19th century letters: multimedia lessons timed to the Year of Literature

Pilot multimedia lesson of writing and literature has taken place in the Presidential Library. Its theme was: "Images of Russian history in the works of Russian writers."

The official launch of multimedia lessons timed to the Year of literature in Russia is scheduled for February 6, 2015. The event will begin with a press conference where the Director General of the Presidential Library Alexander Vershinin will talk about new educational and exhibition projects of the library and will propose journalists and students to become members of the multimedia lesson and visit

the exhibition "Fact and Image: Russian history in the works of Russian fiction of the 18th – 20th centuries." The exhibition was timed to the launch of multimedia lessons. The stands are featuring archival documents, copies of manuscripts and rough drafts by Russian classics, who turned in their work to historical events and persons; sketches of costumes for theater productions based on their literary works, photos, video and other unique illustrative materials.

The first members of the multimedia "class" of writing and literature were senior students of the school N 253 and N 254, as well as of the Academic Gymnasium under the SPSU. Classes began with a lesson of Olga Lyzhova, researcher of the Pushkin State Museum. She talked about how they wrote in the 19th century - about the things that accompanied the process, the rules of good forms while writing letters: "Write as one should speak, but speak correctly, nice and connectedly," "Write with a respectful handwriting." Students learned a lot about feathers and pen-knives, wax seal and wafers, paper and ink-pots, and at the end of the lecture they even tried to write down their impressions with a real quill.

As part of the lesson, the students also visited a multimedia exhibition of the works of Pushkin, the materials for which were provided by the A. S. Pushkin State Museum-Reserve of "Mikhailovskoye." Also, children were given a creative task: to develop presentations on a certain historical period. Job results showed that the first multimedia lesson has been learned by students very well.

It is not the first time that the Presidential Library holds multimedia lessons for senior students. Successful experience of a similar project took place last year and was timed to the 20th anniversary of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Then it was attended by about 3,500 high school students from 80 schools of St. Petersburg and Leningrad region.