“In recent years the Hermitage has held several exhibitions devoted to visual ‘trickery’, pictures that deceive the eye. Today we are toying with literary ‘trickery’ that has entirely real features important for the history of Russian and world culture. Two images – real and illusory – are coming together thanks to the museum,” Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, commented.

The exhibition combines historical facts and episodes from the Baron’s literary adventures. The large and diverse collection of exhibits allows visitors to take a look at the life of the Russian imperial court and Saint Petersburg through his eyes. Many actual historical events bear out the truthfulness of the accounts given by Munchausen, who, as we all know, abhorred lies. Some, meanwhile, seem even more fantastic than the Baron’s celebrated inventions.

Hieronymus Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen came to Saint Petersburg in 1738 as a page to Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick, the bridegroom of Princess Anna Leopoldovna (the niece of Empress Anna Ioannovna). Accompanying the Duke, he witnessed many events at the imperial court, attended court festivities and participated in a Russo-Turkish war. From 1739 he served in Riga, in the Brunswick Cuirassiers Regiment, commanding its elite Life Company from 1740. It was Münchhausen who, in 1744, was at the border to meet the future Empress Catherine II, who entered Russia together with her mother through Riga, and he was in charge of the guard posted at the house where the travellers stopped for three days. After leaving Russia in 1750, he soon returned, but this time as the hero of a popular book.

The author of the concept and curator of the exhibition is Natalia Yuryevna Bakhareva, senior researcher in the Department of the History of Russian Culture.

The exhibition can be visited by all holders of entry tickets to the Main Museum Complex until 15 September 2024.

More about the exhibition

The Handling of the Display

The “real” Munchausen is inseparable from the literary personage. The display plunges visitors into the historical context of the arrival of the actual Münchhausen in the Russian Empire in the middle years of the 18th century and at the same time enables them to witness the Baron’s “fantastically truthful” adventures.

The structure of the display is conceived as a journey through the chapters of a book, on the pages of which actual historical exhibits and documents connected with Münchhausen’s time in Russia are combined with an illustrative approach to the creation of the design. Alongside the authentic items, interactive elements have been incorporated into the structure of the exhibition. The design of the exhibition stands references the aesthetics of an old-fashioned book or a manuscript scroll, while installations blur the boundary between reality and the world of literary imagination.

The Sections of the Exhibition

The Münchhausen Family

The Münchhausen family can trace its history back to the time of the Crusades. The exhibition includes family coats-of-arms, documents and works of art associated with representatives of this long lineage. A central place is taken by a Book of the Genealogy of the Münchhausens and items from a porcelain service that belonged to Gerlach Adolph von Münchhausen, a cousin of the hero of our exhibition who was prime minister of Hanover, founder and curator of the University of Göttingen. In a letter featured in the exhibition Duke Charles (Karl) of Brunswick informs his brother Anton Ulrich that he is sending the page Münchhausen to him. This is proof that the “Baron” was no imaginary literary personage and that he did indeed spend time in the Russian Empire.

At the Russian imperial court. Page to the Duke

This section contains material about important state events that took place during Münchhausen’s stay in Russia, luxurious articles used in the daily life of the court, portraits of members of the imperial family and courtiers whom Münchhausen would have regularly met, memorial objects that belonged to Empress Anna Ioannovna, her favourite Duke Ernst Johann von Biron, Field Marshal Burkhard Christoph von Münnich and others. An important feature here is archaeological finds from excavations of Anna Ioannovna’s palace, which no longer exists, and adjoining palatial structures where Münchhausen would have spent time every day.

In this same section visitors will be presented with information from the Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti newspaper and other official sources containing descriptions of real-life events. These texts are quite often even more fantastical than Baron Munchausen’s tall tales.

Fighting against the Turks

A considerable place in Munchausen’s adventures is taken up by episodes from the Russo-Turkish war in which he participated in 1738. This section includes portraits of the commanders of the Russian army, depictions of battles, a mortar from the 1730s, and also devices for reckoning the size for a charge of gunpowder and determining how far a cannonball will travel. (These items are capable of convincing us that, after precise calculation, it would indeed have been possible to fly into an enemy stronghold on a cannonball, as Munchausen recounted.)

“Russian Captain of Horse”. Service in Riga

This part of the display tells about Münchhausen’s service in the Brunswick Cuirassiers Regiment (garrisoned in the present-day capital of Latvia) and his meeting Princess Sophie Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst (the future Catherine II) on the border in 1744. Some important chapters in Münchhausen’s personal life are also connected with Riga. It was there that he wed Jacobine von Dunten, beginning a long and happy marriage.

Among the exhibits here are the uniform and a standard of the Cuirassiers Regiment in which Münchhausen served, portraits of the young Catherine II, her mother and other historical figures that our hero would have met in what was then a frontier city. Particular rarities are the authentic reports that Münchhausen wrote while in Riga – one more confirmation that the famous teller of tales did indeed live for a time in Russia.

Hunting Adventures

It is no coincidence that many episodes in Munchausen’s stories are connected with hunting. In the 18th century members of the upper classes devoted many leisure hours to what was then considered a suitably noble pastime. Accordingly, “huntsmen’s yarns” like Munchausen’s tales were very popular.

The display contains items that tell of the 18th century‘s keenness for hunting in Europe and Russia, and about Empress Anna Ioannovna’s particular passion for hunting and sharpshooting. The exhibits include porcelain, glassware, silver, jewellery, carved ivory articles, paintings and tapestries depicting hunting scenes and trophies, as well as firearms. A further proof of the truthfulness of Munchausen’s tales is a gun that was indeed capable of firing cherrystones.

The Birth of the Literary Personage

Before the 18th century drew to a close, Münchhausen made a symbolic “return” to Russia, but now as the protagonist of a very well known book. The exhibition presents publications of the adventures of the fictional Baron Munchausen, beginning with the very earliest – dating from 1761. Also on show are illustrations of the Baron’s exploits, as well as 19th-century caricatures that draw upon themes from Munchausen’s adventures, commemorative coins and banknotes dedicated to him.

The display contains over 500 exhibits from the stocks of the State Hermitage, as well as museums, libraries and archives in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. A significant portion of them are on show to the public for the first time.

The exhibition has been prepared by the State Hermitage with the participation of the

•             Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Empire, Moscow

•             Military­Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps, Saint Petersburg

•             State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow

•             Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents, Moscow

•             Russian State Archive of Military History, Moscow

•             Russian State Historical Archive, Saint Petersburg

•             State Library of Russia, Moscow

•             National Library of Russia, Saint Petersburg

Creation of the Display

The ARKI creative studio

Design concept – Andrei Andreyevich Punin

Artistic decoration and illustrations – Yekaterina Vladimirovna Filipenko

Calligraphy and lettering – Vera Zurabovna Bobrikova

Design – Anastasia Alexeyevna Martynova

Graphics – Yulia Alexandrovna Miliutina

Multimedia

NIKO digital prod.

General producer – Nikolai Sergeyevich Nikolenko

Art director – Maria Eduardovna Koval

The State Hermitage Publishing House will be producing a scholarly illustrated catalogue for the exhibition. Its scholarly editor is Georgy Vadimovich Vilinbakhov, Deputy General Director of the State Hermitage for Research. The catalogue foreword is by General Director Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky. The catalogue designer is Anastasia Valeryevna Ivanova.

For the exhibition, the State Hermitage’s Sector for the Production of Electronic Publications has created a video film constructed in the form of a dialogue between the exhibition’s curator and Hieronymus Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen about his adventures in Russia.

The project is accompanied by a specially developed range of souvenirs.

The General Sponsor of the exhibition is Rosseti