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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: E-56

Last update of repository: 15 March 2020

Rossiiskaia Akademiia khudozhestv (RAKh)


Previous names
1947–1992   Akademiia khudozhestv SSSR (AKh SSSR)
[Academy of Arts of the USSR]
1933–1947   Vserossiiskaia Akademiia khudozhestv (VAKh)
[All-Russian Academy of Arts]
1764–1917   Imperatorskaia Akademiia khudozhestv (IAKh)
[Imperial Academy of Arts]
1757–1764   Akademiia trekh znatneishikh khudozhestv—zhivopisi, skul'ptury i arkhitektury
[Academy of the Three Distinguished Arts—Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture]
History
The initial predecessor of the Academy of Arts was established in 1757 as the Academy of the Three Distinguished Arts—Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. Reorganized in 1764 as the Imperial Academy of Arts, during the nineteenth century through 1917 it was under the Ministry of the Imperial Court.
        In 1918 the Academy and its functions were formally abolished, and the direction of artistic affairs was transferred to the People’s Commissariat of Education (Narkompros) and its holdings were transferred to other institutions. At the same time the Higher Art School (Vysshee khudozhestvennoe uchilishche AKh) was preserved and reorganized as Free Art Studios (Svobodnye khudozhestvennye masterskie), with several intermediary changes of name. In 1933, the All-Russian Academy of Arts (VAKh) was opened in Leningrad, basically as an educational institution. In August 1947 VAKh was reorganized as the Academy of Arts of the USSR in Moscow, with the status of the highest scientific artistic center of the country, also serving to prepare artists (painters, sculptors, and graphic artists), architects, and art scholars with higher qualifications.
        In May 1992, AKh SSSR was reorganized as the Russian Academy of Arts, with the status of the highest state scientific-artistic organization of the Russian Federation. A series of St. Petersburg institutions were brought within the RAKh system, including the St. Petersburg I.E. Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, the B.V. Ioganson Secondary Art School, the Scientific Research Museum and its branches, the Scientific Library, archives, mosaic and bronze studios, laboratories, and others. Already in December 1991 the Academy had been registered as one of the most valuable monuments of the cultural heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation.
        The archive of the All-Russian Academy of Arts was established in 1933 as a depository for the post-1918 records of all higher educational institutions in the arts. It was reorganized in 1947 as the Scientific Bibliographic Archive (NBA) and served as a consolidated agency archive for the Academy of Arts of the USSR, and since 1992, the Russian Academy of Arts. The separate Archive of Negatives and Photoreproductions of Art was established in 1965.
        In May 2006 the Scientific Bibliographic Archive (NBA RAKh) and Scientific Archive of Negatives and Photoreproductions were combined under the joint administration of the Scientific Archive RAKh in St. Petersburg and now constitute its two divisions.

N.B. For RAKh Scientific Research Museum (NIM RAKh), see H–237. For the RAKh Scientific Library (NB RAKh), see G–18.


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted