Russian museums in French publications at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries

Abstract

This paper explores the awareness of French researchers and the readership about the realities of museum practice in Russia at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. The question arises concerning the inclusion of Russian museums in the informational and cultural context of France during the formation of the Russian-French alliance, key objects of interest and principles for their description are also analyzed. This approach, based on reviews and special studies, is intended to outline a list of museums that have attracted the greatest attention of French authors. Among them are museums of national history (State Historical Museum), technology (Polytechnic Museum), art collections (Hermitage, Tretyakov Gallery, collection of P. I. Shchukin) and collections of arts and crafts (the Baron Stieglitz Art and Industry Museum, the collection of the Stroganov School). This panorama represents a very characteristic choice for the French observer of that period, seeking to learn a new country. The approach of description of Russian museum landscape is based on the analogies with the influential French museums of that time. The Louvre Museum, the Luxembourg Museum, the Museum of French Monuments, the Trocadero Ethnographic Museum, the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, the Central Union of Decorative and Applied Arts, and the Cluny Museum formed the museum landscape of France during the period being analyzed. All descriptions appeal to this context, which reflected the key points for the French mentality (national history, national and European art, decorative and applied art, technology, architecture) fixed in the museum building process. Thus, the actual and most striking events of Russian museum practice at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries were recorded in French publications, which could contribute to the formation of an extensive, non-simplistic view of the Russian cultural and museum process during that period.