The State Historical Museum (GIM) is the largest national historical
museum in Russia. Founded in 1872, the building on Red Square in Moscow
was built in 1875-1883 according to the design of architect Vladimir
Sherwood and engineer Anatoly Semyonov. The site for construction was
provided by the Moscow City Duma, ordering the demolition of the
building of the Main Pharmacy that stood there.
The fund of the
modern State Historical Museum has more than 5 million items and 14
million sheets of documentary materials. The permanent exhibition in the
building on Red Square contains only 0.5% of the total collection. The
number of visitors to the museum annually exceeds 1.2 million people.
The staff consists of more than 800 employees.
Currently, the
museum association includes St. Basil's Cathedral, the Museum of the
Patriotic War of 1812 and the Chamber of the Romanovs. The State
Historical Museum also owns exhibition halls on Revolution Square,
storage facilities and restoration workshops in Izmailovo. A depository
and exhibition center with an area of 120,000 m² is being built in the
village of Kommunarka in New Moscow.
Since 1990, it has been
included in the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Red Square
ensemble.
The idea to create a museum of historical values has
been in the air in the circles of the Russian intelligentsia since the
middle of the 19th century. Letters from Major General Nikolai
Chepelevsky dated 1871 have been preserved, in which he “suggested to
set up a special museum in Moscow, which would become not only a
repository of objects collected for the exhibition, but would constantly
direct its activities towards the development and collection of
materials.” Academician Konstantin Bestuzhev-Ryumin called national
self-consciousness the highest goal of historical science, and the
creation of a museum the most powerful means of raising it. In 1871,
Count Alexei Sergeevich Uvarov wanted to arrange an exhibition of
drawings about Russian life in the pre-Petrine era. Grand Duke Alexander
Alexandrovich visited the Museum of Antiquities in Rosenborg Castle in
the mid-1860s, after which he became interested in archeology and wanted
to create something similar in Russia.
The impetus for the
implementation of this idea was the success of the industrial exhibition
dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the birth of Peter I. Among its
exhibits were archaeological finds and historical relics that did not
fit into the concept of the Polytechnic Museum. Veterans of the Crimean
War sent memorabilia to the defense department of Sevastopol. These
items needed a place for storage and subsequent exposure. Nikolai
Chepelevsky and Adjutant General Alexander Zelenoy (according to other
sources - Count Uvarov) in January 1872 submitted a note to Tsarevich
Alexander with a proposal to create a historical museum. Alexander liked
the idea of creating a place where any person could come and see that
“intelligent life began in our country not from yesterday.” The
Tsesarevich applied with a corresponding request to Emperor Alexander II
and received written permission.
Open sources differ on the exact
date of the signing of the decree on the creation of the museum by
Alexander II. It is authentically known that this happened in February
1872, however, there is no certainty in the day - in different sources
they call 3, 8, 9 (21 according to the new style) and the 14th. It was
decided to name the future museum in honor of "the August name of the
sovereign heir to the Tsarevich Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich."
By order of the emperor, a special commission of historians under
the leadership of Count Uvarov was created to organize the museum. It
included Dmitry Ilovaisky, Vasily Klyuchevsky, Sergey Solovyov,
archivist V. E. Rumyantsev and Ivan Zabelin. In January 1873, the
general concept of the museum was formulated - "to serve as a visual
history of the main eras of the Russian state." On August 2, 1874, the
Charter of the museum drawn up by Uvarov was approved. This document
regulated all issues of replenishment and preservation of the fund of
exhibits. Even then, opinions differed on the subject of the show:
Chepelevsky wanted to create a “temple of military glory,” while Zabelin
and Uvarov insisted on showing the general history of the state.
Historians belonged to different schools, and therefore Uvarov proposed
to exhibit "the most important state reforms in pictures", and Zabelin
wanted to focus on showing the life and life of the people.
In
1875, the imperial commission announced a competition for the best
project for the museum building. Candidate plans had to comply with a
specific program: use native Russian architectural details: tents,
flyers, zakomaras, etc., harmoniously fit into the ensemble of Red
Square and rhyme with the Pokrovsky Cathedral. In August 1875, Vladimir
Sherwood and Anatoly Semyonov were declared the winners with a project
called "Fatherland". The jury members noted the depth of its
elaboration: it was accompanied by detailed explanatory notes and
demonstrated deep knowledge of Russian architecture and its heritage.
Sherwood, the grandson of an Englishman and a Muscovite in the second
generation, coped with the competition task better than other
applicants. The decisive word belonged to Ivan Zabelin, and he approved
the "Fatherland" and signed the order for construction.
Initially, the organizers hoped to attract private funding and make the
museum public, not controlled by the state. Despite the involvement of
sponsors, in 1874 the total capital of the State Historical Museum was
only 154 thousand rubles. From the correspondence of the Grand Dukes
Alexander Alexandrovich and Sergei Alexandrovich, it is known that money
matters were handled “with remarkable frivolity. They built a building
that, not yet finished, costs 1 ½ million, and for this they had no
other means than 200 thousand, which the treasury gave. For the
construction of the State Historical Museum, a loan of 1.26 million
rubles had to be taken from the Moscow Credit Society. It was possible
to close the loan only after 28 years.
The site for the construction of the museum in April
1874 was provided by the Moscow City Duma. Since 1472, a postal yard has
been located on this land, since 1556 - a Sytny otdatochny yard. In the
period from 1599 to 1699, in its place was the Zemsky Prikaz - the
department that collected taxes, litigated and led the yaryzhny
detachment. On November 3, 1699, the Zemsky Prikaz was disbanded, and
its affairs were transferred to the Streltsy and Judgment Prikaz. In
1700, on behalf of Peter I, a stone town hall was built instead of a
wooden building. Before the fire of 1737, it housed the Main Pharmacy
and the Medical Office. The entrance was decorated with a stone head of
a unicorn with a real narwhal horn, the reception hall is decorated with
frescoes. The spire of the central tower was crowned with a
double-headed eagle.
