Pushkin House

(Pushkinskii Dom; also known as the Institute of Russian Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR), an institute for literary scholarship and research. It was founded in St. Petersburg in 1905 as a memorial museum and center for Pushkin scholarship. In 1918 it was made part of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1930 it became the Institute of Russian Literature.

Participants in the work of the Pushkin House have included A. V. Lunacharskii, A. N. Tolstoy, M. Gorky (director in 1935 and 1936), and leading Soviet scholars. The institute’s departments and research groups deal with the history of Russian literature from ancient times to the present, literary theory, Russian folklore, and the comparative study of Russian and foreign literatures. The institute conducts annual all-Union Pushkin conferences and scholarly conferences on the history and theory of literature.

Since 1958 the Pushkin House has published the journal Russkaia literatura (Russian Literature). It has also issued many collective works on the history of Russian literature and criticism, as well as bibliographical indexes, thematic anthologies, and academic editions of the collected works of the classic Russian writers. The institute includes a manuscripts department, the Literary Museum, and a specialized book archive. Since 1927 it has occupied the building of the former St. Petersburg customhouse (1829–32). This building, in the late classical style, is part of the architectural ensemble situated on a spit of Vasil’evskii Island.