I’m afraid I only managed to photograph «памятник Мусе Джалилю» [the monument to Musa Jalil] – «татарскому поэту-патриоту» [to the Tatar poet and patriot] – from behind while in Kazan’… Even though Tatar literature isn’t really a part of ‘all things Russian’ in the strictest of senses – why be so strict, anyway? «Татарстан» [Tatarstan] is a part of «Российская федерация» [Russian Federation], hence we are allowed to mention also excellent Tatar writers on our Russian Blog! This monument stands «на площади 1 (первого) мая» [on the 1st of May Square] in front of «казанская Кремль» [the Kazan’ Kremlin].
Kazan’ is the home of many literary museums: you can find out everything you’ll ever want to know about the founder modern Tatar poetry «Габдулла Тукай» [Gabdulla Tuqay] in the «литературный музей Габдуллы Тукая» [literary museum of Gabdulla Tuqay] and walk along the street named after him in the town – where the museum is also located. During Soviet times the poet Tuqay wasn’t deemed worthy of attention nor scholarship because he had been part of «буржуазная культура» [bourgeois culture] of the late 19th century. In the past twenty years he’s finally received a long overdue and most worthy come-back; both to Tatar as well as Russian culture and literary scholarship worldwide. In April this year I heard an excellent presentation on him at a conference in here Yekaterinburg and was struck by how interesting he sounds. I should get myself a copy of his poetry translated into Russian! There’s a «музей-квартира Мусы Джалиля» [museum-apartment of Musa Jalil] for further exploration of Tatar literature – something well worth indulging oneself in while in Kazan’. But for lovers of traditional Russian literature there are places to go and get enlightened at too, of course! There’s «музей Е. А. Боратынского» [museum of E. A. Boratynsky] – a poet who in the early 19th century was second only to Pushkin.
And here we have «мастер русской словесности» [the master of Russian literature & language] – «Лев Николаевич Толстой» [Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy] himself! The great writer has been eternalized on a painting in the main assembly hall of «Казанский государственный университет» [Kazan State University], where he was once a student – long before he acquired that awesome beard…
There’s no museum dedicated to Tolstoy in Kazan’, but it was here that he studied «восточные языки» [eastern languages] at the university (he didn’t graduate but dropped out and according to his professors he was both stubborn as a person and unwilling to learn as a student). Kazan’ was the location where Tolstoy first started keeping a diary – the room in which he did so (it was in the university hospital where he was treated after catching a disease that shall remain unnamed…) is still available to public view today. But Tolstoy has shared his memories of Kazan’ in Russian – and world! – literature in another way than just simply by way of his diaries: his famous short story «После бала» [“After the Ball”] is set in Kazan’ and is about his brother Sergey, who was once in love with the daughter of an army general… The rest is, as they say, history!
Let’s play a fun game with these pictures of «участники марксистского кружка в Казани» [participants of the Marxist circle in Kazan] (Lenin’s not pictured, but at this point we all know he was in it): «Найти Максима Горького!» [Find Maxim Gorky!]. This game can be rather difficult if you a) don’t know that the famous writer back then was still going by his birth name of «Алексей Максимович Пешков» [Aleksey Maximovich Peshkov]; and b) aren’t familiar with the fact that «Горький» [lit. ‘Bitter’] rocked an enviously bushy mustache back in the days. Oh no! I gave it away, didn’t I?
If you’re a hard-core fan of «соцреализм» [socialistic realism] – and let’s be honest: who isn’t?! – a place not to be missed when in Kazan’ is of course «Литературно-мемориальный музей А. М. Горького» [The Literary Memorial Museum of A. M. Gorky]. In the basement of the museum they have recreated the bakery where the future writer – at the time still working through his «университеты» [universities] as he liked to call his education from hard manual labor and wondering around allover the great nation – worked from 1886 till 1887.
But personally to me «Казань» [Kazan’] is first and foremost the city of «Евгения Гинзбург» [Yevgenia Ginzburg] – last August I wrote here on the blog about her GULAG memoirs «Крутой маршрут» [English title: “Into the Whirlwind”; lit: “Steep Route”]. This book changed me – no matter how cliché it might sound! This was the only trace of her I was able to find in Kazan’ – in the university museum… Yevgenia Ginzburg – apart from being one of the most awesome women ever alive – was also the mother of the famous Soviet writer «Василий Аксёнов» [Vasily Aksyonov]. He was born in Kazan’ in 1932 and died last summer.
There is as of right now no museum of Vasily Aksyonov in Kazan’ – but the work on a literary center dedicated to the Soviet writer is in progress and will most likely open sometime next year. In the mean time I had to settle for a story I heard from a woman I met at Kazan’ State University – about how her grandmother knew Yevgenia Ginzburg back in the days. She would always point out that Aksyonov’s mother had been a «яркая женщина» [brilliant; striking woman]… When I heard this my first reaction was: «Конечно!» [Of course!] Currently I’m reading Aksyonov’s last novel «Таинственная страсть» [«Secret Passion”] about the generation of poets and dissidents in the 1960’s. And I promise that a post on this is soon to come on the blog!
