Museums on the theme of socialist life. The best museum of socialism in Eastern Europe

The Retro Museum of the Socialist Past, which is located in Varna, is truly a real pearl of the city and is still a relatively little-known place.
The museum is located on one of the floors of the Grand Mall Varna shopping center and at first, I confess, I was skeptical about the very bright information poster at the entrance. Tell me, what kind of museum can be created in the premises of an ordinary modern shopping and entertainment center? Bring an old Volga there, put up a bust of Lenin (or better yet Stalin) and Zhivkov, hang a couple of flags and communist badges on the wall. Voila, the museum of the “totalitarian” past is ready! My friends, how cruelly I was mistaken! This is an absolutely stunning, interesting, educational and non-politicized museum with many unique exhibits. The best of similar places in Eastern Europe, and maybe even in the world. The first role is played, of course, by cars, but in general there are a lot of interesting things there. Yes, Bulgarian themes prevail, the museum is in Varna, but the USSR also received a lot of attention.

The appearance of the main entrance, very solemn and pathetic, made me think about the seriousness of the museum. The cost of visiting is 10 levs (5 euros), which is a significant amount for Bulgaria. But since the museum is private, the owner (more about him below) does not receive any government support and created the museum with his own funds. So I think the price is completely fair and there are big discounts for children and pensioners.


What he sees immediately causes real delight. Several dozen cars, hundreds of household appliances, toys, posters, collections of household items produced by the People's Republic of Belarus, the USSR and other countries of the socialist bloc.


I stayed here for almost two hours and managed to examine the collection only superficially.


The real pride of the museum is the luxuriously restored passenger cars of the socialist era. Notice how the organizers approached the design process with soul and creative imagination, placing a children's toy model nearby.


Another advantage of the museum is the wax figures of socialist leaders created in the art studio of Madame Tussauds. It is a very expensive pleasure to order exhibits, each of which cost 20 thousand euros. The picture below shows Hungarian Secretary General Janos Kadar.


In the very corner of the hall, a corner was also allocated for Gorbachev. So that the wax statue of the last president of the USSR would not be bored, he was equipped with a red Lada.


Bottles of alcohol are located in a special display cabinet.

Particular attention is paid to the cult Bulgarian film actors of their time. This is, for example, Velko Kanev. This name probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but in Bulgaria he is one of the popular actors of the 70s and 80s. By the way, old songs are constantly played in the hall, which gives a very unusual and even cozy atmosphere. And in the summer, when excursion groups from the former USSR are brought here, museum workers adjust and include Soviet songs: Pugachev, Vysotsky, Magomayev. Tsvetan, that’s the owner’s name, says people are delighted.


He also says that visitors from Serbia are very upset when they do not see their idol Tito. They should wait a little, as it takes time to create each figure and optimize the exhibition space. The museum was opened just over a year ago and there are big plans ahead with serious work.


But Russian tourists ask for Putin and this is not a joke. Indeed, there is an intention to create a wax figure of the current president of the Russian Federation.


We move on and look at the impressively elegant and authentic Soviet four-wheeled vehicles.


This car, for example, has a mileage of less than 1 thousand kilometers.


Just like this red station wagon 2102, also almost brand new.


Each car has information support in the form of a screen on which general details are indicated. Very comfortably.


The owner has two hundred more cars in a special garage awaiting restoration. This is an expensive and troublesome task, and bringing a car to perfect museum condition can take years.


Mechanical watches and alarm clocks.

Bulgarian board games.


Actor Kiril Gospodinov (although I could be wrong). Greatly reminiscent of Andrei Mironov in the image of Ostap Bender. And as my Bulgarian friends suggest, he is here in the guise of a roguish businessman from times of shortage.

Toys... there are hundreds of them here.


And here is Nikita Sergeevich, to whom as many as three “Cossacks” are attached.


In my opinion, it turned out very well. Captured in his famous oratorical passage about “Kuzka’s mother.”


A short biography and main milestones of activity are displayed on the screen nearby. Here, for example, is a description of Khrushchev’s political career.


Iron Master Wojciech Jaruzelski.

Together with the Polish car Warszawa. Still, the unique work was carried out by restorers, auto mechanics, artists and simply enthusiasts.


Wax figure of Yuri Nikulin in the image of the hapless economist Semyon Semyonich.


One of the iconic representative “Seagulls”, previously assigned to the special fleet of the Bulgarian party elite. In the future - comrades Zhivkov and Brezhnev.


Joseph Vissarionovich... modestly and without a car.

Gustav Husak, the last president of socialist Czechoslovakia. There are a lot of wax figures in the museum, Lenin, Mao, Ceausescu are present, I chose only a few photos for the story.


An impressive “Czech” corner.


UAZ in the background of photographs with the Bulgarian military.


Again toys, books, computers... You can look at each exhibit separately for a long time.


A stunning collection of televisions and radios. It's incredible how you can gather so much technology in one place. But the history of the creation of the museum began not so long ago, in 2004, with a modest VAZ 2101 car.


I decided to take some black and white photos :)


An impressive collection of Bulgarian perfumes and personal hygiene items. There's even a condom from the 70s in this cabinet.

Experienced smokers, do you recognize any brand of cigarettes? I think I've heard about Opal.

And in my opinion, I even tried the legendary TU-134 in a soft pack when I was a mustacheless youth.


The collection of cigarettes is simply incomparable.


Even matches are available in souvenir packages. How thoughtful, informative and spectacular everything is here.

I'm very impressed. Great idea, unique exhibits, amazing details, room decoration. A politically neutral museum with a nostalgic and mega-rich collection that my story can in no way cover. We must go and look. I spent a little less than two hours in the museum, but even this time was not enough for a complete inspection.


In the office of the museum owner. I’m not surprised to see a portrait of Stalin here as a kind of creative touch, and it looks impressive and in keeping with the theme of the museum.


Now get acquainted. The owner and owner is Tsvetan Atanasov, you can absolutely calmly go into his office (which is what I did) and chat. He will tell, show and answer questions. A very open and pleasant person to communicate with, he really lives what he loves and has achieved excellent results. The museum has a page on Facebook (though in Bulgarian), so come in, mark it for yourself and visit if possible.

Muzeum komunismu) is the first museum in Prague that partially shows tourists the system developed under the Soviet Union, which has become more than forty years of history of the great state. The exhibition exhibits are presented in the form of unusual and interesting materials.

History of appearance

The Museum of Communism appeared in Prague back in 2001, a German entrepreneur named Glenn Spicker helped finance the opening of the museum, and Czech historians and museologists also worked at full capacity on the exhibition. The Museum of Communism is dedicated to the totalitarian regime that spread across Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1989. First of all, the museum is intended to demonstrate to the public the history of the overthrow of the Soviet regime.

What can you see

In order for museum visitors to fully immerse themselves in the times of the Soviet Union, the creators carefully worked on light, sound, and even tried to convey the smells that once enveloped Czechoslovakia. The Museum of Communism occupies three small halls. Despite such a small space, the exhibition conveys the atmosphere of communism and tells much more than historical books. The organizers note that the exhibition is aimed not only at visiting tourists, but also at young Czechs.

Museum workers have prepared teaching materials and questions especially for Czech schoolchildren, but young people should find answers to questions within the walls of the museum. Visitors will be especially interested in exhibits in the form of busts of rulers, the office of a communist investigator and a Gulag corner with a wheelbarrow, which was an attribute of socialism.

