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Varlam Shalamov's MoscowPashkov House – Rumiantsevskaya Library
Address: 3/5 building 1 Vozdvizhenka Street, Moscow
The Lenin Library at the end of the 1920s. Photo: PastVu
From 1861, the Rumiantsevskii Museum and Library was located in the Pashkov House. In 1925, the museum was abolished and the building was transferred to the newly established Lenin Library. Varlam Shalamov often visited the Lenin Library in 1925–1929. He obtained his education not only at the university, but in libraries as well. There he studied contemporary poetry (futurists, Pasternak, and others) and created his own literary style. Shalamov also became acquainted with the circle of Osip Brik and visited the apartment of Mayakovsky and Brik on Gendrikov Passage.
Manuscript reading room of the Lenin Library. Photo: Russian State Library
In the early 1970s, Shalamov worked in the manuscript department of the Lenin Library, which was located in the Pashkov House. He worked on a biography of the Bolshevik Fedor Raskolnikov, who had defied Stalin in an open letter. Shalamov’s essay “Raskolnikov” was published for the first time in the mid-1990s.
The Lenin Library at the end of the 1920s. Photo: PastVu
Manuscript reading room of the Lenin Library. Photo: Russian State Library