Contribution of the Missionary Historic and Ethnographical Museum of the Kazan Spiritual Academy

Abstract

The urgency of the problem under study is conditioned by the increased interest of contemporary researchers in the problems of interethnic and interconfessional interaction. In the second half of the XIXth - early XXth centuries a major religious and educational, missionary and ethnic-political institution in Russia, the Kazan Theological Academy was one of the leading centers for studying the history, culture, ethnography and the languages of Turkic, Finno-Ugric and Mongolian peoples. The purpose of the study is to present objectively the contribution of the Missionary Historical Ethnographic Museum of the Kazan Theological Academy to the study and the preservation of the historical and cultural heritage of the Russian state peoples. The museum extensive collections became the basis for modern museums. During the study, the experience of the creation and the functioning of the only missionary historical and ethnographic museum in Russia was analyzed, its contribution to the preservation of spiritual and material culture, written and printed sources, the informative base about the life and work of the multinational and multi-confessional people of the Volga, Urals, Siberia and the Far East was determined. Based on archival materials, the authors revealed the features of the museum activity at the Kazan Theological Academy. In the course of the topic research, the authors succeeded to identify and collect a huge amount of diverse materials (historical, linguistic, ethnographic ones) about the peoples of Russia, which are of great practical importance for the study of modern interethnic and interfaith relations origins in the Republic of Tatarstan and Russian Federation. The materials of the article can be useful to anyone who is interested in missionary politics and modern ethnic-political processes in Russian Federation.