On April 26, 1755, the first Russian
university was opened in the town hall. For him, the building was
rebuilt under the leadership of Dmitry Ukhtomsky. The opening ceremony
was attended by Empress Elizaveta Petrovna and Lomonosov's patron Count
Shuvalov, and among the students were Vasily Bazhenov, Denis Fonvizin,
Grigory Potemkin. Subsequently, the university received a new building
on Mokhovaya Street, and in the town hall on Red Square there were first
the Magistrate, then - provincial offices. As a result, the building was
bought by the city Duma.
After receiving the imperial consent to
the creation of the museum, it was planned to build it near the walls of
the Kremlin, on the site of the current mausoleum. On April 16, 1874,
the City Duma decided to give the State Historical Museum a place under
the building of the Zemsky Prikaz. The text of the decision stated:
"Respect for antiquity is undoubtedly one of the manifestations of true
enlightenment..."
It is noteworthy that at the same time, for the
sake of building a new museum, the historical town hall was destroyed.
According to contemporaries, the building belonged to the European style
and therefore was not valuable.
On September 1 (August 20,
according to the old style), 1875, the solemn laying ceremony of the
State Historical Museum was held, it was attended by Tsarevich
Alexander, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, Moscow Governor-General
Prince V. A. Dolgorukov and Duma deputies. The first stone in the
foundation of the museum was laid personally by Emperor Alexander II.
From the moment the decree on foundation was signed to
the end of the construction of the building on Red Square, there were
disputes among the organizers of the museum about its nature and
direction of the exposition. Zabelin and Uvarov insisted that authentic
historical objects should play the main role. Sherwood suggested making
a bias towards stylizations and exhibiting, among other things, works of
art on historical themes.
Initially, Uvarov and Zabelin wanted to
decorate the Front Hall with scenes from the history of the ancient
Slavs and gradually, from hall to hall, show the development of culture
and the transition from paganism to Christianity. However, after the
transition to state content, this idea had to be abandoned - the main
role was assigned to the idea of autocracy. The first thing that
visitors saw upon entering was the genealogical tree of the Imperial
family of 68 portraits.
The first programs of the museum were
based on the works of Konstantin Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Dmitry Ilovaisky,
Alexei Uvarov, Sergei Solovyov and Vasily Klyuchevsky. The basis of the
museum fund was Uvarov's personal collection.
The Fatherland project was a joint work of Vladimir
Sherwood and Anatoly Semyonov. Sherwood was a graduate of the Moscow
School of Painting in landscape class and therefore did not have the
status of an architect. The military engineer Anatoly Semyonov, one of
the builders of the Polytechnic Exhibition of 1872, was responsible for
the technical side of the project. The building is made in a mixed
construction scheme and has an irregular rectangular shape: the average
dimensions of the sides are 115.5 and 55.5 m, the built-up area is 6500
m².
According to Sherwood's surviving archive, he worked on the
museum project for seven years. During these years, the drawings of the
facade were completely redone and drawings of all the elements of its
decoration, as well as the design of the exhibition halls, were created.
Semyonov developed the composition of technical rooms, libraries and
auditoriums.
Semyonov's official records have been preserved in
the museum's archive, from which it follows that the engineering and
geological conditions of construction were very difficult. The site has
a slope towards the backfilled channel of the Neglinka. The soils under
the base of the building are a heterogeneous mixture of clays with high
water inflow and high groundwater levels. For construction, the ground
was strengthened with oak logs, rubble masonry and cement.
On
September 1, 1875, Emperor Alexander II solemnly laid the foundation
stone for the future museum. The builders of the museum used the most
modern technologies of their time. The quality of materials was
personally controlled by Anatoly Semyonov. Deliveries came from Bryansk,
St. Petersburg, and later from Lorraine and Dortmund. Brickwork was
fastened with cement, internal floors were made of metal structures, and
all pipes and wires were removed into the walls. The complex work on the
construction of the outer walls and towers was carried out by craftsmen
under the guidance of contractors G.I. and I.I. Gubonin. In 1876-1877
alone, 260 masons and more than 300 auxiliary workers performed
bricklaying.
From 1879 to 1881 construction was stopped due to
lack of funding. For the same reason, it was necessary to abandon the
design of the facade with tiles. Work was resumed in preparation for the
coronation of Alexander III.
The idea of the project "Fatherland" returned to
the ideals of ancient Russian architecture. The building was
supposed to bring a new spirit to the Kremlin ensemble and rethink
the appearance of Red Square - from the likeness of the Roman forum
to turn it into a symbol of the people and echo the Intercession
Cathedral. Borrowing the techniques and details of ancient Russian
architecture helped Sherwood create an exemplary example of the
Russian style, popular in the second half of the 19th century in
Russia, according to the trend of historicism. According to many art
historians, Sherwood successfully combined the design elements
traditional in Russian architecture with red brick. In the design of
the facades, 15 types of kokoshniks and 10 different widths, tents,
arches, weights, arched belts, kiotses and drawn cornices were used.
The fractional silhouette of the facade rhymes with the appearance
of St. Basil's Cathedral and balances the composition of the two
buildings on Red Square.
Some time later, a conflict arose
between Sherwood and Zabelin because of their different views on how
national architectural traditions should be reflected in the design
of the museum. Zabelin stated that "Sherwood and Semyonov act with
great willfulness and design something not at all Russian." In
addition, Sherwood began to design the interiors even before
receiving the official order, giving priority to the design, not the
exhibits. In 1879, the architect was removed from construction, and
in 1886 Zabelin refused him a position as a museum employee.
