Museology as complex of knowledge about museum science: historiography of the problem

The study on Russian museology increasingly attracts attention from researchers in recent years. So far, however, the historiography of museology remains unexplored. This fact was noted by A.M Razgon and other museologists. The attention to the history of museum science allowed to learn that historian N.M. Karamzin first addressed museology problems in Russia. He worked out a special method of visualization and used it in his research of the history of Russia. Later this method was made a basis for the museum-focused approach. Also N.M. Karamzin was first to report to Russian readers about some Russian and European museums. I.Ye. Zabelin also greatly contributed to museology. His work on the life of Russian tsars and tsarinas in the 16th-17th centuries is still relevant. We can say that it is a model for the history of material culture as a special discipline of museology. N.M. Karamzin and I.Ye. Zabelin were followed by Russian historians and museum specialists who developed various questions on the history of some Russian museums and the museum science on the whole. There were prepared and published some museographic and archaeo-graphic works on museums. D.A. Klements, N.F. Fedorov, N.M. Mogilyanskiy, B.F. Adler formulated the first definitions of the museum as a repository of memorials of the past. Such authors as P.S. Uvarova, V.E. Rudakov, A.I. Smirnov made the grouping of Russian museums, developed the first classification, made the experience of the indoors museum activities. In the 1900s, professor of Moscow archaeological institute S.K. Kuznetsov used the concept of museology for the first time. In accordance with context that wording clearly supposed the complex character of museology. Since the first years of Soviet power in Russia, active work for a change in the museum science began. The creation of a special agency for state management of museums in Narkomat for Education promoted that work. Museum specialists K.E. Grinevitch, N.G. Mashkovtsev and their colleagues spoke up for the restructuring of the museum science in their works. They offered to act in accordance with the revolutionary ideas, connected the museum science with tasks of Socialist building. Siberian authors N.K. Auerbakh and G.I. Cheremnykh asserted the idea of the scientific nature of museums, but still admitted the needs to connect museums with institutions for political education. By the end of the 1920s, the problems of the museum science and museology studies as well were included in the system of political knowledge. The Marxism-Leninism concept was established in museology, and it characterized museums as centers of documentation and propaganda of Socialist building. It outlined the paradigm shift in museology.

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