On the History of the Russian Concept of the “Living Museum”: Under-Researched Natural Preimages of the Late 19th – First Third of the 20th Century

The article develops a cultural model of the “living museum” concept, popular in modern Russian museology. This model was developed by the author, who relied on existing interpretations of this concept and current examples from museum practice in Russia. The author's research to clarify the conceptual and terminological apparatus of museology, based on the activity approach (works of Nal Zlobin, Vadim Mezhuev, etc.), has been carried out for a number of years. A scientific tradition has developed in Russia, according to which the preimages of the “living museum” include the teachings and concepts of Vsevolod Vsevolodsky-Gerngross, Nikolai Fedorov, Pavel Florensky, etc. The purpose of the publication is to expand these ideas by identifying and characterizing the preimages of the “living museum” in Russia in the end of the nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth century, based on the representation of natural objects. New sources of this period are analyzed (memoirs, diaries, personal correspondence, scientific reports and reports, philosophical and scientific works, museographic sources). The interpretation method, the historical-genetic method and historiographic analysis were used, taking into account the chronological and typological systematization of sources. Examples of comparison of various natural objects with a “living museum”, found in the publications of Vyacheslav Bolotov, Bernhard Buchheim, Mikhail Zavadovsky, Maria Nagibina, Veniamin Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky, Alexander Filippov, etc., are described in detail. The prototypes associated with the Friedrich Falz-Fein Zoological Park and Nature Reserve are examined in detail in the estate “Askania-Nova” (Chapli, Tauride province of the Russian Empire). The most valuable discovery of the study was the preimage of a “living museum”, preserved in Andrei Krasnov’s proposals to create a “corner of Russian tropical nature” in Batumi (Batumi Botanical Garden). Saturated with the creative energy of its creator, this project still inspires researchers of the history of botanical parks. The author comes to the conclusion that, in contrast to modern ideas and concepts of a “living museum”, often associated with the theatricalization of museum space, the identified proposals and projects addressed the idea of preserving heritage in its development. The creators of botanical gardens, zoological parks and reserves used the ambiguous oxymoron “living museum” to characterize the originality and cutting-edge significance of their projects. Their introduction into scientific circulation makes it possible to show the stereotypical nature of modern ideas about the “living museum”.