As already mentioned, the museum’s exhibitions are divided into three halls of different themes. At the entrance to the museum you will see a painting with Karl Marx depicted on it and a large bust of Lenin, then Vladimir Ilyich will again greet you with a Soviet flag in his hands. The first hall is completely dedicated to the bright dream of communism. There are also busts of rulers and a life-size, painted monument to Stalin. In this room you can see aerospace and manufacturing expositions, both of which fully personify the socialist era.

What most attracts the attention of guests in this block is the school classroom, which is littered with communist books and textbooks, and there are also various propaganda materials. The second hall of the museum describes the most brutal realities of the then regime.

There are many different exhibits here, you can see shop counters, the socialist realist sculpture “Worker and Peasant Woman”, an army corner, a border corner, a corner of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and even torture rooms. But the third hall is almost entirely dedicated to the Velvet Revolution, which occurred in 1989.

In addition to all of the above, in the museum you will notice a huge number of posters, Soviet motorcycles, porcelain dishes popular at that time, legal materials of the USSR, army boots and even a piece of a caterpillar track from a Soviet tank.

In addition to unique impressions, you can purchase souvenirs in the museum. Here you can buy original postcards on communist themes. Also, many will be interested in T-shirts with the image of the Olympic Bear, who was armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Many more buy unique candles in the shape of Lenin’s head, copies of Soviet medals and emblems.

Museum location

Every visiting tourist is obliged to visit the Museum of Communism in Prague, as there is really something to see there, in addition, you can plunge into the atmosphere of the Soviet era. Getting to the museum is quite easy. You can get to the museum by metro to the station Mustek. Or go to the end of Wenceslas Square, turn onto Příkop street, and at Na Prikope 10 you will also find the museum itself.

The Museum of Communism (Muzeum komunismu), located in Prague, is dedicated to the totalitarian regime that dominated Czechoslovakia from 1948-1989. The idea of ​​creating the museum belonged to Glenn Speaker, a businessman from the USA, but many Czech museologists and historians took part in the creation process. The creators of the museum specially worked to reproduce the light, sound and even smells inherent in the era of totalitarianism. The museum's exhibitions are divided […]

Located in Prague, it is dedicated to the totalitarian regime that dominated Czechoslovakia from 1948-1989. The idea of ​​creating a museum belongs to Glenn Speaker- a businessman from the USA, but many Czech museologists and historians took part in the creation process.

The creators of the museum specially worked to reproduce the light, sound and even smells inherent in the era of totalitarianism. The museum's exhibitions are divided into 3 thematic blocks. One of them - " dream of communism" - presented in the form of a school class with communist textbooks, the second - " nightmare" - creates a picture of the cruel realities of the regime, starting from empty store shelves and ending with torture rooms, the third block is dedicated to Velvet Revolution of 1989.

The museum itself is quite small; all its exhibitions are presented in only 4 halls. According to the creators, it is aimed not only at tourists who want to get acquainted with the life of socialist countries, but also at new generations of Czechs who need to know what their grandfathers and parents experienced. The organizers believe that the museum's exhibitions can help present a clearer picture of the events that took place in those years. Special teaching materials describing the museum's exhibitions have been prepared for Czech schoolchildren.

Na příkopě 852/10, 110 00 Praha-Nové Město (Palác Savarin) muzeumkomunismu.cz

Take metro A, B to stop Můstek‎

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Imuseum congress and museum work in the 1930s. Museums during the Great Patriotic War. Extended session of the Academic Council of the Research Institute of Local History and Museum Work (Moscow, 1948) and its significance for the development of issues of theory and methodology of museum affairs. Public museums as a factor in the development of museum affairs. Museum-reserves and their role in the preservation and popularization of cultural heritage. Improving the forms of work of museums with visitors. Creation of united museums. Museum architecture and museum design. Characteristics of the activities of museum research centers in Russia.

First All-Russian Museum Congress consolidated the emerging trends in museum affairs in the late 1920s. trends, which led to fundamental and significant changes in the role of museums in cultural and social life. From this moment we can talk about the onset of a new stage in museum history, which lasted until the end of the 1980s.

The congress took place on December 1-5, 1930 in Moscow. It was attended by 325 delegates, including major government figures (People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR A.S. Bubnov, Deputy People's Commissar of Education N.K. Krupskaya), museum workers (mainly museum directors), representatives of the public education system, and university teachers , employees of academic research institutes. 84% of the delegates began working in museums after the revolution, many had work experience of only 1-2 years, half of the congress participants were members of the All-Union Bolshevik Communist Party.

Delegates worked at plenary and sectional sessions, which were held in groups of museums (historical and everyday life, historical and revolutionary, natural science, anti-religious, for the protection of monuments of the revolutionary movement, art and antiquities, etc.). The focus of the congress participants was the problem of studying and documenting the new socialist way of life and the active participation of museums in political and educational work. The methodological problems of museum exhibition work and the attitude towards genuine museum objects were discussed. In the main report of the philosopher and literary critic, head of the science sector of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR, one of the organizers of the congress, I.K. Luppola "The method of dialectical materialism and museum construction" demand was put forward dividing the exhibition according to socio-economic formations.

Considerable attention was paid to the problem of personnel. Their numerical insufficiency and low qualifications could not ensure the planned large-scale growth of the museum network. In addition, the need to train young Marxist personnel and mass work with the population was realized. The main report on the problem of mass work with the population was made by the Deputy People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR and Chairman of the Main Political Education under the People's Commissariat of Education N.K. Krupskaya. One of the sections of the congress discussed the issues of studying the museum viewer, methods of excursion work, working with schoolchildren, etc.

The decisions taken were consistent with their time and the position formulated in the greeting to the congress by the People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR A.S. Bubnov, who called for an end to “material fetishism”, to abandon museums-kunstkammers, to put museums at the service of socialist construction and to turn them into an instrument of cultural revolution. It should be borne in mind that the decisions of the congress in the conditions of the 1930s. were mandatory for museums. Museums were ordered to immediately begin re-exposition and create departments for socialist construction, organize local history museums in each regional center, and strengthen mass ideological work in every possible way. Planning for museum construction has been carried out since the 1930s. within the framework of national economic 5-year plans.

In general, the consequences of the decisions of the museum congress for the country's museum affairs were negative. They artificially narrowed the field of museum activity within the framework of mass ideological work, primitivized the forms and methods of work, belittled the importance of genuine cultural monuments, and leveled out the differences, originality and individuality of museum institutions.

However, museum work was recognized as an integral part of socialist construction, and the general course was taken for its further development, which required solving a number of objective and long-standing problems. Thus, a departmental periodical was created - the magazine "Soviet Museum", the need for which was recognized by the participants of the Preliminary Congress of Museum Workers. For the purpose of training and retraining of personnel, year-long advanced training courses for museum workers, museum departments and departments in a number of universities, and an experimental demonstration museum of local history in the city of Istra were opened. In 1932, an industry research institution was created - the Central Research Institute of Methods of Local History Work of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR, reorganized in 1937 into the Research Institute of Local History and Museum Work. The new scientific institution was supposed to study and generalize the experience of museums and local history organizations, assist museums in organizing research and exhibition activities, and train personnel. Some urgent tasks were only formulated and defined in those years, but they were solved later: the study of museum visitors, the declaration of Novgorod and Pskov as nature reserves, the development of museum theory, etc.

