“Our common desire is to preserve everything <...>”[1] – history of the Viktor Vasnetsov Memorial Museum

Today the house of Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov is a memorial museum, a research department of the State Tretyakov Gallery. The history of its creation covers the period from the beginning of construction of the house in 1894 to the opening of the museum in it in 1953. To this day, the house retains its inimitable appearance conveying the atmosphere of one of the unique corners of old Moscow, and the history of the museum is intertwined with the fates of its creators - the wife and children of the artist.

Viktor Mikhailovich VASNETSOV. Self Portrait. 1913.
Oil on canvas. 50.3 х 34.3 cm. © The Viktor Vasnetsov Museum, Scientific Department of the State Tretyakov Gallery, 2024

In 1894, Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov, choosing a quiet neighbourhood of Meshchansky streets, built a two-storey house of his own design in No- voproyektirovanny Lane (from 1954 - Vasnetsov Lane). Against the background of typical buildings, it stood out for its unusual architecture and intricate decoration. The log superstructure above the entrance with a barrel roof painted in a bright red and green checker pattern gave the whole building the image of an old Russian terem [traditional Russian tower house]. On the background of the white smooth plastered wall of the main facade, multi-coloured glazed tiles with floral ornaments glistened festively. The fairy-tale impression was given to the house by the “terem windows” with platbands in the form of kokoshniks and the ornate porch.

House-Museum and House No 10/13. Spring 1972.
Photo. © The Viktor Vasnetsov Museum, Scientific Department of the State Tretyakov Gallery, 2024

The house was taller than the others only by about 2 arshins (1 arshin is 0.71 metres), but there is an interesting story connected with this difference. It turned out that the total height of the house, 14 arshins, exceeded the height allowed for wooden two-storey residential buildings according to the norms of the Building Code, which was 12 arshins. After unsuccessful letters to the Moscow City Council, the artist wrote a letter to the Moscow Governor-General, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, with a request to allow him to build a house of the necessary height, explaining the excess of the norm by the need to set up an art studio with good lighting. As an exception, the necessary permission was obtained almost immediately. The next year, after the completion of construction, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich with his wife Yelizaveta Fyodorovna and brother Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich visited the artist in his new house. ““The Highnesses” praised the house immensely, were nice to the hosts. When they were departing, a crowd gathered in the street shouting “hurrah”. All nice and proper”[2].

Here Viktor Mikhailovich lived with his family - his wife Alexandra Vladimirovna[3] , daughter Tatyana[4] and sons Boris[5] , Alexei[6] , Mikhail[7] and Vladimir[8]. The atmosphere of old Moscow, so necessary to the artist, pleased and helped him to work. “We now live in a new hut, which was built in my absence, while I was in Kiev - aren’t Muscovites amazing!”[9] The ground floor of the house was occupied by living rooms, the first floor was a studio with comfortable lighting.

The house was visited by famous figures of Russian culture. The museum keeps visiting cards of the master’s acquaintances - artists S. Yu. Zhukovsky, 1.1. Levitan, K. Ye. Makovsky, V.M. Maximov, I.S. Ostroukhov, I.Ye. Repin, V.A. Serov, N.K. Roerich, art historian N.P. Ghe, architects A.A. Parland, A.V. Shchusev, V.A. Pokrovsky, professor and art historian A.V. Prakhov, essay writer I.L. Shcheglov (Leontyev), professor of Moscow University I.V. Tsvetayev, director of the Moscow Synodal Choir and professor of the Moscow Conservatoire S.V. Smolensky and many others. Many people sought to visit his studio... There exists an emotional letter from Moscow University students Boris Bugayev (Andrei Bely)[10] and Vasily Vladimirov[11] with a request to let them “for a short while”[12] into the studio: “... each of your works, in addition to the highest artistic pleasure, is a step forward in our spiritual development; not to see a work of yours, and not to have at least a remote opportunity to do so, seems to us an unpardonable sin”[13] . German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, travelling in Russia, asked to be received “for no more than a minute”[14]. Maria Nikolayevna[15], the daughter of N.S. Shcherbatov, director of the History Museum, kept a lifelong memory of her visit to the artist’s house, when Viktor Mikhailovich invited her “to look at his old icons, which were remarkably good, and he himself next to them, with a candle in his hand, was extraordinary”[16].

