“Highly expressive manual on Russian history”: Branch projects of the Historical and Everyday life Department of the State Russian Museum (1925–1930)

Abstract

In 1918–1934 the State Russian Museum included the Historical and Everyday life Department. It was a unique example of a museum of everyday life, the researchers studied by purposeful selection, exhibiting and actualization the collection, looking for a conceptual basis for their activities. The success of the work was proved by the network of branches that developed in 1925–1930 around the Department, which made it the largest museum of everyday life in the country. Which included the Sheremetevsky and Menshikovsky palaces, the Summer Palace and the house of Peter I, the estates Maryino and Gruzino, whose history has developed in different ways. There were also several projects supervised by the research staff of the Historical and Everyday life Department. The first project was aimed at creating a historical church museum based on the collections united by the “Old Petersburg” Society and then forming the basis of the Museum of the Obsolescent Cult that existed in 1923–1927. The second project involved the organization department of a military of everyday life in the State Russian Museum based on the collections of the Quartermaster, Suvorov, and regimental museums. There were also plans to organize a unified museum of the time of Peter the Great, which was supposed to be in the Menshikov or Summer Palaces. These projects could only be developed in the 1920s, when museums assumed the possibility of experimentation, and were driven by attempts to protect collections. The First All-Russian Museum Congress in 1930 officially completed the development of museums of everyday life in the country. In 1934, the Department of History and Everyday life became part of the State Museum of the Revolution, in 1937, of the State Museum of Ethnography, and in 1941 became the basis for the creation of the Department of the History of Russian Culture in the State Hermitage.