Growth and reorganization of the museum network in the 1930s. continued Moreover, certain structural changes took place. Historical-revolutionary and memorial museums, designed to educate the masses in revolutionary traditions, occupied a significant place. In 1936, the Central Museum of V.I. opened. Lenin, and then over the course of several years its branches were created in Kazan, Kuibyshev, Leningrad, and Ufa. Later, a whole network of museums of V.I. Lenin, developing somewhat separately in the system of party institutions.

The network of literary museums expanded noticeably, of which there were already about 100 before the war. In 1937, on the centenary of the death of A.S. Pushkin, a grandiose exhibition opened in Moscow, which featured more than 5,000 exhibits from archives, museums, and libraries: autographs of the poet, lifetime publications, rare documents, works of outstanding Russian artists. The exhibition was held at the Historical Museum and had no precedent in terms of the wealth of material collected. In 1938, based on materials from the exhibition, a State Museum of A.S. Pushkin(later the All-Union Museum of A.S. Pushkin in Leningrad), which over time became one of the largest literary museums in the country. In the same years, the V.V. Museum opened. Mayakovsky in Moscow (1938); Museum-Estate of V.G. Belinsky in the Penza region (1938); Museum M.Yu. Lermontov (future museum-reserve "Tarkhany") also in the Penza region (1939); House-Museum of D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak in Yekaterinburg (1940), etc.

The number of museums in national regions, technical, economic and natural science museums promoting the achievements of socialist construction grew. In 1931, the Historical and Ethnographic Museum of Kalmyks was founded in Elista. In the same year, the world's northernmost Polar-Alpine Botanical Garden of the Kola Branch of the Academy of Sciences was founded. A fundamentally new exhibition, built on landscape principles, was opened in 1930 at the Moscow Regional Museum of Local Lore in Istra. In Moscow in 1939, the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition began to operate.

Local history museums arose in the most remote regions and regions of the country, including in cities where museums had never existed. They were aimed at a comprehensive study of territories, primarily in the interests of the national economy, at assisting scientific institutions in studying the country's resources, and at patriotic education of youth. Objectively, they continued to play a positive role in the development of culture, education and social activity of the population, especially in remote areas. In the mid-1930s. was developed typical structure of a local history museum, consisting of three exhibition departments - nature, history and socialist construction.

Simultaneously the number of historical-household and historical-art museums of ensemble type was reduced, located in former palaces or estates of landowners and possessing large collections of household items, books, and works of applied art. Thus, during the company to curtail the “noble museums,” the “Museum of Noble Life” in Ostafyevo was liquidated in 1930. Artistic and literary treasures, lovingly preserved for more than a hundred years by the Vyazemskys and Sheremetevs who owned the estate and amounting to hundreds of thousands of storage units, were distributed among various museums and institutions, partially sold or lost. After the liquidation of the Society of Former Political Prisoners and Exiled Settlers in 1935, numerous museums “Katorga and exile”, which operated in the 1920s and 30s, ceased to exist. in Moscow, Leningrad, Orel, Irkutsk and other cities. Their collections were transferred to museums of the revolution, but they were no longer exhibited in exhibitions, since they mainly talked about the populist stage of the liberation movement and the participation of representatives of petty-bourgeois parties in the fight against tsarism. The vast majority of public museums created in the 1920s lost their status by the early 1940s.

The changes that occurred in the museum business of the 1930s are clearly demonstrated by the history of a group of anti-religious museums. In 1931, the “Museum of the History of Religion of the USSR Academy of Sciences” arose. Although the emphasis was on identifying the negative role of religious cults in the life of society, nevertheless, through museum means, the origins of various forms of religion were shown, and the history of world religions was revealed. In 1938, the “Anti-religious Museum” was created with an exhibition in the spirit of “militant atheism”. The logical conclusion was the merger of these two museums into an institution called the “Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism” (in Leningrad).

By January 1, 1941, the museum network of the RSFSR included 626 museums: 80 in Moscow, 60 in Leningrad, 486 locally. Of these, 439 were subordinate to the People's Commissariat for Education, 56 to the All-Union Committee for Arts, 18 to the USSR Academy of Sciences and 113 to other departments (83).

Particular attention in the 1930s. was paid to political and educational work with visitors, in which non-museum forms began to predominate - lectures, traveling exhibitions. A significant increase in attendance was achieved, as a rule, through the organized attraction of visitors to exhibitions and mass work with schools. The leading method of exhibition work for many decades was the thematic exhibition, and the main criterion for assessing exhibition activities was its political content. Museums were required to reflect the achievements of socialist construction and the advantages of the socialist way of life. But they did not have full-fledged collections on Soviet history, so museum objects were crowded out of exhibitions with texts, diagrams, and slogans.

In the 1930s The structure of scientific institutions in the country has changed. Research institutes are becoming the main centers of scientific research. Some of the famous, including academic, institutes were created at this time on the basis of museums. So, on the basis of the Zoological Museum of the Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg), the Zoological Institute was created in 1930, which includes the museum as a separate division. The Botanical Museum (St. Petersburg) became a structural division of the Botanical Institute. V. L. Komarova. Moreover, both the museum and the institute are “descendants” of the Kunstkamera and the collection funds of the Apothecary Garden of the Imperial Botanical Garden. In 1930, the Paleozoological Institute was created, which was also based on the collections of the Kunstkamera. In 1937, the Paleontological Museum opened in Moscow, on the basis of which the Paleontological Institute was created. Yu.A. Orlov, and the museum remained his division. Created in 1925 in Leningrad on the basis of the private collection of N.P. Likhachev Museum of Paleography in 1930 was transformed into the Museum of Books, and in 1931 - into the Institute of Books, Documents and Writing. Unfortunately, the level of scientific research in the museums themselves by the end of the 1930s. decreased noticeably, and scientific research in regional museums practically ceased. The reorientation to propaganda activities and the loss of a significant part of highly qualified personnel had an impact.

At the end of the 1920s. begins the "offensive of the proletarian dictatorship against its class enemies on the cultural front." In 1927 she was relieved of her post and in 1928 she was exiled to Alma-Ata N.I. Trotskaya, for about 10 years, from the summer of 1918, headed the museum department of the People's Commissariat for Education and led the creation of the country's museum network. She suffered as the wife of a prominent state and party leader L.D. Trotsky. Major museum specialists left museums, many were undeservedly accused of counter-revolutionary activities and repressed (N.P. Antsiferov, P.D. Baranovsky, M.I. Smirnov, F.I. Shmit, A.M. Efros, etc.). There are known cases of mass layoffs of employees of central institutions: the State Historical Museum, the Academy of Material Culture in Leningrad, the Ethnographic Department of the Russian Museum, the Hermitage. Among those repressed were the organizers and leading speakers of the First Museum Congress: editor of the “Soviet Museum” I.K. Luppol, director of the exemplary Istra Museum N.A. Shneerson and others. Personnel purges also affected provincial museums. The full picture of personnel losses has yet to be clarified, but it is already known that many died.