Criticism of the project was also met later: many considered the
demolition of the two-hundred-year-old building of the Main Pharmacy
a mistake. In the 1920s, the architect Le Corbusier advised removing
the museum building from Red Square altogether as it violated the
architectural appearance of Moscow.
The projects of the building and the exposition were
developed simultaneously and focused on the “archaeological-material and
art criticism orientation”. The museum was distinguished by an
innovative for its time idea of grouping archaeological sites according
to epochs and centuries. Initially, it was planned to create 47 halls,
each of which had to correspond in its design to the style of the
displayed period. Inside the museum premises are built on the principle
of an annular enfilade, the logical center of which is the Front Hall
and the Byzantine Hall.
Only expensive materials were used for
interior decoration. For example, the floors of the Front Hall and the
stairs are made of Carrara marble by the craftsmen of Zakharov and
Campioni artels. In addition to the interiors, Sherwood designed special
showcases. They were made of oak and had two parts: the lower one was
closed for storing objects, and the upper one with a glass lid for
displaying exhibits.
In the period after the resignation of
Sherwood and until 1887, the interior decoration of the museum was
carried out under the guidance of Anatoly Semyonov and architect
Alexander Popov. The latter was a student of Fyodor Richter and an old
associate of Uvarov, the author of the reconstruction of the Church of
Nikita the Martyr and the chambers of Averky Kirillov. Popov created
plans for the general design of the halls, as well as sketches of small
architectural forms - windows, furniture, mosaics and tower spiers. As a
result, several hundred windows of the museum became objects of artistic
value due to the unique design of the bindings in the style of ancient
Russian mica windows. Carpentry work on the creation of shop windows was
carried out in Polyakov's workshop, and oak and pine doors between the
halls were also made there. The mosaic floors of the first floor were
laid by the masters of the Sedov artel under the guidance of the artist
Kruglikov. The decoration of the building was completed by gilded metal
sculptures on the spiers of the towers. They were made in the form of
the heraldic symbols of the imperial house - lions, unicorns and eagles.
The prototypes for their sketches for Popov were the seals and porticos
of St. Basil's Cathedral. The wingspan of the eagles was three meters.
The sculptures were distinguished by an unusual design - they were
movable and turned to face the wind, and not against it, like ordinary
weathercocks.
After Popov's death, Semyonov refused further
participation in the work. In the 1890s, Nikolai Nikitin and Pyotr
Boytsov supervised the interior decoration. Outstanding artists of their
time worked on the decoration of the halls of the museum building:
Viktor Vasnetsov, Valentin Serov, Ivan Aivazovsky, Ilya Repin, Henryk
Semiradsky and others.
In 1881, Alexander III appointed his
younger brother, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the honorary chairman
of the museum, and Count Uvarov, deputy chairman, that is, the actual
manager. Uvarov was given the task of preparing the museum for the first
visit of the imperial family and the coronation celebrations.
On
May 29, 1881, the almost finished museum received the status of a state
institution and at the same time a new name - the Imperial Russian
Historical Museum. The museum began to be supported by funds from the
treasury under the control of the Ministry of Finance. From December 10,
1882, it was in charge of the Ministry of Public Education.
Eleven years after the signing of the decree on the
creation of the museum, the museum was not completely ready: they
managed to decorate only a few rooms on the first floor and arrange only
a part of the exhibits. On May 24, 1883, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich
invited the emperor to the opening of the museum and heard in response:
Why are you calling me to the opening when nothing is ready and there is
garbage.
On May 27, the opening nevertheless took place, but
passed without solemn ceremonies, as "a simple arrival of the sovereign
with the queen." Emperor Alexander III and his wife visited the Imperial
ROME and were the first to inspect 11 completed halls, which in
chronological order reflected the history of Russia from ancient times
to the 13th century. Alexander Popov and architect Anatoly Semyonov were
introduced to the emperor, but architect Vladimir Sherwood was not
invited.
On June 2, 1883, the building was consecrated by
Metropolitan Ioanniky, from that day the museum was open to the public.
Moscow City Duma, Upper and Middle Trading Rows.
Count Uvarov, the first director and one of the main creators of the
State Historical Museum, died one year after the opening of the museum.
In the period from 1883 to 1908, Alexei Oreshnikov was the chief
manager. He was a leading specialist in the field of ancient and
medieval Russian numismatics, as well as ancient Russian applied art. In
total, Oreshnikov worked at the State Historical Museum for 45 years.
The post of Deputy Chairman during these years was occupied by Ivan
Zabelin. According to his will in 1908, the museum received the
collections of historical values collected by Zabelin and all the
salaries received during the years of service.
In 1889, a
transverse building for an auditorium with 500 seats was built between
the large and small courtyards. It was distinguished by unique acoustics
and advanced equipment, such as electric lighting. In May 1894, the
museum was renamed the Imperial Russian Historical Museum named after
Emperor Alexander III.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the
museum's library contained about 18,000 books. The fund was replenished
with the collections of the Moscow and Russian Archaeological Societies,
Moscow University and many private donors. The annual number of visitors
was about 40 thousand people, and the number of exhibition halls
increased to 16.
In 1905, Pyotr Ivanovich Shchukin donated to the
museum the collection of his Museum of Antiquities, numbering about 300
thousand items (works of jewelry, icon painting, painting, facial
sewing, manuscripts). In the same year, according to the will of Alexei
Petrovich Bakhrushin, a collection of about 2 thousand items and 25
thousand books was transferred to the museum.
Among the patrons
were representatives of all classes, including members of the imperial
families, noble families (Dashkovs, Obolenskys, Golitsyns, Uvarovs,
Olsufievs, etc.) and eminent collectors who provided the museum with
both individual items and entire collections.
