National Museum of Literature of Ukraine

National Museum of Literature of Ukraine (Національний музей літератури України; Natsionalnyi muzei literatury Ukrainy). The main museum of literature in Ukraine. It was opened in Kyiv in July 1986 in the building which once housed the Galagan College. In 1999 the museum was granted a national museum status and assumed its present name. Over 85,000 books (including old, rare, and first editions), manuscripts, photographs, posters, newspapers, and writers’ personal items are in its inventory; 5,000 of them are displayed in 15 rooms, including handwritten manuscripts by Lesia Ukrainka, Mykhailo Starytsky, Vasyl Symonenko, and others. Memorial corners for the writers Pavlo Tychyna, Maksym Rylsky, Yurii Yanovsky, Andrii Malyshko, Mykola Bazhan, and Yurii Smolych have been created there. In 2004 the Mykola Bazhan literary memorial museum became a branch of the museum.

[This article was updated in 2017.]