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Red
Square.
State
Historical
Museum.
Moscow.
Государственный
Исторический
Музей.
Москва.
The State Historical Museum (Russian: Государственный исторический музей
Gosudarstvenny istoricheskiy muzyey) of Russia is a museum of Russian history wedged between Red Square and Manege Square in Moscow. Its exhibitions range from relics of prehistoric tribes that lived on the territory of present-day Russia
through priceless artworks acquired by members of the Romanov dynasty. The total number of objects in the museum's collection comes to millions. The place where the museum now stands was formerly occupied by the Principal Medicine Store
built by order of Peter the Great in the Moscow baroque style. Several rooms in that building housed royal collections of antiquities. Other rooms were occupied by the Moscow University
founded by Mikhail Lomonosov in 1755. The museum was founded in 1872 by Ivan Zabelin
Aleksey Uvarov and several other Slavophiles interested in promoting Russian history and national self-awareness. The board of trustees
composed of Sergey Solovyov
Vasily Klyuchevsky
Uvarov and other leading historians
presided over the construction of the museum building. After a prolonged competition the project was handed over to Vladimir Osipovich Shervud (or Sherwood
1833–97). The present structure was built based on Sherwood's neo-Russian design between 1875 and 1881. The first 11 exhibit halls officially opened in 1883 during a visit from the Tsar and his wife.[2] Then in 1894 Tsar Alexander III became the honorary
1895
the museum was renamed the Tsar Alexander III Imperial Russian History Museum.[3] Its interiors were intricately decorated in the Russian Revival style by such artists as Viktor Vasnetsov
Henrik Semiradsky
and Ivan Aivazovsky. During the Soviet period the murals were proclaimed gaudy and were plastered over. The museum went through a painstaking restoration of its original appearance between 1986 and 1997. Notable items include a longboat excavated from th
gold artifacts of the Scythians
birch-bark scrolls of Novgorod
manuscripts going back to the sixth century
Russian folk ceramics
and wooden objects. The library boasts the manuscripts of the Chludov Psalter (860s)
Svyatoslav's Miscellanies (1073)
Mstislav Gospel (1117)
Yuriev Gospel (1119)
and Halych Gospel (1144). The museum's coin collection alone includes 1.7 million coins
making it the largest in Russia. In 1996
the number of all articles in the museum's collection achieved 4
373
757. A branch of the museum is housed in the Romanov Chambers Zaryadye and Saint Basil's Cathedral. In 1934 The Museum of Women's Emancipation at the Novodevichy Convent became part of the State Historical Museum. Some of the churches and other monastic | Link to this photo view: |
