“Goldfish to be confiscated and handed over to the museum...”: House museums of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate in 1917–1922

Abstract

An archival study was performed on the history of house museums in the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, starting from their establishment within the provincial zemstvo institutions through the end of the first five-year period following the October Revolution (1917–1922). Using a localized method, the directions and outcomes of their activities were analyzed, as well as the harsh living conditions faced by the museum directors and their interactions with the local community. The evolution of museum culture in the region was traced, from the early collecting practices to the growing significance of visual materials, private collections of the Nizhny Novgorod aristocracy, and the history of industrial and working-class development. The findings suggest that the house museums of Nizhny Novgorod, established or repurposed to align with the educational and political narratives of the post-revolutionary period, were transitional institutions, bridging pre-revolutionary museum traditions with the emerging educational museum complex of the 1930s.