Aron Gidalevich and his collection in the State Museum-Reserve “Tauric Chersonesos” (exhibition dedicated to the 155th anniversary of his birth)

Abstract

In this article the exhibition “Volunteer of eternity: the legacy of Aron Gidalevich. To the 155th anniversary of his birth (about Sevastopol and Sevastopol residents…)”, which took place in the State Museum-Reserve “Tauric Chersonesos”, is discussed. The authors describe the exposition, which was created in order to fully present the part of A. Gidalevich’s collection preserved in the museum. Taking into account the fact that no special exhibitions of this kind have been held, the authors of the exposition in this article reconstruct the history of the existence of the collection on the basis of authentic objects and documents, trace the fate of objects, the processes of their transfer from one owner to another, as well as curious moments related to the study and restoration of individual things. In the process of working on the exhibition, the authors came to the conclusion that the identity of the collector A. Gidalevich arouses considerable interest among researchers, and in the conditions of the information vacuum that has developed around his person, the reconstruction of his biographical line comes to the fore. In this regard, additional archival research was carried out, which made it possible to identify a group of documents on the history of pre-revolutionary Sevastopol and the activities of A. Gidalevich. The article is intended for a wide range of historians, students, specialists in the history of Russia and in the field of museology, primarily from regions remote from the Crimea, who could not attend the exhibition, but are interested in getting acquainted with the materials presented at it. This explains the narrative style of the article written as a guided tour of the exposition.