Quaderni di Venezia Arti

Constructing the National Image

Identity and Material Culture in Late Imperial Russia Public Museum Practices

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Abstract

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, late imperial Russia began witnessing the so-called phenomenon of ‘museomania’. A peculiar example of this process of ‘musealisation’ was the Commercial and Industrial Museum of Artisanal Products of the Moscow Province Zemstvo, otherwise referred to as the Moscow Kustar’ Museum, established in 1885. Created as a focal point for the arts and crafts production in the ‘Russian style’ that had come into vogue at that time, the museum soon took on the role of a plural and hybrid space for reflection on and reconstruction of the national visual identity through the arts.


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Submitted: Dec. 2, 2022 | Published Dec. 21, 2022 | Language: en

Keywords National image • Arts and crafts • Cultural discourse • Kustar • Folklore • Cultural space • Visual identity • Russian style • Museum

Copyright © 2022 Giulia Gelmi. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-675-6/016


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