On September 24, 2025, the House of Tatar Books — a branch of the Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan — will open the exhibition “Literary Home Front: Kazan”. It is dedicated to the lives of Soviet writers who found themselves in Kazan during the Great Patriotic War.
After the outbreak of the war, Kazan became a major rear center of cultural, scientific, and industrial life in the country. The majority of evacuated writers passed through the capital of the Tatar ASSR, and the Writers’ Union headquarters was located in the House of Printing on Baumana Street. From autumn 1941 to summer 1943, Kazan, Chistopol, Yelabuga, and other towns and districts of the republic became a second home for many Soviet authors.
The exhibition focuses on the literary ties forged at that time between Soviet writers who created in different languages for the sake of Victory. These connections were reflected in literary and musical evenings in Kazan and Chistopol, translations of Russian authors into Tatar and Tatar authors into Russian, as well as in unique books published by Tatar Book Publishing House and allied publishers, in friendships, correspondence, and lifelong memories. The exhibition aims to recreate the picture of literary life on the home front in Kazan and Tatarstan.
It is especially significant that the exhibition will open in the building of the Museum of the History of Tatar Literature with the memorial apartment of Sharif Kamal. In 1941–1942, evacuated writers Sergei Mstislavsky and Willi Bredel lived in this house, and Alexander Fadeyev was a guest in Sharif Kamal’s apartment. Many other houses on Ostrovsky Street witnessed meetings between Tatar writers and evacuated authors.
The exhibition will feature items from the collections of the Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan: letters, photographs, books published during the war by Tatknigoizdat, portraits of writers who survived evacuation in Kazan, propaganda posters created jointly by poets and illustrators. Among the rarities are Boris Pasternak’s autograph, a rare copy of “Letters from the Trenches” by poet Musa Jalil, a portrait of writer and journalist Konstantin Fedin (who lived in Chistopol from October 1941 to January 1943), photographs of the Tatar poet, writer and war correspondent Adel Kutuy, writer and director of the Gorky Museum Maria Elizarova, lyricist Lev Oshanin, and books about war heroes first published during the war.
Another section of the exhibition reconstructs the interior of the Writers’ Union office located in the House of Printing, where evacuated writers and members of the Union of Writers of Tatarstan worked together.
The exhibition also has a virtual section, prepared with the participation of literary museums across Russia. Contributors include the State Museum of K.A. Fedin, Marina Tsvetaeva House-Museum, Chistopol State Historical, Architectural and Literary Museum-Reserve, Rybinsk Museum-Reserve, Alexander Fadeyev Literary Memorial Museum, Yelabuga State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, and the Literary Museum of Stepan Shchipachyov.
Among the exhibits are portraits, photographs, and personal belongings of writers, as well as images of the cities and houses where they lived during evacuation, their letters and postcards, books by Russian and Tatar authors published during the war, as well as drafts and manuscripts. The online exhibition will feature names such as Marina Tsvetaeva, Lev Oshanin, Konstantin Fedin, Konstantin Trenev, Leonid Leonov, Alexander Fadeyev, Boris Pasternak, Ilya Selvinsky, and others. All items will also be accessible online.
As part of the public program, walking tours, literary meetings, and open readings will be held. The exhibition will run until December 10, 2025. Opening is scheduled for 14:00.
Source: mincult.tatarstan.ru
