Hoards of Kievan Rus’: Research and museumification experience

Abstract

The article, in the context of museum affairs, examines a specific phenomenon of material culture, such as hoards of jewelry from the era of Kievan Rus’. Despite the fact that, since the 19th century, these items have been included in the collections of the largest national and foreign museums, and humanitarian sciences have accumulated considerable experience in their comprehensive research, in the field of exhibiting, from the authors’ view, the hoards are still not fully interpreted as exhibits with unique properties. Based on this provision, the article poses the problem of identifying the relationship between the scholarly and museum spheres in order to develop new approaches to actualizing the hoards as sources of information about Ancient Rus’ and presenting them to a wide audience. The article bears a historiographic orientation because in order to solve the problem posed, it is first required to study separately the already accumulated theoretical and practical experience. Accordingly, the article compiles a retrospective review of the hoards’ existence, providing the situational context and history of archaeological excavations. Then, it traces both the process of museum collections’ replenishment and the course of examining, comprehending and reconstruction of hoard complexes within a variety of scholarly disciplines. On the example of permanent exhibitions and temporary projects, the article considers the tendencies of the current experience of exhibiting, in which there is a focus on the subject method of constructing the exposition that does not contribute to the “development of new meanings” and the creative disclosure of the content features of the exhibits. The authors conclude that it is advisable to apply an interdisciplinary approach to the development of conceptions for new exhibitions as a way to more fully reveal the cognitive, ontological and axiological potential of the Ancient Rus’ hoards.