On the Preservation of Scientific Traditions in Museology: the Life and Works of D. A. Ravikovich

The study of museum personalities, the predecessors of the modern generation of museologists, remains relevant. Paradoxically, the biographies of those who worked more recently are less known and the works, ideas, and contributions to science of those who worked more recently are less understood. This article is dedicated to Dina Akimovna Ravikovich (1922–1995), a historian and theorist of Soviet museology. The article presents the main facts of her biography and assesses the scientific significance of her most important publications. For about half a century, Ravikovich worked in the largest museology center in the country – the Russian Institute of Cultural Studies, studying the history of domestic museum activities, generalizing the experience of Soviet museums, and developing a number of new theoretical problems of museum science. The author worked for more than ten years together with D. A. Ravikovich, and considers it important to have time to preserve the traditions passed down by the previous generation of museum specialists, and the living memory of remarkable people, not yet reflected on paper.