And yet, the skills of museum work passed down from generation to generation and certain traditions that have developed in this area of ​​cultural activity have been preserved. Without this important baggage, it would have been impossible to preserve museum values ​​during the war years and develop museum work in the post-war period. An example of such continuity is the fate of many museum workers and collectors. Thus, the largest collector F.E. Vishnevsky began collecting under the guidance of his father, artist and collector E.F. Vishnevsky. F.E. Vishnevsky participated in the creation of the First Proletarian Museum in Moscow, and in the 1920s he worked in museum management bodies and in the museums themselves. In the late 1920s and 1930s. was repeatedly repressed, but continued to collect, became the owner of the largest art collection, and actively collaborated with museums. F.E. Over the years, Vishnevsky donated about 1.5 thousand artistic objects to museums in Moscow, Irkutsk, Yakutsk and other cities. His experience, knowledge, and collecting skills would be in demand in the late 1950s when organizing the literary museum of A.S. Pushkin in Moscow and other museums. Famous restoration architect and museum figure P.D. Baranovsky, who was repressed in the 1930s, returned from exile and during the war years became an expert of the Extraordinary State Commission to account for the damage caused by the fascist invaders, and after the war he restored the destroyed monuments of Chernigov, Smolensk, the New Jerusalem Monastery, and carried out scientific restoration work the largest architectural monuments of Moscow. He lived a long life and was a teacher for 4 generations of restoration architects. After several arrests, imprisonments and exile, he returned to museum work in the late 1930s. N.P. Antsiferov.

The activities of museums during the Great Patriotic War are a tragic and bright page in the history of museums. affairs. The state and local authorities have made significant efforts to preserve cultural property, especially the collections of central art museums. But all these measures would not have been implemented without the professional and truly heroic work of the country’s museum workers. It was they who guarded caches with museum collections in the occupied territory, transported museum valuables to the rear, saved storage facilities from incendiary shells, and preserved museum and private collections in besieged Leningrad. Memoirs of direct participants in the events, incl. S.I. Shchegolev, employee of the house-museum L.N. Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana, research and memoirs of A.B. Zaks, who worked during the war at the State Historical Museum, B.B. Piotrovsky, who worked in the Hermitage during this terrible period, studies by historians and journalists, written on the basis of archival materials and other documentary evidence (L.N. Godunova, M.I. Likhomanova, E.V. Konchina, S.N. Razgonova, etc. .).

Evacuation measures required from museum staff not only energy and dedication, but also professional skills, which were already possessed by a few specialists, mostly with pre-revolutionary experience. Professor M.V. Farmakovsky, the chief curator of the Russian Museum, compiled instructions for packaging, carrying and transporting museum valuables, taking into account his almost 50 years of experience working with museum collections. They tried to reproduce this instruction and bring it to the attention of all museum workers, but did not have time. Before the war, in 1932-36, evacuation planes were prepared for the museums of Leningrad and the region and the Primorsky Territory, that is, for territories where an enemy invasion was most likely. In the suburban palaces of Leningrad, evacuation lists were compiled, taking into account the sequence of evacuation (1st, 2nd, 3rd stages). But the scale, character, and historical course of the outbreak of the war were difficult to foresee. As soon as hostilities began, all plans instantly became outdated, and the governing bodies of cultural institutions showed some confusion in the first days. Museum workers began to act without waiting for instructions.

The packing of museum valuables in the suburban palaces of Leningrad began on the night of June 22-23 and continued until the capture of Pavlovsk, Gatchina, Peterhof and Pushkin in September 1941. The collections were evacuated to Gorky, and then to Novosibirsk and Sarapul. The remaining valuables were preserved if possible and hidden locally. Inventories and passports were compiled for all evacuated and hidden museum valuables, and attempts were made to remove scientific archives along with the collections.

The Hermitage, which at one time survived the evacuation of 1812 and then the First World War, turned out to be better prepared than other museums. The museum staff knew exactly what needed to be removed and in what order. As a result, already on June 30, the first train was sent to Sverdlovsk, carrying away the entire Hermitage exhibition and the treasures of the Special Storeroom. On July 20, a second echelon was sent, carrying more than 70 thousand museum objects. It was no longer possible to take the prepared third train out of the city. Work began on the conservation of buildings and the preservation of valuables remaining in the city (objects from suburban palace-museums, art collections of private individuals).

The most valuable part of the collections of the Russian Museum was taken to Perm. The memoirs of P.K. were published. Baltun, director of the Russian Museum, who supervised the evacuation of the museum’s collections from Leningrad and organized their storage in the rear. The valuables of other museums were sent to Novosibirsk, Ulyanovsk, Irkutsk. Moscow museums did not have evacuation plans before the war; they were developed during the hostilities. The situation was complicated by the fact that in many museums, reconciliation of funds with accounting documentation has not been carried out since the time of their foundation. In July 1941, the so-called "State Storage No. 1", which included the values ​​of the largest Moscow museums (later transported to Kustanai, where it was located until the fall of 1944). "State Storage No. 2" was created in the center. Nikola on Bersenevskaya embankment. The collections of the Biological Museum, the Museum of the Peoples of the USSR, the Museum of the Revolution, and the State Historical Museum were received here. Part of the collections of the Historical Museum was sent to Omsk, the collections of the Literary Museum - to Perm. Perm also received the treasures of the Tretyakov Gallery. With great difficulty and at the risk of life, the collections of regional museums near the front line - Smolensk, Novgorod, Pskov, Voronezh, Orel, Kursk, Sevastopol - were evacuated. In total, 66 museums of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR were removed from 41 points and placed in 9 specialized storage facilities created in the rear. The main and most valuable part of the collections, especially art museums, were saved. In addition to the above cities, evacuated museum values ​​were also received by Alma-Ata, Armavir, Ashgabat, Dzhambul, Yerevan, Kirov, Kurgan, Penza, Solvychegodsk, Sovetsk Vologda region, Tashkent, Uralsk, Fergana.

Where evacuation was impossible (Belarus, western regions of Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltic states), the losses were enormous. Memorial, local history, and historical museums found themselves in a more difficult situation during the evacuation, since they had large-sized material monuments that required special efforts during packaging and transportation. And the authorities treated these categories of museums less carefully than they treated art institutions.

About 100 museums in the rear areas, including 29 regional ones, were mothballed. In a number of cases, museum buildings were transferred to other institutions.

According to data as of May 1, 1942, out of 342 museums that were part of the system of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR, 121 museums continued to operate. They launched active exhibition activities, held lectures and conversations. The authorities made efforts to develop local history in the country and museums were ordered to lead this work. It was about exploring local natural resources, collecting medicinal plants, identifying edible plants, and studying the history of their region. In the ongoing research work of museums since the summer of 1941, a significant place has been occupied by the study of the events of the Great Patriotic War and the compilation of materials on the history of the war.

They tried to restore museums in the liberated territory as quickly as possible. The central museums have created a fund to help affected institutions. The restoration of art and memorial museums was more successful. Museum-estate J1.H. Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana opened in May 1942, the Kursk Regional Museum of Local Lore in March 1943, the Museum of I.S. Turgenev in Orel in February 1944. In the November days of 1944, an exhibition of art and cultural monuments that remained in Leningrad during the siege opened in the Hermitage. In October 1945, the evacuated treasures of the Hermitage returned to Leningrad. In November 1945, the restored halls of the Hermitage were opened to the public. With the broad participation of city residents and on the basis of the 1944 exhibition “The Heroic Defense of Leningrad,” the Museum of the Defense of Leningrad was opened (1946). Its exhibition, distinguished by its imagery and abundance of authentic historical monuments, was extremely popular and served as a model for military history museums in Sevastopol, Odessa, and Stalingrad.

