Literary and memorial museum of I.K. Karpenko-Kary city of Kropyvnytskyi

The Literary and Memorial Museum of the outstanding figure of Ukrainian culture of the 2nd half of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century Ivan Karpovich Karpenko-Kary (Tobilevich) was opened in 1995 on the initiative of the Kirovohrad regional organization of the Union of Writers of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments on the occasion of 150 – anniversary of the playwright and actor’s birthday.

The museum is located in the memorial building, which is associated with the 11 years of the writer’s life (1872-1883) in the former Yelysavetgrad. He began his literary activity in these walls. The Tobilevich estate remembers the names of prominent Ukrainian theater figures Mykola Sadovskyi, Panas Saksaganskyi, Maria Sadovskya-Barilotti, cultural and public figures of the 2nd half of the 19th century Mykola Lysenko, Mark Kropyvnytskyi, Mykola Arkas, Maria Zankovetska, Mykhailo Starytskyi, Petro Nishchynskyi, Sofia and Oleksandr Rusovyh, Yevhen Chikalenko, Oleksandr Tarkovsky. Museum funds include about 16,000 items. Among them are materials about more than 250 representatives of the writer’s guild – our compatriots. Lifetime editions of the works of I. Karpenka-Kary and M. Kropyvnytskyi, works of V. Vynnychenko, published at the beginning of the 20th century, original photos of luminaries of the Ukrainian theater, memories of Yevgeny Malaniuk, autographs of Arseniy Tarkovsky, Vasyl Kozachenko, Yuriy Mokriev, Sava Golovanivskyi, Volodymyr Bazilevsky, Mykola Smolenchuk, selections of books by our compatriots from the 1930s, materials from the personal archives of compatriot writers from the Second World War, and much more.

The garden area and the courtyard are an integral part of the Tobilevich city estate. It is a place for concerts, creative gatherings, literary picnics and quests, a recreational space for visitors of all ages.