Sherwood's original
project did not provide for the creation of the museum's storerooms. At
the time of its foundation, the creators did not assume that large
storage facilities for exhibits might be needed. In 1912, Prince Nikolai
Shcherbatov petitioned to transfer the adjacent Duma building to the
museum. Plans to expand the museum were thwarted by the First World War
and the Russian Revolution.
In 1910, the lecture hall in the
transverse building was dismantled. In its place, four years later, a
library, an archive, a department of manuscripts and early printed books
were opened. The construction project belonged to Ilya Bondarenko.
In 1917, the new government renamed the museum into
the State Historical Russian Museum (and since 1921 - the State
Historical Museum). According to the memoirs of employees, after 1917,
the State Historical Museum was repeatedly proposed to be disbanded. For
example, an entry dated May 28 of that year was preserved in the diary
of Vasily Gorodtsov, head of the Society of Friends of the State
Historical Museum:
“Today [...] the following scene played out
... A Little Russian soldier entered the open halls of the museum and
began to shout: “This is where our labor pennies are spent: they are
building million-dollar houses to store filthy potsherds and worthless
papers! Comrades!” the soldier turned to ran away to the public - all
this manure must be thrown out, and a factory should be set up in the
house "
During the days of the revolution, the museum was at the
center of unrest, crowds gathered around daily, and inside the premises
"soldiers poked bayonets in all dark corners." Only the personal decrees
of the People's Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky and Vladimir
Lenin prevented the destruction of the museum.
In 1918-1920, the
museum's funds included a collection of antiquities, manuscripts, the
archive and library of the Uvarovs, the collection of silver of Alexei
Alexandrovich Bobrinsky, silver, porcelain and glass of Nikolai
Mikhailovich Mironov, the huge archive of the Kurakins, the numismatic
collection and library of Pavel Vasilyevich Zubov, libraries with a
special selection books by the bibliophile and publisher Lev Eduardovich
Bukhgeim, the historian Gennady Fedorovich Karpov and the genealogist
Leonid Mikhailovich Savelov. In the same years, the Patriarchal Library
was attached to the museum as a special department and as branches the
house of the Archaeological Society on Bersenevskaya Embankment with the
library of the society, the house of the Moscow Diocesan Library and the
library of the former Singing School in Likhovy Lane with their funds.
Later, a special Board for museum affairs was created under the
leadership of Natalia Sedova-Trotskaya. The department criticized the
State Historical Museum for sabotaging revolutionary ideas and proposed
dividing it into separate independent museums. In March 1921, a
resolution was issued to reorganize it into the Museum of Life. In the
same year, a commission for the disposal of museum valuables was
created, chaired by Leon Trotsky. However, during the first 10 years of
Soviet power, the collection of the State Historical Museum doubled -
due to escheated, confiscated and nationalized valuables.
In
1928, a new "Regulations on the State Historical Museum" was issued. It
included modernity in the sphere of scientific interests of the State
Historical Museum and added coverage of ideological propaganda to its
activities.
In the 1920-1930s, the museum received numerous
collections of reorganized and liquidated museums (in particular, from
the collection of the Rumyantsev Museum, the Military History Museum,
the Old Moscow Museum, the Museum of the 1840s, the Museum of the
Patriotic War of 1812, monasteries, churches, nationalized estates
(Marfino near Moscow, Dubrovitsa, Bogucharovo, Tula province,
Nadezhdino, Saratov province) and mansions.
By the end of the
1930s, the permanent exhibition was opened in 23 rooms and covered the
time period from ancient times to the 18th century. In August 1935,
sculptures were dismantled from the spiers of the towers. The ensigns
and eagles were melted down, but the museum staff managed to hide the
figures of lions and unicorns.
In 1936, during the preparation of
the museum for the 20th anniversary of Soviet power, the design of the
Front Hall was destroyed and the halls of the epochs of the grand ducal
and tsarist periods were redone. The painted genealogical tree of the
imperial family was painted over with whitewash, stucco molding was
chipped off in many halls and the gilding was removed.
From the
beginning of 1936 to the end of 1937, the design of the halls on the
ground floor was handled by the architect Andrey Burov. In a diary dated
1937, he wrote that he tried to rethink the interiors "with the most
meager architectural means - the nature of the architraves and capitals,
which determines the character of the era, as well as the coloring of
the walls." Contemporary art critics noted that the new strict design
made it easier to view the exhibits and emphasized their importance, and
did not divert attention to the decoration of the halls. Together with
Burov, the artist Lev Zhegin worked on redesigning the museum. Until the
early 1940s, the ideology of the Soviet government dominated the
research and scientific activities of the museum.
In 1937, the
State Historical Museum was declared the main national museum, and
numerous branches began to be subordinated to it.
During the Great Patriotic War, the museum fund was
actually divided into two parts - a week after the declaration of war,
director Anna Karpova received an order by the end of July to prepare
the most valuable exhibits for evacuation. They were carefully packed,
put into boxes and accompanied by detailed inventories. This part of the
collection was called State Storage No. 1 and was sent to Kostanay for
three years.
The State Historical Museum on Red Square was the
only museum in the capital that continued to operate even during the
siege of Moscow. It was closed only for a week in the fall of 1941,
when, after the bombing, the glass in the building was shattered and a
crack appeared in the foundation. During the war years, new exhibitions
continued to open. They were dedicated to combat operations and formed
from front-line materials. It is known from the diary of Maria
Mikhailovna Denisova, an employee of the museum, that at that time
employees of Joseph Stalin's personal guard spent the night in the
basements of the museum.
In 1957, the halls of the second floor were opened,
the general exposition began to cover the period from ancient times to
the beginning of the 19th century. In 1963, additional halls were
opened, covering the time period until 1917.