Since the spring of 1942, as the country's territory was liberated from the occupiers, front-line museums and central museums became involved in the work of recording the damage caused to Soviet culture, initiated by the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences. There is no comprehensive data on the extent of damage (work to clarify the data continued in the 1990s). It is known that 427 museums that found themselves in the occupied territory of the USSR were looted, and over 100,000 valuable monuments were taken outside the country. About 3 thousand architectural monuments were destroyed or completely destroyed. From the system of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR, there were 122 museums in the occupied territory. Of these, 35 were completely destroyed, the rest were looted and partially destroyed (84). The enemy purposefully destroyed cultural and historical monuments during ground operations and air raids. Hitler's leadership created the "Main Headquarters for the confiscation and removal of valuables from the occupied areas of the East."

The damage caused by the war, in the conditions of economic difficulties of the post-war period, was difficult to repair. During the war years there was a reduction in museum staff, and working employees received extremely low wages. Under these conditions, the catastrophic state of the storage facilities and the lack of established accounting led to the loss of valuable relic materials. It was not only that the war aggravated all the difficulties of museums. Affected by the established in the 1930s. underestimation of the research and storage functions of the museum and a bias towards cultural and educational work.

Continued political campaigns and repressions had negative consequences for museum work. The ideological position of a number of large museums was recognized as incorrect, and therefore the State Museum of the Peoples of the USSR and the Museum of New Western Art (in Moscow) were closed in 1948, and the Museum of the Defense of Leningrad and the State Museum of Agriculture (in Leningrad) were liquidated in 1952.

The general requirements for the work of museums from government agencies, formulated in the 1930s, remained virtually unchanged in the post-war years. The state has not abandoned strict regulation of the activities of museums, which restrains their initiative and creativity. In 1945, museums were transferred from the jurisdiction of educational bodies to the Committee for Cultural and Educational Institutions of the Council of People's Commissars (from March 1946 - the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR). This is how the transfer of museums into the system of cultural and educational institutions finally took shape. Art museums fell under the competence of the Committee for Arts under the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR. In 1953, the Ministries of Culture were created. But they were not armed with scientifically based programs for museum management; in addition, management personnel at all levels had an extremely low cultural level. This system of museum management, which developed by the end of the 1950s, was in general effect until the 1980s. (85).

Two resolutions of the CPSU Central Committee, dated May 12, 1964, “On enhancing the role of museums in the communist education of the working people,” and August 1982, “On improving the ideological and educational work of museums,” clearly and definitely included museums in the system of ideological institutions.

The main tasks facing museums in the post-war period were the preservation, re-conservation, and restoration of historical monuments and their storage facilities. The need for restoration and restoration work on an unprecedented scale attracted public attention to the fate of monuments, gave birth to new technologies and, over time, brought the domestic restoration business to a leading position in the world. In addition, the war and the bitterness of the losses incurred aroused interest in the historical past and cultural heritage of the country, the desire to preserve what was left, and not to increase the losses any more.

In 1946, the “Approximate thematic structure for constructing exhibitions of local history museums” appeared, in the spirit of the “Short Course of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)”. This document, on the one hand, can be considered as an example of the specified strict regulation of the activities of museums, which fettered the initiative of museum workers. On the other hand, it has become a great help for unskilled personnel in creating new exhibitions. Major historians took part in the development of standard structures of local history museums, which ensured that these documents corresponded to the level of historical knowledge of that period. In 1947, the Museum Administration developed “Instructions for the accounting of museum funds,” which were in force until 1968, and “Regulations on the composition of the main fund.” Inventory books of a uniform type were introduced.

The state’s desire to use primarily the ideological potential of museum institutions throughout the entire Soviet period was opposed by the strong position of museum specialists who defended the scientific status of the museum. In November 1948, an extended session of the Academic Council of the Research Institute of Local History and Museum Work was held, dedicated to the results and prospects of the activities of this museum center. About 300 workers from local and central museums of the Russian Federation, as well as Belarus, Georgia, Latvia, and Ukraine took part in the session. In terms of scale, representativeness, and importance of the adopted documents, the meeting is considered one of the largest museum forums.

Of utmost importance was the adoption of the “Regulations on the regional, regional, republican local history museum” and “Basic provisions on the construction of the exhibition of regional, regional, republican and large regional local history museums”, which determined the work of museum institutions for many years. The goal of unifying museum exhibitions was once again confirmed. An undoubted step forward was the recognition of the local history museum as a state research, cultural and educational institution. Its structure now included: a collections department, a library, a scientific archive, and auxiliary offices. Museums could create independent literary or artistic exhibitions. The session also discussed the need for scientific planning of the museum network; the predominance of general historical material over regional material in the exhibitions of local history museums was criticized, etc.

A short period of the second half of the 1950s - early 1960s. received the name “thaw” in the history of Russian culture. Strict control over public life and cultural processes has softened somewhat. As it has now become known, the country's political leadership, allowing a certain freedom in the development of cultural processes, wanted to stimulate creative forces, but only within those limits that contributed to the strengthening of socialism. And this small amount was enough for a noticeable revival of cultural life, including museums, and attention to the problem of protecting natural and cultural heritage increased significantly. During these years, the rapid growth of public museums began, the first museum-reserves were created, and a network of art museums was actively formed. In 1961, after a break that lasted several decades, the territory and museums of the Kremlin were opened to public visits. In 1962, the Museum of K. Marx and F. Engels was opened, whose role and significance in history was belittled during the years of the personality cult of I. Stalin. The new museum introduced visitors to authentic documents of the history of the international labor movement. An undoubted sign of the “thaw” must be recognized as the return to museum exhibitions of information about rehabilitated political figures and cultural figures, and to museums - the few survivors of repressed museum workers in camps and exile (N.P. Antsiferov and others).

Another important sign of the times was the revival of international cooperation. In 1957, Soviet museum organizations joined the International Council of Museums (ICOM), which is an international non-governmental professional organization uniting museums and museum workers. The National Committee of ICOM became the first professional association of museum workers, led by the first president of the committee - director of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkina A.I. Zamoshkin. ICOM at that time was for Soviet museums a window to the world, allowing them to tell the world about themselves, establish direct contacts with foreign museums, and get acquainted with new trends in world museum practice.

In 1957, the country celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Held this year the first All-Russian review of museum work, willingly or unwillingly summed up the post-war decade. Subsequently, the shows became traditional. They had a generally positive meaning, because attracted public attention to museums, stimulated museum teams to actively work, identified the best experience in museum work, etc.

Even during the period of preparation for the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, the local history movement in the country noticeably revived. One of the features of the new stage of the mass historical and local history movement was the formation of a whole network of museums on a voluntary basis. These institutions were created on the initiative of the public, operated on a voluntary basis and were financed by their founders. Public museums performed the same functions as state and departmental museums and were an important component of the museum network of the Russian Federation, as well as a source of replenishment of the state Museum Fund.

