorn,
And your hands particularly thin, embracing your knees.
Listen: far away, far away, on Lake Chad,
A refined giraffe is roaming.
His proportions are harmonious and his legs are long,
And a bewitching pattern adorns his skin;
Nothing dares compare with it, save the moon,
Fragmented and flowing on the liquid of broad lakes.
He juts out like the many-colored sails of ships,
And his gait is floating, like joyous birdflight.
I know this earth has seen many wonders
When at sunset he hides in a marble grotto.
I know the happy stories of secret lands,
About the dark maiden, about the passion of the young chief,
But you have breathed in the heavy mists for too long -
You will believe in nothing, except rain.
And how I would tell you about tropical orchards,
About elegant palms, about the scent of extraordinary grasses…
You're crying? Listen… far away, on Lake Chad,
A refined giraffe is roaming.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To Byron
by Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941)
Translated by Ilya Shambat

I think about the morning of your glory,
About the morning of your days too, when
Like a demon you from sleep had stirred
And were a god for men.
I think of when your eyebrows came together
Over the burning torches of your eyes,
Of how the ancient blood's eternal lava
Rushed through your arteries.
I think of fingers - very long - inside
The wavy hair, about all
Eyes that did thirst for you in alleys
And in the dining-halls.
About the hearts too, which - you were too young then -
You did not have the time to read, too soon,
About the times, when solely in your honor
Arose and down went the moon.
I think about a hall in semi-darkness,
About the velvet, into lace inclined,
About the poems we would have told each other,
You - yours, I - mine.
I also think about the remaining
From your lips and your eyes handful of dust.
About all eyes, that are now in the graveyard
About them and us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What shall I do with this body they gave me
by Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938)

What shall I do with this body they gave me,
so much my own, so intimate with me?

For being alive, for the joy of calm breath,
tell me, who should I bless?

I am the flower, and the gardener as well,
and am not solitary, in earth’s cell.

My living warmth, exhaled, you can see,
on the clear glass of eternity.

A pattern set down,
until now, unknown.

Breath evaporates without trace,
but form no one can deface.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another poem by Pasternak: Winter Night

Museum Exhibits

Few museum exhibits related to Ariadna Efron: interpreter, artist, poetess, writer, and the daughter of Marina Tsvetaeva and Sergei Efron.