Russian museology in the 1930s-2010s: an experience of a historiography study

The study on the historiography of Russian museology, started in 2015, needs to continue. Knowledge of the museum history makes it possible to maintain that at the turn of the 1920-30-s the paradigm of museology changed. Categories of the Marxist-Leninist philosophy - theory and practice - were the basis for the new concept of museum science. It was formulated at the First All-Russia Museum Congress. Very soon, the theory was understood as instructions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government. The concept of practice was regarded as the implementation of those directives in museums. Museums were stripped of academic significance and were turned into institutions for political education. Rebirth of museology occurred in the post-World War II period. The main event in this process was the extended session of the Institute of Regional Studies and Museum Work, held in 1948. The participants of the session returned the significance of an academic discipline for museology. A.M. Razgon published an article in The Great Soviet Encyclopedia in 1974. He wrote that museology was an academic discipline which studied the origin of museums, their public functions, and questions of theory and methods of museum science. Later, in 1988, this definition was repeated in the book Muzeevedenie. Muzei istoricheskogo profilya [Museology. Museums of A Historical Profile]. The authors called museology an academic discipline. At the same time, they included independent academic disciplines (museum theory, history of museum science, museum source studies) in its structure. In fact, they reflected on museology as on a complex of academic knowledge on museum science, but did not recognize it. In the 1990s, the socio-political development of the Russian society hanged. Consequently, a new non-politicized concept of museology was required. Response to the public demand was The Russian Museum Encyclopedia (Moscow, 2001. Vol. 1-2). The authors of the Encyclopedia summed up Russian museology, identified gaps in museum knowledge. Their definition of museology, in fact, was the same as in the 1980s. Museologists of today underestimate the achievements of their predecessors. We can say there was no shift in the museology paradigm. Nevertheless, there is a clear movement towards a change of the paradigm. It is expressed in the intensive research of the museum science history, in the attention to the experience of pre-revolutionary museology, in the development of the historiography of museum science. The widening and deepening of problems, the improvement of museum study methodology identify new questions for discussion, and their solution needs a new investigation.

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