The artist lived in this house for 32 years. The studio became for him a place of creative retreat and fruitful work. Many canvases were painted or finished here: “Sirin and Alkonost. Song of Joy and Sorrow” (1896), “Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible” (1897), “The Bogatyrs” (1881-1898, all - State Tretyakov Gallery), “Bayan” (1910, State Russian Museum). The height of the ceilings allowed the master to work on large religious compositions for St George’s Cathedral in Gus-Khrustalny, the Church of the Resurrection of Christ (Saviour on the Blood) in St. Petersburg and the Cathedral of St Alexander Nevsky in Warsaw. During the last decades, he worked here on paintings from the cycle “The Poem of Seven Tales" (1901-1926).

The idea of creating a memorial museum arose among the heirs immediately after the master’s death on 23 July 1926. The day after the funeral, Alexei Viktorovich wrote to his brother Mikhail, who at that time lived in Prague and could not come to bid farewell to his father: “...Our house looks deserted - as if the soul has flown away from it - everything here was “his", bore his imprint - we loathe touching anything, changing anything. Our common desire is to keep everything as it was, to set up something like a house-museum"[17]. On the same day, members of the Society of Old Moscow and a number of artists, V.M. Vasnetsov friends, sent a petition to the “Krasnaya Gazeta" newspaper for preserving Vasnetsov’s studio and flat and creating a museum named after him"[18].

For a wide range of viewers, their first acquaintance with the artist’s house and the works left in it, took place at the opening of the Posthumous Exhibition of V.M. Vasnetsov’s Paintings and Drawings on 13 March, 1927. Exhibition posters were all around Moscow. More than five hundred people attended the ceremony of its opening. The exhibition was very popular, up to 3500 people visited it in the first three weeks. During that time, all 1100 copies of the catalogue edition were sold.

The exhibits were placed in the classroom, drawing room and studio. The other rooms continued to be occupied by the family. Directly involved in the creation of the exhibition were the artist’s brother Apollinary Mikhailovich Vasnetsov, Alexandra Vladimirovna, children Tatyana Viktorovna and Alexei Viktorovich Vasnetsov, Alexei Viktorovich’s wife Zinaida Konstantinovna Vasnetsova-Sokolova; artists Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov and Pavel Dmitryevich Korin, as well as Nikolai Sergeyevich Morgunov, Academic Secretary of the Tretyakov Gallery. The exposition included genre works (drawings and sketches), portraits, landscapes, architectural drawings, religious compositions (212 works in total). M.V. Nesterov, who participated in developing the concept of the exhibition, admired Vasnetsov’s genre works: “...it will be a discovery for all those who are used to considering him [V.M. - A.D.] a religious and fairy-tale historical artist”.[19] It was for the first time that the audience saw the paintings of the cycle “The Poem of Seven Tales” (with the exception of “Sivka Burka” and “The Flying Carpet”, which it was decided not to exhibit as they had not been finished). Visitors left rapturous comments on the exhibition. One of them was published in the Leningrad “Krasaya Gazeta” newspaper under the title “In a Fairy-Tale Little House”: “The images from old Russian fairy tales look at the amazed viewers from Vasnetsov’s huge canvases. <...> the undoubted highlight of Vasnetsov’s newly-shown fairy-tale cycle is “The Tale of the Sleeping Tsarevna”. <...> The picture conveys a wonderful intimacy, good-naturedness of the old fairy-tale teller <...> One feels like sitting down on a carved wooden bench in the corner and then sitting silently for a long time and admiring the sleeping vixen, the elderly nanny and the tulips growing from the oak floor of the little terem.

But when one goes down the spiral wooden stairs and looks at the sketches of the Apocalypse <...> it’s hard to believe that they were done by the same old fairy-tale teller, who lulled you to sleep with a nice fairy tale upstairs, in his loft of a studio, just a minute ago!”[20].

The small assistance promised for the creation of the exhibition by the Chief Administration for Scientific, Museum and Artistic Institutions was never provided, and the funds were borrowed from private individuals. The State Tretyakov Gallery officially provided scientific support, its name on the posters allowed the family not to pay tax for organising a private event in their home. The exhibition was serviced by members of the artist’s family, they worked from 11-00 to 17-00 with one day off on Monday. Alexei Viktorovich Vasnetsov was appointed manager; in addition to working in the halls, he was in charge of organising maintenance of the house. Tatyana Viktorovna received visitors in the studio, Zinaida Konstantinovna sold tickets, exhibition catalogues, photos and phototypes of Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov’s works. Alexandra Vladimirovna was in the ground floor rooms and served tea to the guests of the exhibition.

On weekends, when there were especially many visitors, Vladimir Viktorovich came to help with his students and his thirteen-year-old son Yuri.

