J.L.Runeberg’s Home (Museum), Porvoo
F.M.Dostoevsky Museum, Saint Petersburg
Exhibition Dostoevsky-200. Color as You Please. The Dostoevsky Bicentennial
at the Runeberg Museum in Porvoo
February 5 – 28, 2022
On February 5, Finland celebrates Runeberg Day in honor of the national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, author of the words to the country’s national anthem, Vårt Land / Maamme (“Our Land”). The Runeberg Museum is located in the city of Porvoo in the house where the poet lived with his wife, Fredrika, also a writer. One of Finland’s oldest literature museums, it preserves the atmosphere of the 1860s, the era when Fyodor Dostoevsky created his most significant works.
On Runeberg Day the exhibition Dostoevsky-200. Color as You Please. The Dostoevsky Bicentennial opened at the Runeberg Museum in Porvoo, organized in collaboration with the Dostoevsky Museum.
The exhibition is divided into two parts. A biographical part presents the most important episodes from Dostoevsky’s life and work using digital copies of 19th-century lithographs, woodblock prints, and photographs from the Dostoevsky Museum’s and the Literary museum of the Institute of Russian Literature, Russian Academy of Sciences, collections.
An interactive part — Coloring Dostoevsky — allows visitors to color in Dostoevsky’s outfits and those of his characters based on given quotations. Visitors will learn not only about the fashions of the time, but also about Dostoevsky’s personal habits and his heroes’ tastes. The playful aspect of the exhibition allows us to look at the writer’s works a bit more freely, and the opportunity to engage with the texts as co-creators shifts the angle from which we view them.
Authors of the project: Vera Biron (Russia). Cooperation partner, Susanna Widgeskog (Finland)
Artists (designers):
The part “F.M.Dostoevsky. Life and Work”: Arkady Opochansky
The part “Coloring Dostoevsky”: Igor Knyazev, Nika Velegzhaninova
Adress of the Runeberg Museum: Porvoo, Aleksanterinkatu 3
Runeberg Museum website: https://www.porvoo.fi/runebergin-koti
