Tsarist Russia joined Europe’s museum craze a little late, developing a few large museums by the time of the Revolution. The USSR later enthusiastically developed museums as educational and propaganda tools – even pioneering new types of museums. Today, the cities within the former Eastern Bloc contain surprising numbers of these institutions, both private and publically funded, and on nearly every subject imaginable. Many of these museums have survived wars, revolutions, and economic and political collapse, often by innovating ways of preserving, funding, and maintaining their collections. For anyone studying museum science, Russia and other former soviet bloc countries make for fascinating study abroad destinations.
This article was originally published on SRAS.org in February, 2006 and was donated to this site at its launch in 2011. The article focuses on the only piece of Russian art to be featured at The Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition called “International Arts and Crafts” in 2006. That exhibit later toured America. In his […]