The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg is possibly the greatest museum in the world. It began as a showcase for the art treasures of the Tsars and reflects their legendary extravagance. Imperial romances, marriages and murders all had an impact on the collection, as did the byzantine bartering of international politics. Nationalised by the Bolsheviks in 1917, the museum expanded to fill the imperial family’s Winter Palace and the three riverside pavilions that were built onto the palace in the late eighteenth century. The courage and devotion to scholarship of its curators have helped the museum survive the terrible trials of the twentieth century. This book tells the story of the exile, imprisonment and execution of many staff during Stalin’s purges, and extremities of hunger during the siege of Leningrad – when 2,000 people lived in a makeshift bomb shelter in the museum cellars. In one of its most fascinating chapters it also reveals the extraordinary tale of the booty plundered from private and public collections that found their way into the museum. With the 1990s has come a new battle, as the Hermitage struggles to survive amidst the economic chaos of post-Communist Russia. The Hermitage is the first full history of this great museum in any language.

The Hermitage: The Biography of a Great Museum PDF

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