Russian Cultural Centre (London)
Encyclopedia
Pushkin House is an organization of Russian culture in London
.
in the 1740s; Flitcroft added the Palladian façade. In many respects, 5 Bloomsbury Square is a perfect example of Georgian architecture and retains the vast part of its original features.
From 1704 until his death in 1714, 5 Bloomsbury Square was the home of John Radcliffe, physician to King William III
and Queen Anne
.
For much of the nineteenth century 5 Bloomsbury Square was occupied by solicitors including Frederick Turner, Charles Ford and Abraham Moses Cohen. By 1888 it was occupied by the architect Arthur Beresford Pite
(1861-1934). Pite became a renowned professor at the Royal College of Art and at the School of Architecture in Cambridge.
Architects continued to be housed at 5 Bloomsbury Square throughout the 20th century. Other resident organizations have included the Deaf and Dumb Females Asylum (1908), The Society of Genealogists (1922), The Royal Society of St. George (1922), the Brazilian Information Bureau (1938), the Ada Coleman Memorial Stables (1946).
5A Bloomsbury Square was purchased by the Pushkin House Trust in 2005, then thoroughly renovated and restored to a state perhaps not seen since the 18th century.
once occupied by the children of William Ewart Gladstone
.
The establishment of the original Pushkin House coincided with the immediate post-Stalin years and the Thaw
, when interest in things Russian was intense. These years were marked, for example, by the first yearly visits of the Bolshoi
and Kirov (now Mariinsky
) Opera and Ballet companies. Several distinguished scholars, writers and artists of the post-revolutionary emigration were still alive, and the Pushkin Club provided them with an effective platform.
Speakers in the early days included Metropolitan Anthony, Sir Isaiah Berlin and Dame Elizabeth Hill. In 1955, Tamara Karsavina
spoke of her life in ballet; the following year Edward Crankshaw
talked of the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the 20th Party Congress. Scriabin
's sister and Medtner
's widow were both regular attendees.
Mstislav Dobuzhinsky
, one of the last surviving members of Mir Iskusstva
, held more than one exhibition in the Club and presented several of stage designs to the Club. There was an exhibition of paintings and lithographs by Leonid Pasternak
. Soviet writers brought to the UK by the British Council would often come and talk at the Pushkin Club; they included Konstantin Fedin
and Alexander Tvardovsky in 1960. The Pushkin Club enabled people from opposite ends of the political spectrum to meet and discuss; this remains a firm commitment of Pushkin House to the present day.
The fall of the Soviet Union
led to a dramatic increase in Russian immigration to the UK. Russian cultural events have multiplied in all areas. There are as many tours by Russian orchestras and ballet companies as there are Russian conductors working with British symphony orchestras. There have been major exhibitions of works from the great museums of Moscow and St Petersburg. London has seen an explosion of Russian popular culture; the one-day Russian Winter Festival on Trafalgar Square is now in its fifth year and Russian pop stars are regularly heard at the Royal Albert Hall
and other big venues. There are today no less than five Russian-language newspapers published in the UK.
By 2004 there was a clear need for a major Russian cultural centre of the type that the Soviet state had built in cities like Berlin
, Paris
and New York
but never in London
. 46 Ladbroke Grove was not suitable for this purpose and in 2005 the decision was therefore taken to sell the property. No5A Bloomsbury Square was purchased in 2005 and refurbished extensively through 2006. The reborn Pushkin House opened to the public on 24 November 2006.
In pursuit of these aims, Pushkin House has developed a lively and varied cultural programme on Russian literature, art, film, music, theatre and dance, as well as history, philosophy and politics. Events include lectures and talks, seminars, conferences, exhibitions, films, concerts and readings.
The House also has its own reference library of Russian culture.
Besides its own events, Pushkin House welcomes and encourages collaboration with other institutions and groups dedicated to Russian culture. The House currently hosts lectures run by the Pushkin Club and the GB-Russia Society. Regular Russian language courses are provided by the Russian Language Centre. Creative partnerships are being established with major museums and libraries in Russia.
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
The building
5 Bloomsbury Square as we see it today was built c.1703 as part of the estate of the Earl of Southampton. It was altered substantially by architect Henry FlitcroftHenry Flitcroft
Henry Flitcroft was a major English architect in the second generation of Palladianism. He came from a simple background: his father was a labourer in the gardens at Hampton Court and he began as a joiner by trade. Working as a carpenter at Burlington House, he fell from a scaffold and broke his leg...
in the 1740s; Flitcroft added the Palladian façade. In many respects, 5 Bloomsbury Square is a perfect example of Georgian architecture and retains the vast part of its original features.
From 1704 until his death in 1714, 5 Bloomsbury Square was the home of John Radcliffe, physician to King William III
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
and Queen Anne
Anne of Great Britain
Anne ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Act of Union, two of her realms, England and Scotland, were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain.Anne's Catholic father, James II and VII, was deposed during the...
.
For much of the nineteenth century 5 Bloomsbury Square was occupied by solicitors including Frederick Turner, Charles Ford and Abraham Moses Cohen. By 1888 it was occupied by the architect Arthur Beresford Pite
Arthur Beresford Pite
Arthur Beresford Pite was a British architect.-The early years:Arthur Beresford Pite was born on 2 September 1861 in Newington, London to Alfred and Hephzibah. The Pite lineage originated from Woodbridge, Suffolk and has been traced back to the late 17th century...
(1861-1934). Pite became a renowned professor at the Royal College of Art and at the School of Architecture in Cambridge.
