Original letters and documents by Russian intelligentsia emigres Ivan Bunin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Georgy Golitsyn and other post-revolutionary writers living in France, the US and Britain are now on display at the Menshikov Palace.
The collection was launched by the Russian scholar Dmitry Ryabushinsky in France, where in 1945 he formed a society devoted to preserving and fostering Russian cultural achievements.
The artifacts in the exhibition -- including various documents, letters and pictures -- reveal that Russian expatriate scholars, writers and poets always hoped that one day they would be able to return home to their native land -- a new and free Russia --and were keen to save their collected works for future generations.
Menshikov Palace art critics say that some of the documents are unique and that for the first time they discovered the names of Russian writers who had previously only published their works abroad.
Presently the archive's documents, most of which are written in Russian, are being kept in the Dutch Historical Museum.
The exhibition in the Menshikov Palace is open until the end of August. The exhibition itself is free but the admission fee to the palace is 25,000 roubles.