The State Literature Museum was created in 1934 by the merger of the Central Museum of Fiction, Criticism and Journalism of the People's Commissariat of the RSFSR and the Literature Museum at the All-Union Lenin Library. The merger was initiated by Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich (1873 - 1955) who became the first director of the Museum. Bonch-Bruevich was a prominent party figure and statesman, member of the RSDLP since 1895, official correspondent of newspapers Iskra, Pravda and Vpered, Managing Director of the Council of People's Commissars between 1917 and 1920. He was wholly committed to museum work. While still in exile, Bonch-Bruevich organised a library, archive and museum of the RSDLP in Geneva. Upon his return to Russia in 1905, he became one of the founders of the first museum of Lev Tolstoy in St. Petersburg and participated in the creation of Tolstoy exhibition in 1911 in the History Museum; in Soviet times, he presided over Academic Board of the State Museum of Lev Tolstoy in Moscow.

In April 1931 Bonch-Bruevich put forward a proposal to the management of Narcompros to establish the Commission on the creation of the Central Literature Museum, ‘a museum, which will have no equals not only in the Soviet Union, but throughout the world. It was expected that it would store "everything to do with literature that is available in various museums in Moscow" and collect all possible ‘scattered and misplaced manuscripts of literary works and biographical information." In 1933 such a museum was established, but only an order number 546 of July 16, 1934, signed by the People's Commissar of Education Andrey Bubnov, finalised its structure and determined its place in the structure of public institutions.

As a result of extensive collecting activities by the end of the 1930s, the National Literature Museum possessed a unique collection of materials on the history of domestic and foreign literature. It consisted of about 3 million archival documents, 100 thousand pieces of fine art, 130 thousands volumes of books. The museum housed the literary estates of the majority of Russian classics and of many writers.

In 1941, in accordance with the decision of the People's Commissar of the USSR of March 29. On Approval of the State Archive Fund of the USSR and a Network of State Archives’, about 3 million units, mostly manuscripts, were transferred from the State Literature Museum to the Head Archives Office of the NKVD for the organisation of the Central State Archive of Literature (now RGALI). Deprived of its most valuable manuscripts, in fact, of the nucleus of its collection, the museum found itself in dire straits.

Soon the Literature Museum had to endure yet another dramatic chapter in its history. By order of the People's Commissars of the RSFSR of October 6, 1943 ‘On the Organisation of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences’, the State Literature Museum was to close. Only six weeks later, after several requests to the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), the situation was reviewed and the museum was restored as an independent institution. As soon as the situation stabilised, the museum resumed the replenishment of its collections.

During the war the Museum continued to carry out its creative work: it received around 5000 documents from the security services, that is, documents that were confiscated from the repressed writers and literary figures. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Museum acquired a lot of literary and documentary materials.

In the 1970-1980s the State Literature Museum created a number of other museums on the base of its collection. In the 1970's the museum and its affiliates already occupied seventeen buildings in Moscow; by 1995 that number had increased to twenty.

One of the main activities of the museum was and remains the improvement of research and methodical work. The Museum aims at the improvement of the level of its professional activity in exhibition making, collecting, cataloguing and educating the public; the idea is to improve the quality of the work of the Museum as a whole and of all of its employees individually.

The State Literature Museum has gradually become a major research centre, which assists the organisation of museums and exhibitions all over the country. This activity blossomed during the late 1960s- early 1980s. The Museum staff was involved in the creation of the first exhibition at the Alexander Radischev Museum and in the process of the formation of the Museum in Oryol. It was no accident that the Museum acquired the status of the leading Literature Museum of the country in 1968.

At present the State Literature Museum is Russia's largest museum of national literature. It is composed of three permanent exhibitions representing the history of Russian literature, as well as nine monographic museums of Mikhail Lermontov, Alexander Gertsen, Fedor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, Alexander Lunacharsky, Alexey Tolstoy, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Prishvin, Korney Chukovsky located in the houses where the writers lived and worked. In museum collections there are over 600 000 items: manuscripts and early printed books; lifetime editions and books autographed by authors; personal archives and literary estates of prominent figures in Russian literature and culture; archives of publishers and art groups; unique photographs; works by some of the best-known Russian artists, items of decorative and applied art; collections of commemorative items, luboks, posters, folk records, phono- and video materials.

The State Literature Museum enjoys well-deserved reputation in the international academic and museum circles. One of the directions of the international activities of the Museum and of its professional contacts is participation in the work of the international museum community ICOM.