S. I. Rudenko's Contribution to the Development of Museology in the 1920s

Sergey Ivanovich Rudenko took part in collecting ethnographic objects for a museum for the first time as a student, in 1905. While staying in Tomsk in 1919-1921 he worked independently at establishing ethnological museum. In 1921 S. I. Rudenko was made Head of Ethnographic Department and Deputy Director of the Russian Museum. The period of the 1920s is marked with vast scientific, pedagogic, and organizational activity of the researcher. At this time S. I. Rudenko actively proved himself as an experienced museologist. In 1923, under his leadership, the first exposition of Ethnographic Department was created and opened for visitors in the Russian Museum. During conferences and meetings with museum workers, Sergey Ivanovich put forward a number of valuable concepts in museum organization and nature of museum work. He believed education impossible without museums, so his ambition was creating a universal anthropology museum. In 1924 he published an article "Museum of Humankind History", which proved the need for creating anthropology museum. Being a follower of paleoeth-nologic direction, S. I. Rudenko advocated complex approach both in research and in museology. He stressed the artificial character in dividing museums into those of Natural science and those of humanities, also stating that "regional museums, which are universal museums in miniature, do not follow such a mechanical division". The researcher believed that it is unacceptable for anthropology museum as well. In creating a new contemporary museum S. I. Rudenko was developing concepts of the British archeologist O.G.S. Crowford. He conceived of it as an anthropology museum in the broad sense, combining recent data of a few fields of science: physical anthropology, ethnography, archeology, geography, and biology. To put it more explicitly for his readers, S. I. Rudenko called such a museum 'a museum of humankind history' in his article. According to Sergey Ivanovich's ideas, each age should be presented in it against the landscape background of a corresponding period, its orography, hydrography, climate zones, flora and fauna. He believed that contemporary geographic environment should be represented in most detailed way. The project creator stressed that people's everyday culture "will live" only in its natural environment; moreover, it can be understood only in its landscape. S. I. Rudenko set forth a number of necessary requirements to expositions of any museum: 1) dimensional presentation of an object or phenomenon against the environment in which it occurs; 2) observing chronological succession of the events in exposition; 3) keeping the idea of evolution and systemic character in designing an exposition; 4) producing a visual impression of an object.

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