By 1941, only 10 museums retained public status. But in the second half of the 1950s. In those areas and areas where there was a particularly acute shortage of museums, public museums began to appear at cultural bodies, schools, and enterprises. Researchers call the first in this series public museums created in a number of cities in the Perm region.

The most widespread museums are museums of military and labor glory, the history of the Komsomol, the history of enterprises, memorial and school museums. Accurate statistics of public museums have never existed, but the active support of the historical and local history movement from party and government bodies and public organizations led to their significant growth in the 1960s. According to the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR, in Russia in 1966 there were 300 public museums, in 1972 - 601, in 1977 - 1074, together with school ones - 4174. As of 01/01/1990, there is information about 4373 public museums (86).

The growth of public museums indicated a growing popular interest in the country in its natural and cultural heritage. Public museums, inferior to state ones in terms of the level of professionalism of museum work, were the living creativity of the masses, a protest against formalism, templates, and rigid ideological guidelines that dominated the state museum network. Their role in local cultural and social life is manifested in attracting the population to direct participation in the creation of museums, in studying the history of their village, city, enterprise, and in the preservation of cultural monuments.

The largest and most active group of public museums were school museums. Some of them were known far beyond the borders of their school or even their city. For example, the Russian Woman Museum (school No. 751, Moscow); Museum of Panfilov Heroes (school No. 842, Moscow), etc.

Gradually, a tendency has developed to transform the best public museums into departmental ones, which are structural divisions of any organizations (universities, enterprises), or state ones, for example, branches of regional museums. Another typical example of the evolution of a public museum is given in the monograph by O.N. Truevtseva. We are talking about the Kolyvan Museum of History and Local Lore in the Novosibirsk Region. The material collected by enthusiastic local historians on the history of his native village made it possible to open a museum on a voluntary basis for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. The purposeful, painstaking work of activists, support from local authorities, the provision of an ancient building of a former parochial school to the museum, and the allocation of funds from industrial enterprises for the design of exhibitions allowed the museum to receive the title of national museum in 1976. In L982 it was transferred to the state museum network and became one of the best branches of the Novosibirsk Regional Museum of Local Lore (87). Ingush Republican Museum of Local Lore named after. T.H. Malsagov in Nazran was founded in 1974 by T.Kh. Malsagov on a voluntary basis and on the basis of his personal collection of materials about the participation of the Ingush people in the Great Patriotic War.

In 1978, the USSR MK, and in 1979, the RSFSR MK, approved the “Standard Regulations on a Museum Working on a Voluntary Basis” and introduced the honorary title “People's Museum”.

Museum life and museum activities in the 1960s - early 1980s. is defined in specialized literature and journalism as a kind of “museum boom” or “museum explosion”, expressed in a sharp increase in attendance at museums around the world. A noticeable, visible manifestation of this phenomenon in domestic practice was the numerous queues at the most famous museums in Moscow and Leningrad, at the famous exhibitions at the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin, to Leningrad museums popular with schoolchildren and tourists - the Hermitage, St. Isaac's Cathedral, and the Kunstkamera. Director of the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve A.I. Aksenova gives the following figures: in 1966, the reserve received 180 thousand visitors; in 1967 - 366 thousand, in 1968 - 640 thousand, and in 1969 - over 700 thousand people. Peak attendance would be reached in 1986 with approximately 1.8 million visitors. The number of foreign tourists will exceed 120 thousand (88). In 1986, the maximum attendance was recorded in many museums in the country.

One of the reasons and at the same time a consequence of the “museum boom” was the rapid development of tourism in the country. The tourist route through the ancient Russian cities of central Russia, called the “Golden Ring,” has gained enormous popularity. But even the most remote corners of the North of Russia or Siberia turned out to be attractive and visited by tourists. Museums are included in popular tourist routes. Specialized tourist centers are being created in Suzdal, Zagorsk, and Novgorod.

The museum found itself in the center of public attention. Discussions about museums, museum activities, and the problems of protecting cultural heritage monuments were actively conducted not only in the specialized press, but also in the general press, on the pages of the Literaturnaya Gazeta, the newspaper Sovetskaya Kultura, in the magazine Decorative Arts of the USSR, as well as in the local print.

The increased interest in museums in society has determined increased attention to museum activities on the part of the state. In 1976, the USSR Law “On the Protection and Use of Historical and Cultural Monuments” was adopted. It became the first comprehensive all-Union legislative act regulating public relations in the field of protection of historical and cultural heritage. And although the law was imperfect, and the regulatory framework of this period was generally characterized by declarativeness and departmental disunity, there was a tendency to improve the legislative framework and the activities of government bodies in the field of cultural heritage preservation. During these same 1960-80s, a significant arsenal of methods, means and forms of protecting various components of historical and cultural heritage was accumulated.

Already in the 1960s. In the matter of protecting cultural monuments, quite effective interaction between government bodies and public organizations has emerged, including with the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, created in 1966. VOOPIK was headed by Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR V.I. Kochemasov, and regional branches - respectively, deputy chairmen of regional executive committees. The society included both individual and collective members - factories and other enterprises that paid large contributions. This structure immediately gave society a high status and ensured compliance with state interests in preserving, first of all, that part of the historical and cultural heritage that did not contradict state ideology. The vicious practice of destroying churches, excluding them from the lists of protected objects, and using them as warehouses, industrial facilities, and entertainment venues continued. But this negative trend was actively opposed by the developments that unfolded in the 1960s and 70s. a creative and patriotic movement of youth and intelligentsia to save historical and cultural monuments.

According to UNESCO, more than 80% of the world's museums are located in premises that originally served other purposes (castles, palaces, churches, monasteries, private houses). The same picture was observed in Russia. It should also be added that a significant part of the museum buildings were in disrepair, since they had not been seriously repaired or sometimes reconstructed since the foundation of the museums in the 19th century. It was in the 1960-70s. Most of the special museum buildings were built, mainly for military-historical, historical-revolutionary, art museums, including: the building of the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow (1965), the monument-ensemble "To the Heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad" on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd (1967), the Lenin Memorial in Ulyanovsk (1973), the building of the Museum of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk Council of Workers' Deputies (1980), etc. In conditions of general interest in museums, the state turned out to be ready to invest money in museums, considering them a powerful lever of ideological influence. The construction of new museum buildings contributed to a further increase in the popularity of museum institutions.

In connection with the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution, the Central Museum of the USSR Revolution in 1968 was given the status of a research institution. In the 1970s, a number of other central museums (State Historical Museum, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Russian Museum, Hermitage) received this status. This act significantly increased the status of museums in society, allowed them to attract highly qualified specialists to museum work and legitimized scientific work as an obligatory component of the activities of museum employees.

For the “museum world” itself and museum work as a specific form of cultural activity, the 1960s - 1980s. became a time of important changes, a certain stage of professional improvement.

The change in society's attitude to the issues of protection and use of historical and cultural monuments, already noted above, led to the emergence of a new group of museum institutions - museum-reserves. Their specificity lies in the fact that they, as a rule, were created on the basis of immovable monuments, museumized at their location with the preservation or restoration of the historical, cultural and natural environment. Due to their special historical and cultural value, these museums immediately received a high status, which made it possible to preserve the most valuable monuments and historical and cultural complexes.

