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08.05.2020

Remember, Never Forget: The Palaces and Parks of Pushkin Town in 1941-46 is a collection of articles (in Russian, see below) by the Museum’s research workers published by Russian Collection SPB.

This collection is a tribute to the museum employees who preserved Tsarskoe Selo during the war and then restored it in the postwar years. They made it possible to revive the splendour and grandeur of the former imperial residence.

We combined and published for the first time the diaries, reports, letters, photographs, historical records and eyewitness memoirs from the archive of our Museum, the Central State Archive of Literature and Art and private archives in Russia and Germany.

The articles include the Museum’s prewar inventory description, war preservation records and postwar accounts on returning artifacts.

A special place is occupied by memoirs, letters and diary entries of the Museum’s enthusiasts, such as Vera Lemus and Eugenia Turova.

Published for the first time is a detailed evacuation report of October 1941 by Tamara Popova, deputy director for research, who prepared the collections for evacuation and was one of the last to leave the palace on 16 September 1941, one day before the Nazi occupation of Pushkin.

Also published for the first time are the work diaries of Elena Gladkova covering the first stages of restoration of the palace, parks and pavilions, and the Park Sculpture Concealed Underground Report by Lydia Emina.

Noteworthy are the journal of Senior Efreitor Kurt Büttner (presented to the Museum by his son Reinhold in 2000) who participated in the Leningrad offensive and the Pushkin town occupation in 1941; and the letters and photographs of Hans Harmsen (donated by his relatives in 2014 together with other trophies like two vases and a book from the Alexander Palace and an icon of Tsarina Alexandra’s lady in waiting) who was stationed in Pushkin in September to December 1942.

Important documentary evidence of the tragedy that befell the suburban palaces is an album of photographs taken by German soldiers during the occupation of Pushkin, which is included in the publication as well.