Museums of a “manufacturing type” in the USSR: Emergence, experience and liquidation. The history of museum development in the USSR in the 1920s–1930s

Abstract

The article examines the experience of the museums of a “manufacturing type” that appeared in Soviet Russia in the 1920s. References to the existence of such museums are repeatedly found in official reports, museums’ documentation and periodicals of those years. At the same time, we note that up to now there is no definition of this type of museum in the national historiography of the history of museums. The reference to the experience of their work remains on the periphery of the research interest. The article explores the example of two Moscow’s museums — the Museum of Porcelain and the Museum of Furniture — to describe the history of the creation of museums, to find out the socio-cultural factors that contributed to their formation as a “manufacturing type” museums, and to analyze the reasons that led to the closure (in the case of the Museum of Furniture) or a change of their profile. The emergence and activity of manufacturing museums was associated with a special historical moment — the time of the active creation of the Soviet museum network and experiments in the field of museum business. If earlier museums in their activities were focused on storage and scientific functions, then at the new historical stage the role of museums in society was rethought: the educational functions were placed at the forefront of their activities. At this time, there was still the opportunity to implement certain creative experiments. In the activities of “manufacturing museums”, such types of museum work with a visitor were already successfully practiced and some approaches in expositional activities that were relevant in modern museology and in demand by modern museum institutions were implemented.

Keywords:

history of museums, Museum of Porcelain, Museum of Furniture, manufacturing type museums