The museum keeps the “Book for Recording Excursions and Visitors”, in which there is an entry that the exhibition was visited by schoolchildren and students of higher educational institutions (particularly students of the Higher Art and Technical Studios (VKhUTEMAS)), students of educational courses, heads and staff of various museums, members of the Society of Old Moscow. Visits by sculptor N.V. Krandyevskaya, architect A.V. Shchusev, artists M.V. Nesterov and P.D. Korin, art critic N.A. Prakhov, People’s Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky were recorded. The Vasnetsovs’ friends often came with their families. On 2 May, 1927, the exhibition was visited by the employees of the N.K. Roerich Museum in New York Maurice and Sina Lichtmann.

In 1933, the artist’s widow Alexandra Vladimirovna, his faithful companion for almost half a century, passed away, and the exhibition closed. Having existed for a total of about six years, it became an important milestone in the history of the museum. Work on commemoration and preservation of their father’s legacy, gave the family solace and meaning in life. According to Tatyana Viktorovna, the studio remained an exhibition hall, visitors went directly upstairs by a stone staircase. The ground floor continued to be inhabited by the artist’s children, relatives and family acquaintances. The spiritually fulfilling atmosphere established under Viktor Mikhailovich was maintained there. With the old foundations of the country being ruined, the churches around closed, the household continued to secretly worship and have sacraments of marriage and baptism performed.[21]

The years of the Great Patriotic War were a serious ordeal for the family and for the museum (the artist’s house was no longer called by any other name at that time). A lot of people lived in the house at that time. Tatyana Viktorovna lived in Alexandra Vladimirovna’s small room, Alexei Viktorovich, his wife Zinaida Konstantinovna and mother-in-law Zinaida Sergeyevna settled in Viktor Mikhailovich’s room. After returning from imprisonment, Alexandra Savvishna Mamontova with Vera Savvishna’s grandsons Seryozha and Vanya Chernyshev lived in Tatyana Viktorovna’s room from 1929. The classroom, the children’s room and part of the dining room were occupied by the artist’s niece Lyudmila Arkadyevna Vasnetsova with her husband Mikhail Vasilyevich Voinov, her mother Olga Andreyevna and her husband’s parents and sister - Tatyana Alexandrovna, Vasily Mikhailovich, and Olga Vasilyevna. The artist’s grandniece Olga Alekseyevna Vasnetsova and her mother, after returning from the place of evacuation, lived with them for some time.

The family did everything possible to preserve the building and the works in it. Large paintings were removed from the walls and rolled up; the rest of the works were packed in crates. At night, for fear of fire, they took turns to stay on duty outside. All those living in the house supported each other as best they could. Most of them, due to their age, were dependents and received very meagre rations. Those who could get a job did several part-time jobs, gave home lessons for food and firewood, thus helping the others. While struggling to make ends meet, everyone tried to help as much as they could to save the house and the paintings. Mikhail Voinov recalled: “... me too, I did my bit to serve Victor Mikhailovich’s paintings - a tiny bit but still - by crawling on the floor in the studio when they were being rolled up and so on, as well as by my vigil almost every night - I would go quietly into the front room where the rolls were, counted them in case of fire ... . And went back to sit at the gate or stand on the terrace”[22].

The house was not damaged during the war years, but became dilapidated and needed major repairs, the fence and the terrace did not survive. In a letter to her brother Mikhail Viktorovich in 1946, when communication with Prague was re-established, Tatyana Viktorovna wrote that the family had survived in those difficult years: “We live at the same place and lived there all through the war, there were hard and difficult days, too. Now, of course, it is easier. Alyosha, Zina and I live together. We have all grown older and weaker. <...> As I approach the end of my life and after everything I have lived through in these years, I am becoming firmer and firmer in my faith in God and his holy Providence. Whether or not we’ll see each other in this life, your sister’s soul is with you. <...>”[23].

In 1948, the centenary of V.M. Vasnetsov’s birth was celebrated and the heirs made the final decision to create a memorial museum in the house.

In 1951, T.V., A.V.[24], V.V. Vasnetsovs and Z.K. Vasnetsova-Sokolova donated to the state the land plot, the house, the paintings, drawings and works of decorative and applied art, which today form the bulk of the exposition. The museum recruited a staff of museum employees, including director, principal custodian, researcher, administrative manager, technicians, watchman, and caretaker. Pursuant to the decision of the USSR Committee for Arts, the artist’s nephew, Dmitry Arkadyevich Vasnetsov[25] was appointed the first director of the museum. Despite being director of one of the leading music schools in Moscow, he agreed to work part-time. The family were glad that the director was “not a stranger”[26] and the future fate of the house was in safe hands. The house was then in a deplorable state - “broken” walls of the studio, rusting roof, walls and structural floors rotten in some places. Under the leadership of Dmitry Arkadyevich, a serious overhaul of the house was carried out, paintings and interior items were restored, large paintings in the studio were put back on canvas stretchers, frames for them were ordered. In those years everything was in short supply. The funds allocated by the state for the needs of the museum did not guarantee that the needs would be met. The opening of the museum was postponed several times due to disruption of the renovation deadlines. However, Dmitry Arkadyevich’s incredible diplomatic efforts helped to make things happen.

