The Hermitage between the "museum of modern art" and the "museum of everyday life": I.I. Zharnovsky"s project in the context of the projects of the era of revolutions

V.G. Ananiev

Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, 199034 Russia

E-mail: v.ananev@spbu.ru

Received November 25, 2017

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Abstract

The revolution of 1917 caused changes in the field of museology. The problems of reform and management of the country’s main museums were widely discussed. One of these museums was the Hermitage. The paper considers the projects of its reforming. Based on the archival materials, which did not previously attract the attention of researchers, the positions of authors of these projects have been analyzed. The emphasis has been laid on the project of Ivan Ivanovich Zharnovsky, the young art historian, assistant curator of the Painting Gallery of the Hermitage. This project was presented at the meeting of the Subcommittee on Museum Work and Preservation of Monuments established at the Institute of Art History (Petrograd) on March 1917. The Subcommittee had the goal to prepare for the establishment of the Ministry of Arts as the main governing body in the museum field. Several reports were devoted to the fate of the Hermitage. In his report, I.I. Zharnovsky insisted that a representative collection of the 19th-century Western European paintings should have been housed in the Hermitage. In many respects, these ideas stemmed from the experience of Germany that was familiar to this young art historian. His suggestions reflect the general spirit of the era and allow us to view the transformations that the Hermitage underwent in the first years of the Soviet government from a new perspective.

This report is additional evidence that the museum politics of the first post-revolutionary years cannot be perceived as pure voluntarism of the Bolsheviks. The representatives of the intelligentsia from pre-revolutionary generations played an important role in developing its foundations.

Keywords: museum, museology, museum studies, Hermitage, I.I. Zharnovsky, Institute of Art History

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For citation: Ananiev V.G. The Hermitage between the “museum of modern art” and the “museum of everyday life”: I.I. Zharnovsky’s project in the context of the projects of the era of revolutions. Uchenye Zapiski Kazanskogo Universiteta. Seriya Gumanitarnye Nauki, 2018, vol. 160, no. 3, pp. 656–664. (In Russian)

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