Boris Matveyevich Sokolov and Museum Work in the USSR of the 1920s

Abstract

Introducing and examining an archival document discovered at the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, the article discusses the academic career of Boris Matveevich Sokolov, a remarkable scholar of Russian ethnography and folklore, whose efforts were instrumental in shaping museum work in the Soviet Union of the 1920s. The archival document casts light on various aspects of the development of museums as academic institutions in the early USSR. It helps us better understand the new emerging concept of ethnographic museum in particular, and Stalin’s idea of science based on the centralized system of state management in general. It further shows Sokolov as a scholar of this new Soviet era, who has an active social stance and proactively leads the Central Ethnographic Museum in Moscow as director, engaging in teaching and popularizing science for the public. In a sense, this unique archival document may be viewed as an autobiographic commentary on Sokolov’s activities as the museum’s manager, which have been little explored and studied to date.