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Contact information • History • Access & Facilities • Bibliography
ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: H-275Last update of repository: 18 March 2020Gosudarstvennyi muzei istorii religii (GMIR)Previous names
The museum was founded in 1931 as the Museum of the History of Religion under the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, on the initiative of the ethnographer, V.G. Bogoraz-Tan, and was opened to the public in 1932. It occupied the Cathedral of the Mother of God of Kazan (Sobor Kazanskoi Bozh'ei Materi), built between 1801 and 1811 by the serf architect A.N. Voronikhin, which had been closed to religious services in 1928. Its holdings were augmented by collections from a number of museums that were shut down, including in 1938 materials from the State Antireligious Museum (Gosudarstvennyi Antireligioznyi muzei—1930–1937), which had been housed in the former Isaac Cathedral in Leningrad, and in 1947 from the Central Antireligious Museum in Moscow (Tsentral'nyi antireligioznyi muzei—1928–1946). The museum also acquired materials from various private collections and documents accumulated on expeditions. In 1961 the museum was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR. The present name of the museum dates from 1990. The museum was still housed in the Kazan Cathedral, one wing of which was reopened for religious services in 1992. The Scientific Historical Archive was organized as Manuscript Division in 1953 on the initiative of V.D. Bonch-Bruevich, the early Bolshevik intellectual who had previously organized the extensive archival holdings of the State Literary Museum in Moscow (see H–63) and who then directed the Museum of the History of Religion under the Academy of Sciences. Part of the documentation had previously been part of the museum exhibits fond, but also consisted of materials brought together from the various predecessor museums. Additional holdings were acquired in copy from TsGALI SSSR (now RGALI—B–7) in Moscow and some documents came from TsGIA SSSR (now RGIA—B–3), and from the Archive of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Leningrad (now PFA RAN—E–20). The Fond of Photographs and Sound Recordings, later divided into two separate fonds—Fond of Photographs and Fond of Sound Recordings and Multimedia, was formed as a separate administrative entity in 1968. |