By the beginning of
the 1980s, the museum had become very dilapidated - for a hundred years
of work it had never been repaired. Up to 14 accidents happened
annually, when the electrical or heating system failed, pipes broke
through. Since the building was not divided into blocks by expansion
joints during construction, individual structural elements were unevenly
loaded during settlement. Because of this, cracks began to appear in the
walls and ceilings, the floor was deformed. Restoration began in 1986,
hundreds of specialists worked on it. The restoration of architectural
losses received by the building in 1936-1937 was carried out by
architects from the Spetsproektrestavratsiya bureau under the guidance
of E. V. Zhurin: S. N. Alyoshina, N. V. Zelenova, V. N. Ovchinnikov, A.
A. Savinkina , E. I. Nikolaeva. Employees of the Mosrestavratsiya
workshop under the direction of L. A. Baulina worked on the restoration
of the interiors: L. V. Reshetov, A. N. Zamoshchin, V. L. Lagutin, M. G.
Chistyakov, M. A. Dorodnev, V. V. Markovin, D. D. Rachmaninov, V. G.
Beresnev, S. V. Kormilin, V. G. Cherkasov, V. V. Vlaskin, V. G. Kozlov,
S. S. Lazovsky, A. D. Semenko , L. V. Novgorodsky. Due to lack of
funding, work was stopped for a long time and was continued only on the
personal instructions of Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. The
restoration was completed only in 2002.
A special event in the history of the museum was the
construction of an entrance hall on the site of the former small
courtyard. The new entrance from the side of the Resurrection Gate was
decorated with bas-reliefs depicting Uvarov, Zabelin, Sherwood and
Semyonov, the work of the sculptor A. S. Kartashov. Also, memorial
plaques with the names of the main donors of the museum were placed in
the entrance hall, the sculptor was A. V. Chernousov.
On December
18, 1991, a presidential decree was signed on awarding the museum the
status of a particularly valuable object of the cultural heritage of
Russia. In the same year, St. Basil's Cathedral was transferred to the
joint use of the museum and the Russian Orthodox Church.
On July
30, 1997, copies of historical double-headed eagles were installed on
the museum towers. For the 850th anniversary of Moscow, the historical
entrance through the Front Hall, as well as the halls on the first
floor, were opened. The large courtyard was closed, the resulting space
was divided into the Polovtsian courtyard and the New Exhibition Hall.
In December 2003, paired sculptures of a lion and a unicorn were
returned to the spiers.
In 2001, the museum included:
Main
building on Red Square
Museum of the Decembrists
Novodevichy Convent
Intercession Cathedral
Trinity Church in Nikitniki
Chambers of the
Romanovs
Central Museum of Vladimir Lenin (Since 2012 Museum of
the Patriotic War of 1812)
Izmailovo Estate
Krutitsy Compound
In 2020, the country's only branch of the State Historical Museum
opened in Tula. Exhibitions in the Tula branch show items from the stock
collections of the Moscow Historical Museum: memorial relics,
masterpieces of arts and crafts, ethnographic items, archaeological
artifacts, weapons, paintings.
Since the spring of 2007, for the first time in the
history of the State Historical Museum, all 40 halls have been opened to
the public. The exposition of the museum covers the period from ancient
times to the beginning of the 20th century; its exhibitions are annually
visited by more than 1.2 million people. The museum is also the largest
scientific and methodological center in which research, scientific and
educational work is carried out. Lectures and seminars, internships are
held on the basis of the departments, awards have been established in
research and restoration activities.
As of 2016, the museum is a
federal institution and reports to the Ministry of Culture. The number
of employees of the museum is more than 800 people.
Since the end
of 2016, you can view the exposition using a virtual tour, access to
which is open on the official website of the museum. The main innovation
of 2017 was the creation of a new navigation system in the main
building: a complete map of the main exhibition can be obtained at the
entrance or downloaded from the museum website.
About 30-40
exhibition projects are held annually on the basis of exhibits from the
museum's fund throughout Russia. By the 500th anniversary of the
Novodevichy Convent, the museum plans to open an exposition dedicated to
the Russian Orthodox Church. For 2018-2023, it is planned to hold a
series of exhibitions of the project "National Museums of the World - to
the Historical Museum", in which European museums will take part.
From March to July 2020, the museum was closed to visitors due to
quarantine amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2017, the museum turned 145 years old. On the day
of the anniversary, February 9, the entrance to the building was made
free and two thematic exhibitions were opened. The first of them -
"Portrait of the Museum against the Background of History" - was
compiled from archival photographs from 1876 to 2015. In the second,
visitors were shown iconic items from the collection, for example, a
bracelet under the account number "1", which was donated to the museum
by Count Uvarov. On February 11, a festive tea party with a themed treat
was arranged for museum visitors in the Front Hall. For this event,
according to old recipes, 145 cakes weighing 500 kilograms were baked,
each of which was covered with edible gold and decorated with
figurines-copies of sculptures from the spiers of the State Historical
Museum. On June 1, 2017, the main entrance was solemnly opened for the
first time in 30 years.
On January 20, 2022, the project of the
depository and exhibition center in New Moscow was approved. Presumably,
the storage area will be 120,000 m²; exposition zones and workshops for
restoration will be created on its basis. The complex in New Moscow will
include five storage buildings, four of which are federal museums and
one 6-storey storage building of sixteen Moscow museums.
The halls of the first floor are valuable exhibits and
works of art. During the design of many of them, copies of historical
and architectural monuments were made, many of which were subsequently
lost. The modern appearance of the museum's interiors was restored
during the reconstruction in 2001, all the halls took on the form
according to the original sketches of Sherwood and Popov.
The
entrance hall is the first room that visitors enter. On the ceiling is
the genealogical tree of the imperial family, painted by Foma Toropov's
artel. The composition includes 68 full-length portraits of Russian
sovereigns. At the base of the tree are Prince Vladimir and Princess
Olga, they symbolically water its roots from alabasters. The last in the
row of sovereigns are Alexander III and Maria Feodorovna, under whom the
museum was opened.
According to the chief architect of the museum
at the beginning of the 20th century, Genrikh Antonovich Korotkov,
initially each of the 68 portraits was painted on a separate medallion
canvas and only then attached to the ceiling. In 1937, when the NKVD
gave the order to destroy the historical decoration of the halls, the
foreman of the painting team decided to hide the canvases under a layer
of whitewash. Almost fifty years later, this allowed the original
drawing to be restored. After the restoration of the 2000s, a gilded
sculpture of the trumpeting angel Fama was placed in the arch opposite
the entrance. This figure was thrown from the Red Gate in 1928. On the
day of their demolition, Nikolai Levinson, one of the founders of the
Society of Friends of the State Historical Museum, managed to pick up
the sculpture and secretly transport it to the museum, in whose vaults
it had lain for more than half a century.
A number of halls on
the first floor leave from the Front Hall to the left - from the 1st to
the 21st. The exposition is devoted to the history of Russia from
ancient times to the beginning of the reign of Peter the Great. Directly
across the entrance hall there are lettering halls, where outstanding
gold items from different times and peoples are shown. To the right of
them is a small hall in which the study of the founders of the museum,
Zabelin and Uvarov, has been recreated. On the second floor there are
halls numbered from 22 to 36, they present the history of Russia from
Peter I to Alexander III. Temporary exhibitions are held on the third
floor.
In the modern exposition of the museum, the lettering
halls are reserved for an exhibition of gold products, each dedicated to
a specific area of application of the precious metal.
Hall "A",
Metal of the Gods - originally called the "Byzantine Hall", made in
imitation of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. It is currently divided into
two parts: the first shows objects of church art of Orthodox Rus'. In
the second part of the hall, monuments of the 12th-19th centuries of
other Christian denominations are exhibited.
Hall "B", the Metal of
Tsars and the symbol of power - this hall presents nuggets, state
standards of weight and length, coins and medals, regimental silver,
orders, award weapons.
Hall "B", a symbol of wealth and luxury - here
are presented gold jewelry from ancient times to the end of the 20th
century. Parallel display of objects from different cultures and eras
demonstrates the general trends and mutual influence of goldsmithing in
different countries.
At the time of its opening in 1881, only 11 halls on
the ground floor were completed out of 47 planned in the museum. It was
they who received the richest decorative design.
Hall number 1.
The era of the fore-community. Early and Middle Paleolithic - a square
hall decorated with molded cornices and ornaments copied from ancient
pottery. The same motifs are reflected in the floor mosaics. In the
first years of the museum's work, this hall housed an exposition of
monuments of the Stone Age.
Hall number 2. The era of the early
primitive community. Late Paleolithic - a round hall in the southeast
tower. Initially, Neolithic monuments were exhibited in it. The hall is
decorated with stucco and ornaments copied from archaeological finds in
the Vladimir province. The decorative frieze "Stone Age" at the top of
the walls was painted by Viktor Vasnetsov in 1885.
Hall number 3.
Completion of the formation of the early primitive community.
Mesolithic. The era of the late primitive community. Neolithic - in this
hall, the exposition of monuments of the metal period and bronze began.
The design uses cosmogonic symbols and ornaments of various cultures.
So, for example, the top of the doorway is decorated with a symbol of
fertility - a swastika, as well as rhombuses, characteristic of the
weapons of the peoples of Siberia. The stucco molding with snakes around
the windows is inspired by the products of the Koban culture of the
Caucasus.
Hall number 4. The collapse of the primitive community.
Eneolithic of the South. The Bronze Age — the theme of the exhibited era
is reflected in the design of bronze architraves of cornices and arched
openings.
Hall No. 5. First half - third quarter of the first
millennium BC. Scythian era - during the opening of the museum, this
hall was called "Monuments of the metal period." The cornices and arches
of the doorways are decorated according to the pattern of finds in the
Meryan and Scythian mounds, they are also repeated by the pattern of the
floor mosaic.
Hall No. 6. Eastern Europe and the ancient world -
according to the original project, this hall was called "Scythian and
Sarmatian Antiquities." The stepped vault of the ceiling and the mosaic
pattern of the floor reproduce the interior space of the Kerch tomb
Kul-Oba of the 4th century BC. e. The drawings of the friezes of the
upper part of the ceiling are copied from real samples from the crypt
near Mount Mithridates, the Chertomlyk mound, and the tomb of Anfistery.
Hall No. 7. The era of the Great Migration of Nations - originally this
hall was called the "First Kiev" and reflected the time period from 988
to 1054. Therefore, the decoration of the hall was designed in the style
of the decoration of the Kyiv St. Sophia Cathedral. At present, the
exposition reflects the culture of those tribes that later formed the
way of life in Ancient Rus'.
Hall No. 8. The formation of the Old
Russian state - in the past, the "Second Kiev", this hall is also
decorated in the style of St. Sophia Cathedral. The ornaments from the
Ostromir Gospel of 1056 and the Izbornik of Svyatoslav of 1073 are
reproduced on the walls. After the reconstruction of the 1930s, the hall
displays household items of the East Slavic tribes of the late 9th -
early 12th centuries.
Hall No. 9. Old Russian city - originally
called "Novgorodsky", this is one of the most richly decorated halls on
the first floor. According to the project of Alexander Popov and Nikolai
Nikitin, the hall was decorated by the Palekh masters of the artel N. M.
