Galloping Gypsy
  • Home
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • About
  • Music
    • Repertoire
  • Events
  • Links
  • Gallery
  • Blog 2

Pasternak & Artist Colony Peredelkino

28/7/2016

1 Comment

 
 When you study Russian in Moscow with the American Council of Teachers of Russian, as I did fifteen summers ago, you go well beyond the typical tourist package. One of our many excursions was to the artist colony Peredelkino, a wooded village a half-hour southwest of the capital.

The dacha complex was founded on the impetus of Maxim Gorky, and its famous residents have included:
  •  Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago
  • Isaac Babel, a giant of Russian Jewish prose, known for his Odessa Tales
  • Ilya Ilf, of the Ilf & Petrov duo, famous for humorous stories like The Twelve Chairs, made into a 1970 Mel Brooks film
  • poets Bella Akhmadulina, Andrei Voznesensky, and Yevgeny Yevtushenko
  • singer-songwriter-poet Bulat Akudzhava
It has seen its tragedies: Babel was arrested at his home there before being executed during Stalin’s purges.
 
Pasternak died there in 1960 after being hounded by a vicious, state-orchestrated media campaign against Doctor Zhivago for its criticism of Leninism and Stalinism. He was forced to decline the 1958 Nobel Prize for the work, but the committee insisted on awarding it in absentia. Authorities tried to keep his funeral a secret, but hundreds of his admirers showed up to recite his poetry at the grave site.
 
1 Comment

Melikhovo: A Chekhov Residence

22/7/2016

1 Comment

 
When you're in Moscow for six weeks, as I was in summer 2001, it's pleasant to get out to the countryside. Anton Chekhov also thought it was a good idea, so he bought the estate of Melikhovo, forty miles south of the metropolis, in 1892.

He practiced medicine, hosted many guests, and kept up his writing there. A compassionate man, he helped build local schools, much as Tostoy had done for peasant children (see my previous entry on Tolstoy's residence). 

He had a small cottage built for guests, and it was there that he wrote The Seagull and completed another play, Uncle Vanya. He also planted very diverse vegetable and flower gardens with the help of his sister Maria.

The property is today a museum, with everything restored or rebuilt. A day-trip from Moscow can be combined with a visit to a monastery in the area. My gracious Moscow host mother, Sveta, along with family, took me there as part of a weekend trip to their dacha. Things are not as neatly mowed, trimmed and painted as in - well, of course - Germany, but sometimes the natural look grows on you.

Next week: Boris Pasternak & the Artist Colony of Peredeldino
1 Comment

Count Tolstoy's Estate: Yasnaya Polyana

14/7/2016

1 Comment

 
I've devoted several entries to locales associated with Russian literature (links below), such as the Crime and Punishment Tour, and here's another.  About two hours south of Moscow is the main residence of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. In many ways, the property of his life, particularly his post-"conversion"/proto-hippy later years. These pics were taken during a 2001 summer program at Moscow State University.
I mentioned the Yasnaya Polyana estate & Tolstoy's great-granddaughter in this post from last July. It's about a 36-hour online reading of Anna Karenina, with participants from Russia, the U.S., South Korea, and elsewhere, and a later Chekhov marathon. Look for an entry on one of Chekhov's residences next week.

Russian lit entries:
Crime & Punishment at 150 - this year's anniversary
The St. Petersburg Crime & Punishment Tour - see the murderer Raskolnikov's garret.

Other entries on Russia:
Church of the Intercession on the Nerl - a picturesque location used in a film.
Red October Candy Factory - things have changed a lot since 2001.
1 Comment

A Brief Tribute to Elie Wiesel

7/7/2016

2 Comments

 
I was blessed to hear Elie Wiesel speak at the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in January 1995. I cannot add anything else significant to the outpouring of tributes paid in recent days. So I’m simply posting a link to a text of his address that day and one to my post of twenty years later.
Picture
Elie Wiesel (1987) by Erling Mandelmann - 2.jpg, author has granted general permission for re-use through Wikipedia.
2 Comments

    Archives

    June 2023
    December 2022
    December 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014

    Musical & Literary Wanderings of a Galloping Gypsy

    Mark Eliot Nuckols is a travel writer from Silver Beach Virginia who is also a musician and teacher.

    Categories

    All
    Austria
    Birthday
    Central Europe
    Czechoslovakia
    Czech Republic
    Folk Music
    Francis Ferdinand
    Grand Budapest Hotel
    Hungary
    Martin
    Mozart
    Music
    Pécs
    Prague
    Requiem
    Sarajevo
    Slovakia
    St. Cecilia
    Stefan Zweig
    The World Of Yesterday
    Vienna
    World War I

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly