Integration of Old Believers' culture into social and cultural space of a region by means of museum work

The modern cultural world of West Siberia includes various cultural organisms rose from ethnic and religious communities. One of the most complicated cultural phenomenon is Old Belief that had influence on development of economic, educational, and cultural life in the region. There are appeared a lot of myths about Old Believers after centuries-long Russian Church dissent that do not let us to get a real assessment of their contribution to conservation and popularization of the true Russian culture and traditions. Members of this confessional group set themselves up as a spiritual movement that integrates their culture into the today's society. The goal of involving concepts of history, culture, traditions of various communities into a public consciousness is successfully achieved by a museum which is an institute of social memory that records and passes not only tangible heritage but also intangible heritage, such as accepted rules and values of a culture. Namely a museum as a unique educational form of culture that visualizes images by means of expositional work creates a museum model of reality. Having a stock of genuine items, documents, materials, a museum uses their informational potential to integrate cultural heritage into society's consciousness, and that helps to bring up an audience's worldview. Popularization of historical and cultural heritage through museum work faces a set of barriers, such as a lack of museum audience's experience of social communication that is sufficient for right perception of life models of the past; typecast thinking; falsification of historical facts, etc. The museums of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as secular museums present the regional history and culture for the local communities; they collected a lot of items and materials related with Old Believers' religious tradition, but in spite of it Old Believers' history and culture is not a subject of museum communication, or work on public representation of Old Believers' heritage manages by those who are not belong to this confessional group. Museum network of West Siberia had included several museums focused on representation of Old Beliefs cultural world in the second decade of the 21st century, among them: Museum of Siberian Old Beliefs History (Novosibirsk, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia), Museum and Estate of Old Beliefs Culture "Prichumyshe" (Zalesovo village, Altai Krai, Russia). Work with the museum audience in these historical and day-to-day life museums engages by force of Old Believers themselves, and they are ready to tell visitors about values and senses of their own cultural world. Methods and technologies of representation in museum work helps to create a peculiar cultural and educational environment that lets to a visitor to plunge into emotional and aesthetic atmosphere and cultural environment of Old Belief. So, museum work is an effective mean for integration of Old Believers' culture into social and cultural space of a region.

Keywords

Authors

References