Safronov. The walls and ceiling are painted with copies of frescoes from
the Church of the Savior on Nereditsa, especially valuable after the
destruction of the original in 1942.
Hall No. 10. The life of the Old
Russian state in the period of feudal fragmentation - a round hall of
the corner northeast tower, originally called "Vladimir" and was
dedicated to the culture of this ancient city. The bas-reliefs of the
hall are casts of the Dmitrievsky Cathedral of Vladimir, the wall
paintings and mosaics are copied from the Assumption Cathedral.
Hall
No. 11. The culture of Ancient Rus' of the 9th - the first half of the
13th century - the last hall opened to the public in 1883, but the
decoration was completed only in 1891. In the early years of the
museum's work, the hall was called "Suzdal", so the motifs of the
Assumption Cathedral were also used in its design. The bas-reliefs on
the walls and arches are casts of the carvings of St. George's Cathedral
of Yuryevo-Polsky.
The rest of the halls on the first floor were
not finished by 1883, only mosaic floors were finished. The
reconstruction of the 1930s under the leadership of Burov did not aim to
create expressive interiors. During the restoration period of the 2000s,
the halls were decorated according to Popov's original design of the
late 19th century.
Hall No. 12. Monuments of Rostov the Great and
Yaroslavl - the decoration of this hall was completed in 1902, it
included copies of the portal of the Assumption Cathedral in Rostov and
ceramic friezes of the palace of the Uglich palace of Tsarevich Dmitry.
In 1936, the design was completely destroyed, the theme of the
exposition was the Golden Horde.
Hall No. 13. Formation of a unified
Russian state - after the opening of the museum, the hall was called
"Moscow", its vaults and window openings are painted based on the
Monomakh's cap. On the western wall there is a panel "The Moscow Kremlin
at the beginning of the 15th century.
Halls on the second floor
On the second floor there are halls from the 25th to the 36th. Their
design was carried out much later than the opening of the museum and
differs from the first floor in a much more restrained look. In the 25th
hall there is an entrance to the reading room of the department of
manuscripts, in the 28th - to the department of fine materials.
From the moment the museum was founded until the
revolution of 1917, its fund was replenished mainly with exhibits from
private collections. Among the donors were many noble families: the
Romanovs, Golitsyns, Kropotkins, Obolenskys, Bakhrushins, Botkins.
Fyodor Dostoevsky's widow Anna Grigoryevna donated to the museum an
archive of the writer's books, letters and photographs. Subsequently, on
the basis of these objects, the exposition "Dostoevsky's room" was
created. In 1905, Pyotr Schukin donated to the State Historical Museum
more than 300 thousand items of Russian painting, icon painting and
applied art, as well as a whole archive of historical documents. At that
time, the Shchukin collection exceeded the number of units in the
collection of the Museum of History itself.
At present, the
collection continues to grow: annually up to 15 thousand items come to
the funds thanks to archaeological expeditions. A small number of items
come as a gift from individuals or through special purchases. In all
rooms of the museum, an optimal environment for the preservation of
exhibits is maintained: a temperature of +18 ° C and 55% humidity.
On January 2, 1914, the assistant to the chairman,
Prince Shcherbatov, signed an order to divide the museum's collection
into separate funds. Each department received a clear field of activity
and a separate staff. The modern structure of the museum distinguishes
15 departments:
Department of Archaeological Monuments -
archaeological monuments laid the foundation for the entire museum.
Exhibit No. 1 in the Main Inventory Book was a twisted Bronze Age
bracelet found in the Caucasian village of Koban. It was given to the
museum by Count Uvarov in 1881, even before the official opening. The
first 14 halls of the exposition are made up of the funds of this
department. Its collection for 2015 has more than one and a half million
items and is one of the largest in the world.
The Wood and
Furniture Department is a collection of furniture and various wood
products from the 13th to the 20th century. The collection includes more
than 34 thousand items - from large architectural details and vehicles
to church utensils and lacquer miniatures. Some of the exhibits are
stored in the restoration and exhibition complex in Izmailovo.
The Department of Precious Metals was founded in 1905 as a Special
Storeroom located in the exposition hall of the Tver Principality. The
very first collection - 800 exhibits - was handed over by Pyotr Schukin.
According to his will in 1912, another 12,000 items were given to the
museum. Currently, the Storeroom is located in one of the towers of the
building on Red Square. Inspection is carried out strictly by
appointment, children are not allowed to enter.
The funds of the
Department of Old Russian Painting include more than 5,000 icons and
20,000 drawings; it also contains church utensils and monuments of Old
Russian painting from the 12th to the 17th centuries. The beginning of
the collection was laid in the late 1870s, by the beginning of the 20th
century it had become one of the largest in the world. After the
revolution, the collection was transferred to the Department of
Religious Life, but 8 years later the department was closed, the
employees were fired, and the head Alexander Anisimov was sentenced to
10 years and subsequently shot. Until the 1940s, many icons and valuable
exhibits were transferred to the Gokhran and the Antikvariat bureau for
sale abroad and were irretrievably lost. Only in 1956, the department
was restored as part of the fund of fine materials, and as an
independent unit - in 1999.
The collection of the Department of
Visual Materials consists of works of various genres and trends, united
according to the historical and cultural principle: from painting and
graphics to posters and photo-negatives. The chronology covers the
period from the 13th to the 20th century.
The Department of
Ceramics and Glass was founded in the late 19th - early 20th centuries,
separated into an independent department in 1940. The subject fund was
created on the basis of the personal collections of Petr Shchukin and
Alexei Bakhrushin. The collection includes more than 36 thousand works
of art made of porcelain, faience, glass and ceramics.