On 25 August, 1953, the museum was opened to the public. Dmitry Arkadyevich remained its director until 1957. Alexei Viktorovich’s widow Zinaida Konstantinovna Vasnetsova-Sokolova was appointed principal custodian. Tatyana Viktorovna lived in the house, but did not hold any position. At that time, she seemed to have livened up and took whatever part she was able to in the work associated with the renovation, collaborated with the Tretyakov Gallery, searching for her father’s works - she was particularly concerned about the fate of the portrait of Ye. A. Prakhova[27]. She prepared new tour guides, spoke to collectors asking them to donate V.M. Vasnetsov’s works to the museum. In addition, she was asked to participate in the development of the museum concept and creation of its first exposition. Three rooms - dining room, drawing room and children’s room - were opened for observation on the ground floor, and the studio on the first floor, which could be reached by a spiral staircase.

Tatyana Viktorovna lived in the house until her death in 1961. She donated to the museum the collections that remained in her possession.

In 1959, she made a will and in 1961, a few months before her death, she signed a deed of gift. In compliance with these documents, her father’s oeuvre, library, family photographs and archives, as well as her personal belongings kept in her room became the property of the museum.

After Tatyana Viktorovna’s death there remained no direct heirs of Viktor Mikhailovich in Moscow. However, the artist’s son Mikhail Viktorovich Vasnetsov all that time lived far from the homeland, and his fate also turned out to be connected with the history of the museum. He left Russia in 1920, lived in Prague, where in 1933 he was ordained as priest and was rector of the Church of St Nicholas. The family tragedy associated with his emigration, owing to the preserved correspondence, turned out to be an opportunity to get a fairly detailed idea of the family’s life from the moment of Viktor Mikhailovich’s death to the day of the museum’s opening.

Mikhail Viktorovich was able to come to the USSR in 1957, he saw his sister and visited his ancestral home. He corresponded with Tatyana Viktorovna until her death, then with some of the museum staff. “... It is my humble request that someone could agree to write to me, at least once a month, or even less often... About the situation of the museum, visitor attendance, rearrangements and changes taking place in it, and in general about the life of the museum... I am left all alone, and it is very hard for me to know nothing about what connects me with the past”[28]. The correspondence continued until 1972[29].

Viktor Vasnetsov Museum. Interior of the drawing room. 2023
Photo: Ivan Novikov-Dvinsky

The status and subordination of the museum created by the heirs of the artist, varied during the years of its work. The first ten years it was a standalone organisation under the Ministry of Culture of the USSR. In 1963, as part of the Ministry’s work on streamlining the museum network, the house was attached to the Museum of the History and Reconstruction of Moscow as a branch. Already in 1964, the Minister of Culture Ye.A. Furtseva[30] recognised this decision as erroneous, but only in 1986 the V.M. Vasnetsov Memorial Museum became a research department of the “State Tretyakov Gallery” All-Russia Museum Association.

Viktor Vasnetsov Museum. Interior of the studio. 2023
Photo: Ivan Novikov-Dvinsky

Nowadays the museum keeps a diverse and rich collection - icons from V.M. Vasnetsov’s collection, paintings, graphics, works of decorative and applied arts, household items, books from the artist’s personal library, authentic photographs, letters and documents. For seventy years already the museum staff have been painstakingly studying the oeuvre of the great master and working hard to preserve his house. The artist’s house, which during his lifetime became a place of attraction for creative intellectuals, is as dear as ever to anyone who is interested in Russian art and national history.

Viktor Vasnetsov Museum. Interior of the dining room. 2023
Photo: Ivan Novikov-Dvinsky

1. A.V. Vasnetsov’s letter to M.V. Vasnetsov. 27 July 1926 // Viktor Vasnetsov. Letters. New materials / Compiled by Lyudmila Korotkina. St. Petersburg, 2004. P. 100. (Hereinafter - Viktor Vasnetsov. Letters. New materials.)
2. Nesterov M.V. On What Has Been Lived Through. 1862-1917. Reminiscences. Moscow, 2006. P. 243.
3. Alexandra Vladimirovna Vasnetsova (1850-1933, nee Ryazantseva), wife of the artist from 1877.
4. Tatyana Viktorovna Vasnetsova (1879-1961), artist.
5. Boris Viktorovich Vasnetsov (1880-1919), studied at a technical school.
6. Alexei Viktorovich Vasnetsov (1882-1949), graduated from Moscow University.
7. Mikhail Viktorovich (1884-1972), graduated from Moscow University, astronomer.
8. Vladimir Viktorovich Vasnetsov (1889-1953), professor, co-founder of the chair of ichthyology of Moscow University.
9. V.M. Vasnetsov’s letter to Ye.A. Prakhova. 18 October 1894 // Viktor Vasnetsov. Letters. New materials. P. 100.
10. Andrei Bely (autonym - Boris Bygayev, 1880-1934), Russian writer, poet.
11. Vasily Vasilyevich Vladimirov (1880-1931), Russian artist.
12. A. Bely’s letter to V. M. Vasnetsov // Manuscript Dpt., State Tretyakov Gallery. Fund 66. Storage item 44.
13. A. Bely’s letter to V. M. Vasnetsov // Manuscript Dpt., State Tretyakov Gallery. Fund 66. Storage item 44.
14. R.M. Rilke’s visiting card. 1900 // Archive of the V.M. Vasnetsov Memorial House-Museum. Museum Fund Archive -6458.
15. Maria Nikolayevna Chernysheva (1886 - 1975, nee Shcherbatova).
16. M.N. Chernysheva’s letter Pavel Mikhailovich. 4 April, 1961 // Archive of the V.M. Vasnetsov Memorial House-Museum. Scientific-Auxiliary Fund -2122.
17. A.V. Vasnetsov’s letter to M.V. Vasnetsov. 27 July, 1926. Manuscript Dpt., State Tretyakov Gallery. Fund 66, File 498 // Viktor Vasnetsov. Letters. New materials. P. 302.
18. To the death of V.M. Vasnetsov (From Moscow by telephone). Krasnaya Gazeta. 1926. No173. 27 July. // Viktor Vasnetsov. Letters. New materials. P. 301
19. A.V. Vasnetsov’s letter to M.V. Vasnetsov. 1-8 October, 1926 // Archive of the V.M. Vasnetsov Memorial House-Museum. Museum Fund-Archive -2442/20.
20. Cited from: T.V. Vasnetsova’s letter to M.V. Vasnetsov. 23 March / 5 April, 1927 // Archive of the V.M. Vasnetsov Memorial House-Museum. Museum Fund-Archive -2445/27
21. One of the participants in those events, monk father Bart- holomeus (secular name Sergei Nikolayevich Chernyshev, born in 1936), grandson of Alexander Dmitryevich Samarin and Vera Savvishna Mamontova. He confirms that in 1935, his parents, Nikolai Sergeyevich Chernyshev and Yelizaveta Aleksandrovna Sa- marina were secretly wed in the studio of the Vasnetsov house, and a year later, also secretly and in the presence of a lot of guests, he was baptized.
22. M.V. Vasnetsov’s letter to T.V. Vasnetsova. 23 July 1953 // Archive of Olga Alekseyevna Vasnetsova.
23. Cited from: O.A. Vasnetsova. Vasnetsovshchina. Moscow, 2019. P. 30-31.
24. Andrei Vladimirovich Vasnetsov (1924-2009), grandson of V.M. Vasnetsov, artist.
25. Dmitry Arkadyevich Vasnetsov (1891-1980), son of the artist’s brother Arkady Mikhailovich Vasnetsov. Studied at the Moscow Conservatoire (did not graduate from it due to his conscription to the army in 1914). Went to the war front four times - in 1914, 1918, 1939, and 1941. Worked at the K.S. Stanislavsky and V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre, was director of several music schools of Moscow.
26. M.V. Voinov’s letter to Olga Vasilyevna Sverdlova. 29 August, 1950// Archive of Olga Alekseyevna Vasnetsova.
27. It refers to the work by V.M. Vasnetsov “Portrait of Yelena Adrianovna Prakhova (1894). / Archive of Olga Alekseyevna Vasnetsova.
28. M.V. Vasnetsov’s letter to V.M. Vasnetsov Memorial House-Museum employees. 1961-1962. // Archive of the V.M. Vasnetsov Memorial House-Museum. Museum Fund-Archive, ДМВ МФ-АРХ-3743.
29. M.V. Vasnetsov died on 29 January, 1972, his last letter to the museum is dated 12 January, 1972.
30. Furtseva Ye. A. Streamlining the Museum Business // “Izvestiya” newspaper No 5, 6 January, 1964.