THE HANDICRAFTS MUSEUM AS AN ACTUAL FORM OF MUSEUM ACTIVITY IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE XIX - THE FIRST THIRD OF THE XX CENTURIES (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE MOSCOW HANDICRAFTS MUSEUM)
Authors:   Kizhi State Open Air Museum of History, Architecture and Ethnography (Petrozavodsk, Russian Federation), Rychkova Ekaterina А. 
Published: February 2021

The development of folk crafts in Russia was closely connected with the formation of handicrafts museums that performed complex tasks of preserving, studying and promoting folk art. The study of their history today is one of the problems that have not yet been sufficiently studied in museology. Handicrafts museums were considered by researchers primarily in the general historical context of the influence of state policy and provincial zemstvos on the development of handicraft industry in Russia. However, the phenomenon of handicrafts museums remains insufficiently studied from the point of view of history and the theory of museum work. The type of the handicrafts museum has not yet been singled out as an actual form of the museum institution of the last quarter of the XIX – the first third of the XX centuries, which spread in several provinces of the Russian Empire. The purpose of the article is to review the main activities of the Moscow Handicrafts Museum - an example of the formation of new types of museums in Russia and their influence on the development of folk crafts in the second half of the 19th century – the first third of the 20th centuries. Moscow Handicrafts Museum opened in 1885. His task was to fully promote the development of folk art and the implementation of handicrafts. One of the main features and goals of creating the Handicrafts Museums in the Russian Empire was the formation of an established system of state patronage over the peasants who were freed from serfdom and promotion of their involvement in the new sector of the economy. The museum staff formed the museum collection, actively participated in organizing the training of folk craftsmen, arranging production workshops, became intermediaries in the art market, and was engaged in active exhibition work around the world, especially at large industrial fairs. In the 1890–1910s, the case started in Moscow spread quickly to almost the whole country. Handicrafts museums immediately arose in several provinces of Russia. One of the program documents of that period was the concept of the development of the Handicrafts Museum, proposed in a report of Sergey Morozov in 1910. Thus, at the beginning of the twentieth century in Moscow, the structure of an effective museum was formed, aimed at systematic work with folk crafts and successfully involving a wide range of partners: artists and scientists, merchants and foreign industrialists. Thanks to the assistance of handicrafts museums in Russia in the late XIX – early XX centuries traditional folk crafts were able to survive and be adequately represented throughout the world. The aesthetic significance of folk art has been recognized. The study of folk art has become an important subject of scientific research. All aspects of the multifaceted history of the formation and development of handicrafts museums and their role in the socio-economic and cultural development of Russia are of great scientific interest and require careful further study.