The book
fund department traces its history back to the State Public Historical
Library, which arose as a private collection of the historian and
collector Alexander Chertkov. In 1863, five years after his death,
Chertkov's son Grigory turned the collection of books into the first
Russian public free library. She was at 7 Myasnitskaya Street, in the
right wing of the Chertkovs' house. The position of the head was held by
Pyotr Bartenev, he was also involved in cataloging the collection, which
exceeded 17 thousand items.
In 1871, Grigory Chertkov moved to
St. Petersburg and sold the mansion on Myasnitskaya Street, and donated
the book collection to the city. The books were temporarily placed in
the Rumyantsev Museum. In 1872, when Alexander II approved the creation
of the State Historical Museum, the Moscow City Duma, with the
permission of Chertkov, transferred the entire library to it. Together
with the gifts of Zabelin, A.P. Bakhrushin, Shchukin, Baryatinsky and
other patrons, the Chertkovs' collection has been available to the
public since 1889 as the library of the State Historical Museum. In
1933, the library was transferred to the joint management of the State
Historical Museum and the Library People's Commissariat for Education of
the RSFSR, and on August 15 of the following year, it was separated into
a separate institution. Over 843,000 books were moved to the building in
Starosadsky Lane, and only 70,000 books remained for the Historical
Museum. The modern library of the State Historical Museum has more than
300 thousand volumes from the beginning of the 15th century, among them
about 13 thousand - unique editions of small circulations, incunabula
and bookplates.
The Department of Metals and Modern Synthetic
Materials includes over 56 thousand monuments of material culture, tools
and decor items from the beginning of the 16th century to the present.
The department of numismatics, according to data for 2017, is the
largest - it stores more than 1.7 million items, including about 60
thousand orders and medals.
The collection of the Department of
Weapons has more than 16 thousand items, it was based on gifts from
private collectors: Alexander Catoire de Bioncourt, Vladimir
Baryatinsky, V. S. Turnery and others.
The Department of Written
Sources until 1938 was called the "Archive Department". Since the
opening of the museum, written sources have been accumulating very
slowly. The collection was based on gifts from private owners. The first
significant collection of letters and documents from the 18th century
was donated in 1882 by the chief curator of the museum, Alexei
Oreshnikov, and his secretary, Vladimir Sizov. From the moment the
museum was founded and until 1917, the Uvarov family significantly
expanded the museum funds, transferring their libraries and archives.
From the 1890s, the museum began to buy archival materials at auctions
and from second-hand booksellers. After 1905, the museum's collection
was replenished with modern materials and expanded the time frame - for
several years, the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
transferred copies of illegal literature about the revolution of
1905-1907 to the museum.
After 1917, personal archives and
libraries of representatives of the “bourgeoisie”, as well as
patrimonial and monastic collections, began to be massively transferred
to the museum fund. Since the 1920s, the museum began to organize
expeditions to search for new materials. After the Great Patriotic War,
a fund purchasing commission was organized. By January 1, 2014, the
department's collection included 558 funds with more than 15 million
documents of the 16th-20th centuries. At present, the materials of the
department belong simultaneously to the Archival and Museum Funds of the
Russian Federation.
The Cartographic Department, one of the
oldest departments, was established in 1919. The only one in Russia
specializes exclusively in cards. Its collection includes more than 42
thousand objects of the 16th-20th centuries.
The basis of the
collection of the Department of Fabrics and Costume was laid in 1883 -
the museum received the first items as a gift from the family of Admiral
Vladimir Kornilov. In 1922, the department became an independent
structural subdivision of the museum]. Currently, the department's fund
consists of fabric samples, folk costumes and military uniforms,
clothing, embroidery and lace from the 12th-20th centuries.
In
1912, the department of manuscripts and early printed books was
allocated one of the first collections of the museum, which consisted of
manuscripts and books of the pre-Petrine era. Historian, paleographer
and linguist Vyacheslav Shchepkin became the first head, under him the
first catalog system was created and the scientific hall was completed.
The collection of the department includes world-famous monuments of
literature: Khludov's Psalter, Svyatoslav's Izbornik, Novgorod First
Chronicle, Andronikov's Gospel and others.
The Museum of V. I.
Lenin was founded in 1924 and received a privileged position among the
museums of the USSR - unique materials about Vladimir Ulyanov and top
party leaders were transferred to it. The received items accumulated
haphazardly, the collections had no custodians. In 1993, the museum
became part of the historical one. At the moment, the department
contains more than 75 thousand items of storage.
Monument to
Minin and Pozharsky, created in 1818 according to the project of Ivan
Martos and dedicated to the leaders of the Second People's Militia of
1612. In 2016, the sculptural monument was transferred to the museum,
and in 2018, an all-Russian campaign was announced to raise funds for
its restoration. Restoration completed in 2022.
Alexey Uvarov (1872-1885)
Ivan Zabelin (1885-1909)
Nikolai Shcherbatov (1909-1921)
Nikolay Shchekotov (1921-1925)
Leonid Ponomarev (1925-1926)
Nikolai Rozhkov (1926-1927)
Panteleimon Lepeshinsky (1927-1930)
Yuri Milonov (1930-1932)
Pavel
Vorobyov (1932-1934)
Viktor Sereznikov (1934-1935)
Ivan Dmitriev
(1935-1936)
Leonid Ponomarev (1936-1937)
Galin A. I. (1937-1940)
Anna Karpova (1940-1962)
Vasily Verzhbitsky (1962-1976)
Konstantin
Levykin (1976-1992)
Alexander Shkurko (1992-2010)
Alexey Levykin
(June 2010—present)
Order of Lenin (February 21, 1972) - for the great
work on the communist education of the working people, a significant
contribution to the development of historical science and in connection
with the 100th anniversary of its founding.
Gratitude of the Minister
of Culture and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation (January
24, 2006) - for the preparation and organization of the exhibition "240
years of the Free Economic Society of Russia"