The formation of historiography of western Siberian museum science in 1920s

The article is devoted to a question of a historiography of Western Siberian museum studies based on Marxist methodology. It's told that history and modernity of West Siberian museums were investigated in magazine publications since the beginning of 1920s. Siberian periodicals, for example "Life of Siberia" (Zhizn Sibiri), "Siberia knowledge" (Sibirivedenie), "Siberian journal of Pedagogics" (Sibirsky pedagogicheskyi zhurnal), unfolded the discussion of the nature and substance of the museums. Some authors examined the museums as organizational centers of local research and educational, and others - as political and educational institutions. In the middle of 1920s the Siberian museums were recognized as research and educational institutions. In addition to the journal periodical press in the mid-1920s there were published research works of professional historians and specialists in museology. They could base their investigation on history sources and their own experience of museum studies. For example, director of Tomsk museum M.B. Shatilov and head master of Omsk museum F.V. Melekhin based their research works on own experience, used information of the periodical press, documentary publications and museum collections. So they could describe museum studies - the work of the acquisition and recording of collections, making of museum expositions and forming of first educational programs. Museum publications had very important evidence about the organization and carrying out of scientific expeditions, described their results. Another innovation was illustrative material for the article about the Omsk museum - photographs of the museum buildings, the botanical garden and exhibition halls of the museum. By the end of the 1920s some authors of museum publications tried to show their participation in the socialist construction. The experience of adjustment to the new socialist way of museum science was highlighted by Tobolsk museum specialists I.V. Telishev and M.P. Kopotilov. They spoke about the activities of antI-religious and historical-revolutionary sections in Tobolsk museum created in the late 1920s. These articles are rather showed attempts to adapt to the demands of the soviet museum leadership than of real restructuring of the museum work. In whole museum researches of Western Siberia of 1920s were not recognized as Marxist, so the museum investigator had to revise their views.

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