After the successful exhibition "Rilke and Russia" in Germany and Switzerland, the project is coming to Moscow. The exhibition will be housed at the Vladimir Dal’ State Museum of the History of Russian Literature in Trubnikovsky Lane from February 8 to March 31, 2018.
The meeting of Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926) with Russia was one of the most significant and unique events in the history of interaction between Russian and German cultures. The travels of Rainer Maria Rilke with Lou Andreas-Salome to Russia in 1899 and 1900 marked the beginning of creative blossoming for the 25-year-old poet the: “... I have such a feeling, as if I’ve seen the Creator’s work”.
In 1902, Rilke wrote to Russian publisher A.S. Suvorin about his intention to move to Russia: “Connect me in whatever way you like to your great country pregnant with the future, in which I believe with heart and soul”.  Russia is “the land in which I could take roots, the people whom I could love - whom I love."
The exhibition in Moscow will for the first time bring together and display in one place the documents and materials, paintings and writings that testify to Rilke's deep affection for and attachment to Russia.
280 exhibits to be displayed are diaries, letters, paintings, memorials from the Rilke Archive in Gernsbach, and the collection of Lou Andreas-Salome in Göttingen, the German literary archive, the Swiss literary archive, the Vladimir Dal’ State Museum of the History of Russian Literature, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Leo Tolstoy State Museum, the Pushkin House, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, the Russian State Library, the Moscow State University, and other collections.
Among the unique exhibits of the exposition there are Russian icons once owned by Rilke, Rilke's portrait painted by Leonid Pasternak, "Russian library" of the poet, his correspondence with Leo Tolstoy, Leonid Pasternak, Alexander Benois, Spiridon Drozhzhin, Boris Pasternak and Marina Tsvetaeva, the diary of Andreas-Salome, autographs of “Russian poems” and translations by Rainer Maria Rilke.
The project expands the traditional scope of a literary exhibition - it includes a topical film by Anastasia Alexandrova and essays by Ilma Rakuza, as well as contemporary photographs by Barbara Klemm and Mirko Krizhanovich; all of them traveled through Russia in the footsteps of Rilke.
The exhibition and its catalog received the prestigious German Design Award for 2017.
In all three countries, the exhibition project is accompanied by major scientific conferences. In Moscow, an international scientific conference titled "Cultural Transfer 1900: Rilke and Russia" will be held during the first days of the exhibition.
A contest among young translators "Rilke and Russia" will take place within the framework of the exhibition as well.
The project "Rilke and Russia" is accompanied with a rich cultural program: author's excursions in Russian and German; interactive programs and walking tours; lectures and thematic events in the museum houses that are part of the Vladimir Dal’ Museum of the History of Russian Literature; a musical evening with performing poems by Rainer M. Rilke and Marina Tsvetaeva; round table “Rilke and Women, Salome and Men” timed to the birthday of Lou Andreas-Salome, workshops for children and film screenings.
The event will run at the address 17/1, Trubnikovsky Lane, Moscow, from 8 February to 31 March, 2018.
How to reach: from Smolenskaya or Barricadnaya metro stations, trolleybus 10 or bus 64 to the Chaliapin's House stop.