MUSEUM OF SAMPLES – THE MINIATURE REPRESENTATION OF EXPORTERS IN THE CAPITAL CITY OF RUSSIAN EMPIRE AT THE BEGINNING OF 20-th CENTURY

Abstract

Summary. Museums of samples, which were massive founded in the economic developed countries at the end of 19-th and the beginning of 20-th century, can be hold as a unique phenomenon, because these institutions sought not to save their exhibits, but to sell them. The largest and the first such museum in Russian Empire was museum of samples by the Russian Export Chamber. The purposes of the article are the analysis of the creating process, the main activities and the targets of museum of samples by the Russian Export Chamber (1913, Saint Petersburg) and the demonstration of the correlation between the content of exposition in the institution and the priorities in the export policy in the investigated period. The research methodology is based on the system of principles (scientism, objectivism and historicism) and the scientific methods. The use of general scientific (analytical, synthetic, systemic) and special-historical (historical-typological, historical-comparative, chronological) methods allowed to analyze the worldwide experience of export museum founding, to select the features of the museums of samples by the Russian Export Chamber. Scientific novelty. Museum of samples was analyzed from the point of view of the one of instrument of increase the export trade. Article shows that the most of museum exhibits was agricultural and handicraft wares. It was highlighted that this priority was conscious and reflected the prevailing opinion of society of that time about agrarian nature of the economy of Russian Empire. In the article was made the conclusion that such museums of samples was needed for development of export trade and partnership relation between producers and consumers and that wares from Ukrainian lands had insufficient representation in the expositions of this "miniature export bureau in capital city".