LAPPONIAN (SAMI) COLLECTIONS IN 18th CENTURY KUNSTKAMERA OF THE IMPERIAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Abstract

The work is aimed to specify composition and significance of the collections on the traditional Sami culture in the first Russian state public museum - the Kunstkamera of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (1714-1836) in St. Petersburg. A European cabinet of curiosities was part of a scientific system for disseminating reliable knowledge about the phenomena of the surrounding world. The cultural artefacts of the peoples of the polar suburbs of Europe were collected by European scientists and collectors. Lapponian shoes from the Danish Royal Kunstkamera entered Tsar Peter’s I Kunstkamera and turned out to be the first example of the traditional culture of the peoples of the Arctic zone in this collection. Ethnographic objects and the very theme of the diversity of the peoples of the Russian Empire were included in the court culture of the Russian court in the first half of the 18th century. The "Prince of Lapland" took part in the 1709 cortege to honor of the victory at Poltava, probably personifying the obedience to the Russian crown not only of the Swedish army, but also of the people of the north of Sweden. "Laplanders", in costumes taken from the Kunstkamera of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, were involved in the celebrations at the court of Empress Anna Ioannovna on the occasion of the end of the Russian-Turkish war of 1735-1739. A list of traditional Sami culture items was published in the first printed catalog - Musei Imperialis Petropolitani (1741-1745), but their belonging to the Sami was disputed by contemporary researchers. Information about the rituals of the Sami, first of all, about the polar bear hunt and about the bear festival, were included in the first guide to the Kunstkamera of the late 18th - early 19th centuries. The name of the greatest natural scientist of the 19th century, academician Karl Ernst von Baer, is associated with the appearance at the Academy of Sciences in the 1840s materials on physical anthropology of the Sami and the first authentic Sami cultural objects. These facts prompted authors to violate the boundaries of the 18th century, indicated in the topic of the work. Despite the small size of the collection, the traditional Sami culture found important place in the exposition, in the catalogs and in the guidebook of the first state museum, which is structural part of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.