Antropologicheskij forum, 2020, no. 47

“FUNNY PICTURES”: FROM THE HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHY AND THE MUSEUM OF THE HISTORY OF RELIGION OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE USSR (1932–1933)

Marianna Shakhnovich

St Petersburg State University
7–9 Universitetskaya Emb., St Petersburg, Russia
m.shakhnovich()spbu.ru

Abstract: In the Leningrad of 1932–1933, two events took place in the academic world that would play an important role in the history of Soviet ethnography, museum construction and religious studies: the opening of the Museum of the History of Religion and the reorganization of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences. At that time, the Academy of Sciences considered it a priority to establish research institutes on the basis of academic museums. If a small collective of the new Museum of the History of Religion, headed by its director Vladimir Bogoras, welcomed such an undertaking, then the reform of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, its merger with the Institute for the Study of the Peoples of the USSR and the creation of the Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on their basis was quite painful for many MAE staff and led to the layoff or change in the status of the employees. The article publishes drawings and texts found in the Photo Library of the State Museum of the History of Religion, in the St Petersburg branch of the RAS Archive, and in the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian National Library, reflecting these events in a satirical form. The author presents cartoons from the wall newspaper of the Museum of the History of Religion (1932–1933), depicting Vladimir Bogoras, an ironic note by Bogoras himself about the participation of scientific workers in the exhibition work, as well as a poem by Eugeny Kagarov’s “The Revised Iliad”, which satirically presents personnel changes at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in 1933. The author of the article notes the importance of the discovered satirical works as a source that, like memoirs and letters, reflects subjective impressions and demonstrates a personal attitude to what is happening. In the article, these documents are commented on in detail, showing their importance for the study of the history of the Leningrad community of ethnographers and historians of religion in the early 1930s.

Keywords: V. G. Bogoras, E. G. Kagarov, history of museums of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Museum of the History of Religion of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Acknowledgments: The work was carried out within the framework of the Russian Science Foundation grant no. 16-18-10083 “Study of Religion in the Socio-Cultural Context of the Era: The History of Religious Studies and the Intellectual History of Russia in the 19th and First Half of the 20th Centuries”.

To cite: Shakhnovich M., ‘“Veselye kartinki”: iz istorii Muzeya antropologii i etnografii i Muzeya istorii religii Akademii nauk SSSR (1932‒1933 gg.)’ [“Funny Pictures”: From the History of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography and the Museum of the History of Religion of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1932–1933)], Antropologicheskij forum, 2020, no. 47, pp. 139–153.

doi: 10.31250/1815-8870-2020-16-47-139-153

URL: http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/047/shakhnovich.pdf