Architects continued to be housed at 5 Bloomsbury Square throughout the 20th century. Other resident organizations have included the Deaf and Dumb Females Asylum (1908), The Society of Genealogists (1922), The Royal Society of St. George (1922), the Brazilian Information Bureau (1938), the Ada Coleman Memorial Stables (1946).
5A Bloomsbury Square was purchased by the Pushkin House Trust in 2005, then thoroughly renovated and restored to a state perhaps not seen since the 18th century.
History
Pushkin House has existed in London since 1954 and has borne witness to dramatic changes in the relationship between Britain and Russia. It was in 1953 that Maria Kullmann recognised a need in London for a politically neutral centre of Russian culture. With a small group of family and friends she bought 24 Kensington Park Gardens as a house for students and academics of all nationalities. The first meeting of the Pushkin Club was held there in 1954. By 1956 it was clear that the Pushkin Club needed a premises of its own; it managed to buy 46 Ladbroke Grove, a fine Victorian villaVictorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
once occupied by the children of William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
.
The establishment of the original Pushkin House coincided with the immediate post-Stalin years and the Thaw
Khrushchev Thaw
The Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were partially reversed and millions of Soviet political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps, due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and...
, when interest in things Russian was intense. These years were marked, for example, by the first yearly visits of the Bolshoi
Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and most renowned ballet and opera companies in the world...
and Kirov (now Mariinsky
Mariinsky Theatre
The Mariinsky Theatre is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their premieres. The...
) Opera and Ballet companies. Several distinguished scholars, writers and artists of the post-revolutionary emigration were still alive, and the Pushkin Club provided them with an effective platform.
Speakers in the early days included Metropolitan Anthony, Sir Isaiah Berlin and Dame Elizabeth Hill. In 1955, Tamara Karsavina
Tamara Karsavina
Tamara Platonovna Karsavina was a famous Russian ballerina, renowned for her beauty, who was most noted as a Principal Artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and later the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev...
spoke of her life in ballet; the following year Edward Crankshaw
Edward Crankshaw
Edward Crankshaw , was a British writer, translator and commentator on Soviet affairs.Born in London, Crankshaw was educated in the Nonconformist public school, Bishop's Stortford College, Hertfordshire, England. He started working as a journalist for a few months at The Times...
talked of the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the 20th Party Congress. Scriabin
Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...
's sister and Medtner
Nikolai Medtner
Nikolai Karlovich Medtner was a Russian composer and pianist.A younger contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, he wrote a substantial number of compositions, all of which include the piano...
's widow were both regular attendees.
Mstislav Dobuzhinsky
Mstislav Dobuzhinsky
Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky or Dobujinsky was a Russian-Lithuanian artist noted for his cityscapes conveying the explosive growth and decay of the early twentieth-century city....
, one of the last surviving members of Mir Iskusstva
Mir iskusstva
Mir iskusstva was a Russian magazine and the artistic movement it inspired and embodied, which was a major influence on the Russians who helped revolutionize European art during the first decade of the 20th century. From 1909, many of the miriskusniki also contributed to the Ballets Russes...
, held more than one exhibition in the Club and presented several of stage designs to the Club. There was an exhibition of paintings and lithographs by Leonid Pasternak
Leonid Pasternak
Leonid Osipovich Pasternak was a Russian post-impressionist painter. He was the father of the poet and novelist Boris Pasternak.-Biography:...
. Soviet writers brought to the UK by the British Council would often come and talk at the Pushkin Club; they included Konstantin Fedin
Konstantin Fedin
-Biography:Born in Saratov of humble origins, Fedin studied in Moscow and Germany and was interned there during World War I. After his release he worked as an interpreter in the first Soviet embassy in Berlin...
and Alexander Tvardovsky in 1960. The Pushkin Club enabled people from opposite ends of the political spectrum to meet and discuss; this remains a firm commitment of Pushkin House to the present day.
The fall of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
led to a dramatic increase in Russian immigration to the UK. Russian cultural events have multiplied in all areas. There are as many tours by Russian orchestras and ballet companies as there are Russian conductors working with British symphony orchestras. There have been major exhibitions of works from the great museums of Moscow and St Petersburg. London has seen an explosion of Russian popular culture; the one-day Russian Winter Festival on Trafalgar Square is now in its fifth year and Russian pop stars are regularly heard at the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
and other big venues. There are today no less than five Russian-language newspapers published in the UK.
By 2004 there was a clear need for a major Russian cultural centre of the type that the Soviet state had built in cities like Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
but never in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. 46 Ladbroke Grove was not suitable for this purpose and in 2005 the decision was therefore taken to sell the property. No5A Bloomsbury Square was purchased in 2005 and refurbished extensively through 2006. The reborn Pushkin House opened to the public on 24 November 2006.
Current activities
Pushkin House has been established to serve as a home and dedicated showcase for Russian culture in London, a focus for Anglo-Russian cultural exchange, a provider of education and information on Russian language and culture, a resource and networking centre for individuals and institutions.In pursuit of these aims, Pushkin House has developed a lively and varied cultural programme on Russian literature, art, film, music, theatre and dance, as well as history, philosophy and politics. Events include lectures and talks, seminars, conferences, exhibitions, films, concerts and readings.
The House also has its own reference library of Russian culture.
Besides its own events, Pushkin House welcomes and encourages collaboration with other institutions and groups dedicated to Russian culture. The House currently hosts lectures run by the Pushkin Club and the GB-Russia Society. Regular Russian language courses are provided by the Russian Language Centre. Creative partnerships are being established with major museums and libraries in Russia.