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Mikhailova E. Temporary Exhibitions at the MAE in the 1920s and 1930s and the Unrealized “Ideal Museum” of Leo Sternberg

Elena Mikhailova
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
E-mail: elmikh@kunstkamera.ru

 

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ABSTRACT. The article focuses on the following temporary exhibitions of the MAE RAS: “Primitive Tools and Weapons”, “Fire in Cultural History”, “Types of Dwellings”, “Childhood in the Light of Ethnography”, “Economical and Social Origins of Art”, and “History of Clothing”. The Department of Evolution and Typology of Culture of the MAE produced these exhibitions in 1927–1930 as the only possible way to put into practice Leo Sternberg’s plans and projects. Sternberg’s ideas in the field of museum construction were a visible embodiment of his scholarly views and socio-political aspirations. The article addresses the history of the creation and functioning of the exhibitions in the context of revising the theoretical foundations of Soviet ethnography and its ideologization. Ultimately, the most ambitious museum project of Sternberg, i.e. the Evolutionary, or synthetic, section of the MAE display, was never created. The reason for this failure was not so much in technical difficulties as in conceptual problems, namely the ideological requirements for science, and the theoretical views of Sternberg, which served as the basis for the activities of the Department of Evolution and Typology of Culture.

 

KEYWORDS: Leo Sternberg, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, museum construction, temporary exhibitions, department of evolution and typology of culture

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8619-2021-2(12)-25-34
УДК 069.1

 

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