The first such attempts were made back in the 1920s, then the issue of declaring Novgorod and Pskov nature reserves was discussed at the First Museum Congress. In the early 1950s. Director of the Borodino Military History Museum SI. Kozhukhov proposed creating a reserve on the basis of his museum, but this project did not materialize then. Only towards the end of the 1950s, when the restoration of a number of major architectural monuments, which began immediately after the end of the war, was completed, was the need to create a qualitatively new institution capable of adequately preserving and popularizing unique cultural monuments realized. In September 1958, by Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, the first historical, architectural and art museum-reserves were created: Vladimir-Suzdal, Rostov-Yaroslavl, Novgorod, Pskov, Zagorsky, Kostroma and Gorky. The historical cities in which the reserves arose aroused the greatest interest of the population, were partly already prepared for the display of historical and architectural monuments, had qualified museum workers and tour guides, and were preparing to celebrate major anniversaries (Novgorod celebrated its 1000th anniversary, and Vladimir - its 850th anniversary ).

In the course of creating museum-reserves, it was necessary to solve a number of complex scientific, art history, cultural, as well as legal, economic, urban planning and social problems, including preventing the confrontation of the tasks of building a socialist city with the task of preserving historical and cultural monuments.

By 1964, 13 museum-reserves had been created in the Russian Federation. In the 1970-80s, nature reserves arose on the basis of monasteries (Solovetsky, Valaam), memorial ensembles (Yasnaya Polyana, Polenovo), palace and park ensembles in the suburbs of Leningrad. Nature reserves, unlike other museums, could comprehensively plan their activities, create a wider range of exhibitions, make wider use of collections, etc. By the beginning of the 1990s, there were already about 80 museum-reserves in the USSR, which became the most dynamically developing group of museum institutions.

The growth and increase in diversity of the museum network continued mainly due to the creation of branches of existing museums and the emergence of new ones, including in new cities. But the main task of the museum community and the main factor in the growing interest in museums was the creation of new original exhibitions and entire museums.

State museums under the Ministry of Culture continued to occupy the leading position in the museum network. The networks of various departments, for example, the USSR Academy of Sciences, also expanded. Historical and local history museums predominated, most of which had permanent exhibitions on the history of Soviet society. The living and full-blooded history of Soviet society had to take its place in the museum. Museums dedicated to the heroism of the people during the Great Patriotic War, museums of the history of cities and major construction projects, and sections of the history of the 1920s-40s were opened. were replenished with complexes of materials about the fate of the people who built socialism.

The number of literary museums has increased significantly, incl. national and regional museums of the history of literature: Museum of Orlov Writers (1957), Literary Museum (1971, Stavropol), United Museum of Ural Writers (1980, Sverdlovsk), Far Eastern Literary Museum (1981, Khabarovsk), Literary Museum. F.M. Dostoevsky (1983, Omsk), etc. In the 1970s. A whole network of Pushkin museums arose in Moscow, Leningrad, and the Moscow region. An event and a fundamental success was the creation of the “Pushkin Ring” in the Kalinin region. The Pushkin museums in Bernovo and Torzhok immortalized authentic memorial sites associated with the life of the poet, became real centers of culture in the “region of unpromising agriculture,” and contributed to the development of tourism in the region. Many museums hosted annual Pushkin holidays and poetry days. Such mass celebrations have been held in the country's literary museums since the late 1960s. has become a good tradition, significantly expanding the audience of museums.

The active formation of a network of art museums, which gained particular popularity at this stage, occurred through the separation of art departments of local history museums, replenished from the funds of the central art museums of Moscow and Leningrad, as well as on the basis of public museums, private collections, museum-affiliated architectural monuments, etc. Today, all regions of the country have their own art museums.

In the natural science exhibitions of local history museums in the 1970s. The transition from systematic exhibitions to landscape ones was completed. Museum-reserves, as well as museums with living exhibits: aquarium museums, terrariums, arboretums, began to play a major role in this dynamically developing group.

Vivid changes in Russian museum practice corresponded to the global trend of growing interest in museums and awareness of their inexhaustible cultural potential.

One of the forms of organization of the museum network that significantly expanded during this period and an attempt to improve the management of museum affairs was creation of centralized museum systems. The main advantage of associations was seen in the possibility of a more rational and widespread use of museum collections, raising the level of peripheral city and regional museums, and solving the problem of thematic profiling of individual museums.

Deputy Minister of Culture of the RSFSR Vasily Mikhailovich Striganov is called the “father of centralization of museums.” The first association was created in 1974 in the Vladimir region - the State United Vladimir-Suzdal Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, the director of which was Alisa Ivanovna Aksenova. Close to Moscow, the museum, already a nature reserve, had a serious material and technical base and received targeted funding for the restoration of monuments in connection with its transformation into an international tourist center. But even for such a museum it turned out to be not at all easy to overhaul the buildings of numerous branches, carry out an inspection of funds, solve personnel problems, and most importantly, rebuild almost all the exhibitions of the branches and museumify a number of architectural monuments. And yet success was evident. Over the 14 years of the association’s work, interesting museums with original, vibrant exhibitions have been created throughout the region: the Crystal Museum in Gus-Khrustaleny, the N.E. Zhukovsky in the village of Orekhovo, Museum of V.A. Degtyarev in Kovrov, museums and exhibitions in Yuryev-Polsky, Gorokhovets, Mstera. Attendance at branches increased 3 times, and their income increased more than 10 times (89).

The experience of Vladimir residents began to be actively implemented. By 1990, 29 associations were already operating. The main place in the association was occupied by the head museum, and previously independent museums received the status of branches. In general, the associations played a positive role and continue to exist, mainly territorial (Tverskoye), but there are also thematic ones (Penza). True, as life has shown, much could be achieved without a radical disruption of existing structures. Over time, there was a tendency to transform a rigid “union” into a system where museums developed as equal subjects, and only part of the functions were regulated centrally.

The intensive process of creating new exhibitions and new museums has led to qualitative changes in museum design. Exhibition design has become an independent and prestigious type of artistic creativity, the co-creation of museum workers and museum artists. The theoretical justification for a museum exhibition as a work of art was given in a number of articles and a monograph by E.A. Rosenblum "The Artist in Design", published in 1974. E.A. Rosenblum led the Central Experimental Studio of the Union of Artists of the USSR (Senezh Studio), whose activities largely determined the language of modern museum exhibitions. He created his two largest projects on the borders of the period under analysis: 1961 - Museum of A.S. Pushkin in Moscow and 1985 - Museum-Apartment of A.S. Pushkin on Arbat. Both projects became landmarks in the history of domestic exhibition practice.

The names of St. Petersburg designers Ya.N. are becoming widely known in the professional community. Gracheva and K.A. Rostovsky, author of the exhibitions of the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve 1978-86. and student E.A. Rosenblum L.V. Ozernikova, as well as A.A. Tavrizova, E.A. Amaspyura (author of a stationary exhibition in 1989 at the V. Mayakovsky Museum in Moscow), M.A. Konika et al.

The construction of new museum buildings, bright exhibition solutions, original exhibition projects, large-scale restoration and museumification of architectural monuments - museums have changed and become attractive. The museum becomes not only a means of educational influence, but also a place of recreation, free time, and a popular object of actively developing domestic and foreign tourism.

