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Golovnev A. Porcelain Multiethnicity

A. Golovnev
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera)
of the Russian Academy of Sciences
St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0002-5716-655X
E-mail: Andrei_golovnev@bk.ru

 

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ABSTRACT. The Russian Empire, in the course of self-knowledge, earlier than others, in the 18th century, realized itself as a country rich in peoples. This self-knowledge, which developed into self-awareness, led to the birth in Russia of the science of ethnography and the national idea of multiethnicity (multinationality). Through the museum, masquerade, drawings and engravings, the pictorial manner of representing multinational Russia spread in 18th century to porcelain (performed by the sculptor Rachette). In honor of the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov, Nicholas II ordered the sculptural series “Nations of Russia” to be sculpted in porcelain. The scientific curator of the project was Academician Vasily Radlov, director of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera). According to the general census of the Russian Empire in 1897, he compiled a list of 150 peoples whose costumes were kept in the funds of the Kunstkamera or in drawings. Work on the series lasted ten years, from 1907 to 1917, and was interrupted at the 74th sculpture by the revolution and the death of Radlov, who acted as the superwiser of the project and, to some extent, the director of the “imperial porcelain doll theater”. The Kunstkamera served as a laboratory for the scientific design of the “Nations of Russia” series. It is no coincidence that “biscuits” — unglazed and unpainted examples of the sculptural series — have been preserved in its collections. Today's exhibition of the Kunstkamera reproduces the concept of “porcelain Russia”, including the gloomy facial expressions noticeable on the figures, as if foreshadowing the coming uprising of peoples against the empire of peoples.

 

KEYWORDS: multiethnic Russia, ethnography, porcelain, Kunstkamera, Radlof

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8600-2024-2(24)-87-114
UDC 39:738.1

 

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