Women's track in the museum science of Siberia (XIX - early XXth century)

The topic of this article did not attract the attention of researchers. Using of newspapers, letters and memoirs, museographical publications and some other authentic sources enabled the author to identify and highlight women's participation in the creation and activities of many museums in Siberia. First, the article shows the museum charity of women from wealthy families. They were the daughters of merchant Piotr I. Kuznetsov - Yulia (in Matveyev's marriage), Alexandra and Eudokia, the wife of the founder of Yeniseisk Museum Anastasia Kytmanova, merchant wife Mukhina and others. The author of the article emphasizes that the most important contribution to the museum science of Siberia was made by those women, who worked inside museums. The first of them was Alexandra Potanina -wife and helper of the outstanding Russian traveler and museologist Grigory Potanin. Together with her husband, Alexandra Potanina worked in the expeditions through Mongolia and China, collected herbariums, made sketches of natural landscapes and cultural artifacts, composed different historical sources and transferred them to museums in St. Petersburg, Siberian town of Kyakhta and Irkutsk. Then the author tells about Elizabeth Clements, who played a prominent role in the museum science of Siberia. She had a higher natural science education, worked in the Minusinsk Museum, and was one of the first who used museum collections in cultural and educational work. Together with her husband Dmitry Clements, she participated in scientific expeditions through Siberia and Mongolia, engaged in archaeological excavations, made herbariums and transferred all collected materials to Minusinsk and Irkutsk museums. In addition, she worked up the museum collections by herself. Maria Kostyurina played an important role in Tobolsk Museum. She was native of Tobolsk, participated in revolution movement of narondnik (populist), and was exiled to Siberia. Some later she came in Tobolsk, published the newspaper “Siberian Vestnik”. In 1890 Kostyurina joined the executive committee of Tobolsk Museum, took place in collecting of different museum materials on folklore and peasant culture around Tobolsk. She was engaged in issuing several museum catalogs, used museum materials in investigations and scientific publications. The article includes the information about Maria Krasnozhenova, who collected, worked up and published the museum sources in Krasnoyarsk Museum. Thus, the materials of the article allow opening a new page in the history of museum science, and telling about the first Siberian women-museologists.

Keywords

Authors

References