IN In 1985, 160 million people visited USSR museums. Such a scale of cultural and educational activities required reflection and special work. Since the early 1980s. in Russian museology The term “museum pedagogy” appears. Museum experts are developing programs to increase the “museum culture” of the visitor, that is, the ability to perceive a specific museum language, subject information, realize the value of the original, etc.

Psychologists and sociologists are invited to museums to study museum audiences. The first visitor studies were carried out in Russian museums back in the 1920s. (analysis of socio-demographic composition, characteristics of perception, etc.). They were interrupted in the 1930s and resumed in the 1960s. The largest scale was carried out by a group of employees of the Research Institute of Culture in 1973-1980. on the basis of local history museums and museum-reserves, the study “Museum and Visitor”. Its results were published in the proceedings of the institute and museum journals. In those same years, multidimensional research was carried out by the sociology sector of the State Hermitage, identifying patterns and features of interaction between the public and the historical, cultural and art museum. In 1982, the All-Russian Research Institute of Art History organized a study of the socio-demographic composition of the audience of art museums, which made it possible to model its “portrait”. In 1986, a study was conducted “Attitude of the population of large cities towards museums”. In the 1970-80s. sociological departments were created in the Hermitage, the Russian Museum, and the Historical Museum; in the Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin’s staff included sociologists.

Significant progress has been made in the field of theoretical understanding of museum activities and the formation museology as a special field of knowledge. Already “Fundamentals of Soviet Museology,” published in 1955, contained developed terminology, generalized and systematized the enormous experience of practical museum activities, and declared the need to develop a scientific theory of museum affairs. The fundamental work "Museology. Historical Museums", created in the 1970s. under the leadership of A.M. Dispersed together with museologists of the GDR and published in 1988, completed the socialist stage in the development of museology. A.M. Dispersal presented museology as a scientific discipline with its own subject, language, and structure.

This level of understanding of museum affairs was achieved thanks to numerous scientific discussions, as well as major comprehensive studies, the results of which were published on the pages of periodical museological publications (Soviet Museum, Museum) and in the works of specialized museological centers. Works of A.I. Mikhailovskaya, I.P. Ivanitsky, A.M. Acceleration, A.B. Zaks, D.A. Ravikovic, SI. Kasparinskaya became teaching aids for the next generation of museum specialists. At this time, the museology departments of the Research Institute of Culture (Russian Institute of Cultural Studies), the Museology Laboratory of the Museum of the Revolution in Moscow (1978), the Department of Museum Affairs of the All-Russian Institute for Advanced Training of Cultural Workers (1984, currently the Academy of Retraining of Workers in Art, Culture and Tourism) were actively working. . Numerous were carried out in the 1960-80s. scientific conferences. Museum history centers also carried out scientific and methodological work that was important for the development of the country’s museum business. In the mid-1980s. A museological postgraduate course has been created at the Research Institute of Culture. In 1987, the Department of Museum Studies was opened at the Moscow State Institute of History and Archives.

In the mid-1970s, almost ten years later than what happened in foreign countries, Russian museums began to use computers. Initially, large computers were used, with the help of which machine catalogs of fragments of collections were created. Priority in the development of new technologies belongs to the State Hermitage (Ya.A. Sher), the State Russian Museum, and the Central Museum of the USSR Revolution. Since the beginning of the 1980s, when a specialized Research Center on automation problems in the field of culture was created under the USSR Ministry of Culture, the systematic introduction of computer systems into museums began, and by the end of the 1980s. Personal computers are spreading. A tangible effect from the introduction of new technologies in the museum sphere will manifest itself in the next decade, but the prerequisites for a new stage were laid in the 1970-80s.

A major stage in museum history, which lasted more than five decades, has ended. Museums were closely connected with the history of the country, but the museum business also had an internal logic of development. The number and variety of museums grew, museums became more attractive and vibrant, and their role in the cultural and social life of the country became more and more noticeable.

Literature:

1. Aksenova A.I. Story. Fate. Museum. Vladimir, 2001.

2. Zlatoustova V.I. State policy in the field of museum affairs (1945-1985) // Museum and power. M., 1991. Part 1.

3. Kuznetsova L., Kriklovenskaya A. Improving the activities of public museums of the RSFSR. M., 1985 (Museum management and protection of monuments. Express information of GBL. V.4).

4. Ravikovich D.A. Formation of the state museum network (1917-1st half of the 60s) M., 1988.

5. Overclocking A.M. Evacuation of museums and museum collections during the Great Patriotic War // A word about a comrade-in-arms and a friend. M., 1999.

6. Simkin M.P. Soviet museums during the Great Patriotic War // Tr. Research Institute of Museum Studies. Vol. P. M., 1961.

7. Truevtseva O.N. Museums of Siberia in the second half of the 20th century. Tomsk, 2000.

8. Tumanov V.E. Public museums // In the collection: Museum network and problems of its improvement at the present stage. M., 1985.

9. Fatigarova N.V. Museum work in the RSFSR during the Great Patriotic War (aspects of state policy) // Museum and power. M., 1991. Part 1.

The USSR Museum opened at the end of December 2012 in pavilion No. 2 at VDNKh (immediately behind the main one, where the butterflies and the mirror labyrinth are).

The purpose of the museum is an opportunity to remind us of the things that surrounded us in Soviet times, to talk about the ideology of our great country, which raised millions of Octobrists, pioneers, Komsomol members and members of the CPSU, to show our leaders through the actions by which we remember them.

The cult of personality in all its manifestations, Soviet cars, slot machines, sports cups, computers, telephones, televisions, cameras and radios, alcoholic beverages and food, food stamps, movie posters, clothes and shoes, toys and games, interior items, postcards, medals, badges, stamps and souvenirs - all this was made in the USSR.

Strictly speaking, it can hardly be called a museum, it’s difficult to even call it an exhibition, but if you walk through VDNKh, you can stop by.

Take a walk through the exhibition and see everything —>

In general, the museum is made in the good European tradition of making candy out of nothing, when museums of anything are invented on tourist routes.

The exposition, of course, is pretentious and in some places in the style of Hollywood films, but this is sold with a bang to foreigners.

Captions for the exhibits are in Russian and English. So you can really bring foreigners here

What we got at flea markets is what we put on display.

A big plus is that you can touch almost everything. It's perfect for children, but for how long?

You can show children what toys their parents played with as children.

General view of the hall

The machine, unlike the Museum of Soviet Slot Machines, does not work

There is a sign on the bicycle that says that there was no money for cars, so we rode bicycles.

Typical room. Many grandmothers still do this

The organizers managed to squeeze the “humpbacked” Zaporozhets and Pobeda into the exhibition, elaborately airbrushed and painted red... Children will definitely study the history of the USSR from Hollywood films

Not without some “jokes”

For some reason, they put up funny modern posters drawn by artist Valery Barykin in the style of the Soviet 1960s and 70s.

And this entrance should symbolize the Mausoleum...

Everything is presented as a reconstruction, but from the “reconstruction” there is only the body:

Lenin lived, Lenin is alive, Lenin will live! At the same time, the layout periodically breathes comically!

Of course, you can’t go without a store with fancy souvenirs.

And at the same time, no one raises their head and notices how above all this, behind a bunch of layers of plastic tents, hides real Soviet chic, which needs to be shown

P.S. There is a really interesting museum about the USSR only in Kazan - the Museum of Socialist Life: http://muzeisb.ru/

There really is something to see and it’s done with soul.