Three anniversaries: milestones in the history of the Heritage Institute

The article analyzes the key events in the history of the Heritage Institute, which determined the main directions and stages of its formation and development as one of the leading centers of Russian humanitarian knowledge. The analysis is based on the most important publications of research teams of the Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage named after D.S. Likhachev and the Russian Institute of Cultural Studies and its historical predecessors. A complex of classical methods of historical research was applied (narrative, historical-genetic, diachronic, etc.). The normative acts that determined the formation of the Central Research Institute of Local History Methods (1932) are characterized, the main directions of the Institute’s activities are identified (including during the Great Patriotic War), the change in the thematic focus of research in the post-war period is traced, and the expansion of research problems up to to the coverage of the entire system of culture after the Institute was renamed to the Russian Institute of Cultural Studies. The reasons for the formation of the Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage and the tasks that the research team faced in the first years of its operation are determined. The importance of research on the fields of historical battles that the Institute conducted since the second half of the 1990s is noted. The role of the Institute in the development of programs for the cultural development of historical cities and rural areas is analyzed, the activities of the Marine Arctic Complex Expedition are considered. The administrative transformations associated with the merger of the Heritage Institute and the Russian Institute of Cultural Studies (2014) are characterized, the history of formation and the main milestones in the activities of the Southern Branch of the Heritage Institute are considered in detail. The work carried out by the Heritage Institute as the base organization of the CIS member states in the field of world heritage conservation is described. The positive changes in the activities of the Institute that occurred in 2018-2022 are analyzed, the unique events held under the auspices of the Institute in recent years are listed. The author concludes that the Heritage Institute, with its almost a century-long history, is currently not only a leading sectoral institution in the field of cultural studies and historical memory preservation, but also a consolidator of experts conducting research in culture-related sciences.