The Keeper of Antiquities, by the brilliant Yury Dombrovsky, is a thinly veiled allegory of the Soviet Union during the Stalinist period.
The unconventional and rebellious Dombrovsky was arrested in 1932 and exiled to Alma-Ata, then the capital of Kazakhstan.
Dombrovsky became a teacher there and his place of exile became the setting for The Keeper of Antiquities. The nameless protagonist of the novel is an archaeologist who works at the local museum.
He is the keeper of the book’s title and, absorbed with cataloguing and organising the museum exhibits, he tries to remain at a remove from the politics swirling around him. The keeper is candid and true to himself in a time and place where this is very difficult.
Dombrovsky begins the novel with leisurely descriptions of Alma-Ata as place that he had come to love. Soon the skies darken as professional rivalry between the keeper and the chief librarian turns into a struggle for control of the meaning of the past – and therefore of the present.
As one reviewer put it: “The Keeper of Antiquities spends his time trying to get people to stick to the truth, not to romanticise, not to make up ridiculous stories.”
To me this glorious book is a reminder that the role of the historian/curator is to seek the truth as far as it can be found and to explode myths.
All too often myth is used to denigrate and persecute others, and all too often romantic myths are hawked around because they are thought to be crowd-pleasing.
Erica Davies is the director of the Ragged School Museum in east London
The unconventional and rebellious Dombrovsky was arrested in 1932 and exiled to Alma-Ata, then the capital of Kazakhstan.
Dombrovsky became a teacher there and his place of exile became the setting for The Keeper of Antiquities. The nameless protagonist of the novel is an archaeologist who works at the local museum.
He is the keeper of the book’s title and, absorbed with cataloguing and organising the museum exhibits, he tries to remain at a remove from the politics swirling around him. The keeper is candid and true to himself in a time and place where this is very difficult.
Dombrovsky begins the novel with leisurely descriptions of Alma-Ata as place that he had come to love. Soon the skies darken as professional rivalry between the keeper and the chief librarian turns into a struggle for control of the meaning of the past – and therefore of the present.
As one reviewer put it: “The Keeper of Antiquities spends his time trying to get people to stick to the truth, not to romanticise, not to make up ridiculous stories.”
To me this glorious book is a reminder that the role of the historian/curator is to seek the truth as far as it can be found and to explode myths.
All too often myth is used to denigrate and persecute others, and all too often romantic myths are hawked around because they are thought to be crowd-pleasing.
Erica Davies is the director of the Ragged School Museum in east London
