Elena Kalnitskaya

Elena Yakovlevna Kalnitskaya is a Russian art historian and museum specialist; from 2009 to 2022 she was Director General of the State Museum-Reserve “Peterhof.”

She was born on 6 September 1952 in Leningrad into a family of hereditary mining engineers. Her father, Yakov Borisovich Kalnitsky, was a professor and Doctor of Technical Sciences, and one of the founders of the scientific department of the research and design institute Gipronikel. Her mother, Kseniya Lvovna Kalnitskaya, was an ophthalmologist. She graduated from School No. 189 (formerly the “Annenschule”) and in 1969 entered the Leningrad Institute of Railway Engineers named after Academician V. N. Obraztsov (LIIZhT). In 1969–1974 she worked as an engineer at the design institute Lengiprotransmost. In 1977 she entered the Faculty of History of Leningrad State University, specializing in art history. She worked at the State Hermitage Museum and at the Gatchina Museum-Reserve; from 1990 to 2009 she headed the Russian Museum branch “Mikhailovsky Castle.” In 2002 she defended a Candidate of Sciences dissertation in art history, and in 2010 she became a Doctor of Cultural Studies. She taught in the Department of Art History of the Faculty of History at Saint Petersburg State University and held the post of professor at the Saint Petersburg State Institute of Culture. Elena Ya. Kalnitskaya’s research interests include the history of Saint Petersburg architecture, the history of Russian interiors, the museification of historical monuments, and innovative technologies in museum work. She is the author of more than one hundred scholarly and popular-science works on the history of Russian art and architecture, and of more than 30 scripts for popular-science films on the history of the city. She died on 2 January 2025 in Saint Petersburg after a long illness.