Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin: at the origin of museum studies in Russia

This article discusses the understudied problem of the historiography of Russian museum studies. The historiography sources are the scientific works of Russian historian N.M. Karamzin, highly evaluated by many researchers, from V.O. Klyuchevsky and K.N. Bestuzhev-Ryumin to S.O. Schmidt and M.Yu. Lotman. However, researchers never turned their attention to the museology nature of N.M. Karamzin's works, while Karamzin himself wrote that he searched for "thoughts in the monuments" and desired "to unite into a system" everything created in centuries. He developed a special method of history study, which ensured the visualization of the historical process. Subsequently this method determined the formation of the museum-object, or museology, approach. According to modern museologists, Karamzin made a representation of the monuments of the past and reached extraordinary expressiveness and persuasiveness of historical narration. Using his own methodology, Karamzin revived the pictures of the military-political history of Russia. The museology method Karamzin developed found its most successful use in the study of the history of everyday life. N.M. Karamzin laid the basis of the academic discipline now known as the history of material culture. He gave detailed descriptions of Russian costumes, characterized the origin of the book culture, the technology novelties of the 15th and 16th centuries. N.M. Karamzin was the first Russian researcher who wrote about the intangible heritage; he described many customs and traditions of the Russian people. First of all, he noted the memorial and sacral value of Russian monuments and cases of museumifi-cation of some monuments. N.M. Karamzin was the first to describe the different forms of museum storage and collections; he made museum valuables equal to other cultural achievements: literature, philosophy, theater. However, Karamzin did not have enough time to describe the museum studies in Russia completely. Nevertheless, it is Karamzin who was at the root of museology, and he predetermined other Russian historians' interest in museum studies.

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