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Contact information • History • Access & Facilities • Bibliography
ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: H-33Last update of repository: 16 March 2020Gosudarstvennyi istoriko-kul'turnyi muzei-zapovednik “Moskovskii Kreml'”Previous names
The forerunner of the present museum was the Workshop and Armory, which had existed as a museum since 1806 under the control of the Moscow Building Department (Ekspeditsiia Moskovskogo stroeniia). In 1831 the Moscow Armory became an independent organization, under the Moscow Court Office of the Ministry of the Imperial Court, and a new building was constructed between 1849–1851. In 1858 the post of Keeper (arkhivarius) of the Armory Archive was created, but in 1869 the earliest records together with the documents of other Kremlin institutions were combined into the Moscow Palace Archive (Moskovskii dvortsovyi arkhiv). After a number of subsequent reorganizations and changes of name, these materials were transferred to state archival custody and are now held in the Russian State Archive of Early Acts—RGADA (B–2). After the October Revolution in 1917 the museum was taken over by the People’s Commissariat of Education (Narkompros RSFSR) and was called the State Armory. Subsequently the Kremlin cathedrals—the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel (Arkhangel'skii), the Cathedral of the Annunciation (Blagoveshchenskii), and the Cathedral of the Dormition (or the Assumption) (Uspenskii)—together with a number of churches, the former Boyars’ Palace, the Terems (Towers) Palace, and the Patriarchial Palace came under the control of the museum. The museum received part of the archives and libraries of these buildings, as well as those of a number of nationalized historical monuments like the Patriarchial Sacristy (Vestry) (Patriarshaia riznitsa), and various monasteries and churches. It also received private collections. At the same time various museum exhibits were transferred from the Armory to the State Valuables Repository (Gosudarstvennoe khranilishche tsennostei). In 1922 the State Armory and the Kremlin cathedrals, which from 1923 onwards functioned as museums, together with the seventeenth-century Boyar Museum, were brought together to form the Armory State Museum of Decorative Arts. In 1924 the museum was renamed the Consolidated Museum of Decorative Arts. It comprised the Furniture Museum (Muzei mebeli) (1918–1928), the Porcelain Museum (Muzei farfora) (1918–1931), and the Toy Museum (Muzei igrushki). After the breakup of the Consolidated Museum in 1929, the State Armory went back to its former name, and in 1932 was transferred to the control of the Committee for Supervision of Academic and Educational Establishments (Komitet po zavedyvaniiu uchenymi i uchebnymi uchrezhdeniiami TsIK SSSR). In 1938 the museum was transferred to the control of the Moscow Kremlin Commandant’s Administration (Upravlenie komendatury Moskovskogo Kremlia) and for all intents and purposes lost its independence as a cultural institution. This situation became a fact in 1947 when the museum was reduced to the status of one of the departments of the Moscow Kremlin Commandant’s Administration. Independent status was restored to the museum in April 1960, when on the basis of its fonds and the Kremlin cathedral museums a new amalgamation was formed—the Moscow Kremlin State Museums, which came under the Ministry of Culture of the USSR. After reconstruction of a number of architectural monuments in the Kremlin that formed part of the museum complex, the Museum of Applied Arts and Seventeenth-Century Russian Life (Muzei prikladnogo iskusstva i byta Rossii XVII v.) was opened in 1962 as a branch within the museum complex (tel. +7 495 695-42-56, 695-92-23; webpage: http://www.museum.ru/M426). The museum complex received its present name in 1991, when it was reorganized and transferred to the control of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. In December 1991 the museum was added to the federal register of the most valuable monuments of the cultural heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation. The Scientific Archive of the Kremlin Museums has existed since 1960, when all the documents connected with the Armory and the Kremlin cathedrals were transferred from the Moscow Kremlin Commandant’s Administration to the museum. In 1975 the fonds of the Scientific Archive and the Library formed the basis of the Division of Manuscript, Printed, and Graphic Art Fonds. There is a separate Division of Photographs and Slides. |
