The Imperial Hermitage in the formation of cultural memory (second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries)
Abstract
This article is devoted to examining the expositions of the Imperial Hermitage of the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries from the point of view of their infl uence on the formation of cultural memory and historical perceptions of Russian society. As part of the study, the exhibits were selected and distributed according to historical eras, illustrated by the plots of the works. We entered all the selected paintings into tables, where we added information on the main characters and events depicted in them. After that, the data were combined into consolidated tables, in which the number of repeats of each individual character and historical event was counted. This made it possible to single out a number of the most popular heroes and events of world history as refl ected in the exhibitions of the Imperial Hermitage, to determine the share of each era in the information space of the picture gallery and to trace their changes over more than half a century. We selected and characterised the images of historical fi gures of various eras that are most often found in the expositions of the Imperial Hermitage, i.e. Antiquity, Middle Ages, Modern History. We also studied the transformation of their images over time for visitors of the studied period. After analysing the information received, we tried to draw conclusions about the image of World History that was broadcast by the Imperial Hermitage through its picture gallery, comparing them with the results of our research on the image of the Russian history refl ected in the expositions of the Russian Museum of the same era.
Keywords
