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Contact information • History • Access & Facilities • Bibliography
ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: H-1Last update of repository: 24 June 2020Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii muzei (GIM)Previous names
A commission to establish the museum was founded in 1872, and there were several different names proposed before its official opening. The museum was given its imperial name in 1881 (and in some cases also used the name of Emperor Alexander III), and placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Education. It was opened to the public in 1883 in the building specially constructed for it in Red Square, designed by the architect V.O. Shervud (Sherwood) and the engineer A.A. Semenov. The initial museum collection came from the Sevastopol Division of the Polytechnic Exhibition which was held in Moscow in 1872 by the Society of Friends of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography (Obshchestvo liubitelei estestvoznaniia, antropologii i etnografii) to mark the bicentennial of the birth of Peter the Great. Later the museum holdings were augmented by the collections of E.V. Barsov, P.I. Shchukin, I.E. Zabelin, D.Ia. Samokvasov, A.P. Bakhrushin, A.D. Chertkov, and other well-known Russian collectors. Many private library holdings were acquired with the major prerevolutionary collections. The museum’s library from the beginning included the rich prerevolutionary holdings from the Moscow City Chertkov Public Library, which had been opened to the public in 1863 but was taken over by the Moscow City Duma in 1871 and became the basis for the library of the Historical Museum. The library was likewise enriched by other prerevolutionary acquisitions. From 1917 to 1929 the museum was called the Russian Historical Museum, but was subsequently renamed the State Historical Museum (GIM). After the Revolution, its holdings were significantly augmented by nationalized collections, including many from Russian Orthodox Church sources, such as the rich manuscript collection from the Synodal Library. The rich Museum of Old Moscow (Muzei “Staraia Moskva”), established in 1918, was affiliated with GIM through the early 1920s, but when that museum was closed down in 1926, its collections were taken over by GIM. The museum library was likewise enriched by holdings from nationalized private and religious collections were also acquired by the Historical Museum, and in 1922 they were reorganized as the State Historical Library. Remaining part of the museum until 1938, it was then transformed into the newly established separate State Public Historical Library of the RSFSR (GPIB) (see G–3). GIM itself was enriched by many “trophy” acquisitions in the aftermath of World War II. Starting in 1983, the museum was closed down completely for major renovation. In 1990 GIM was reorganized as the Consolidated State Historical Museum, but in 1994 resumed its previous name. Already in December 1991, GIM was added to the register of the most valuable monuments of the cultural heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation. When the neighboring Central Lenin Museum was abolished as a separate institution in 1993, its holdings and building were transferred to GIM (except for its archival holdings which were transferred to RTsKhIDNI—B–12, now RGASPI). The Lenin Museum building had been constructed in 1890–1892 for the Moscow City Council (Gorodskaia duma), designed by the architect D.N. Chichagov. After the Revolution, however, it was taken over by the Lenin Museum, which opened in 1924. That building now houses the Division of Manuscripts, and some museum exhibits are planned there, including some from the Lenin Museum itself. After a long hiatus, several of the newly renovated GIM exhibition rooms opened in September 1997, honoring the Moscow 850-year anniversary celebration, but renovation of other parts of the buildings and exhibits continue. Based on extensive prerevolutionary acquisitions, the Division of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books was founded in 1912 by Viacheslav Nikolaevich Shchepkin, together with the Museum Archive, the latter of which in 1938 was reorganized into the Division of Written Sources (OPI). When the State Literary Museum (GLM) was founded in the 1930s, some of the literary manuscript holdings were transferred there. And after establishment of the Central State Literary Archive of the USSR (now RGALI—see B–7) in 1941, additional literary materials that had been collected in that division were transferred to the new archive. The Division of Pictorial Materials (sometimes translated Graphic Materials) was also formed in 1912 and the Division of Cartography in 1923. The museum has three affiliated branches (filialy); several of those containing archival materials of particular interest are described separately below: (1) Pokrovskii (St. Basil’s) Cathedral Museum (Muzei “Pokrovskii sobor” [Khram Vasiliia Blazhennogo]), founded in 1923 in the Pokrovskii (St. Basil’s) Cathedral, the well-known architectural monument (often also known in English as the Cathedral of the Intercession), which lies on the south side of Red Square and which was built between 1555 and 1561 by the architects Barma and Postnik to commemorate the Russian victory over Kazan (109012, Moscow, Krasnaia ploshchad', 2; tel. +7 495 698-33-04; websites: http://www.shm.ru/museum/hvb/; http://www.museum.ru/M338). (2) The Palaces in Zariad'e—Home of the Romanov Boyars (Palaty v Zariad'e—“Dom boiar Romanovykh”), an architectural monument of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, established as a museum in 1859, with displays of cultural materials from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. (103012, Moscow, ul. Varvarka, 10; tel. +7 495 698-12-56; websites: http://www.shm.ru/museum/pbr/, http://www.museum.ru/M415). (3) Museum of Patriotic War of 1812 year (Muzei Otechestvennoi voiny 1812 goda) opened in 2012 in honor of the 200 anniversary of Patriotic war of 1812 (109012, Moscow, ploshchad' Revoliutsii, 2/3; tel. +7 495 698-24-97; webpage: http://shm.ru/museum/mov/; e-mail: [email protected]). Former GIM Branches Novodevichii Monastery [Convent] (Novodevichii monastyr'), was a branch of GIM from 1934 to 2010, with its adjoining renowned historic cemetery. Claimed by the Russian Orthodox Church, it was transmitted to the church in 2010, transformed into the current: Central Museum of the Moscow Eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church Novodevichii Monastery (Tserkovnyi muzei Moskovskoi eparkhii Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi “Novodevichii monastyr'”, https://ndm-museum.ru/). During the Soviet period, the deconsecrated Church of the Trinity in Nikitniki (Tserkov' “Troitsy v Nikitnikakh”), constructed in 1628–1653 with subsidy from the Nikitnikov merchants, was also open for exhibition as a branch of GIM. There were no archival materials available in that GIM Branch. The museum was closed in 1991, when the building was transmitted to the Orthodox Church and reconsecrated for religious services: Tserkov' Troitsy v Nikitnikakh (102012, Moscow, Nikitnikov per.; http://www.nikitniki.ru/). The Museum of the Decembrists (Muzei dekabristov) was founded in 1987 on the basis of GIM holdings, as a branch (filial) of GIM, housed in the prerevolutionary Moscow city home of the Murav'ev-Apostol family, where several Decembrists had gathered in the early nineteenth century. When GIM could not raise the funds needed for repair and reconstruction of the building, the branch museum was closed in 1997. The archival and other materials from GIM displayed there relating to the Decembrists, and the collection of books made by the Decembrist scholar Academician N.M. Druzhinin, were subsequently transferred to the main GIM facility. |
