THE SIBERIAN COLLECTION OF THE ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUM IN CRACOW IN THE LIGHT OF FIELDWORK AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL REINTERPRETATIONS

Abstract

The paper presents the results of the academic museum Project called Anthropological reinterpretation of the Siberian collections from the Ethnographic Museum in Cracow that came from Polish 19th-century explorers of Siberia financed by the National Programme for the Development of Humanities (2016–2019). Four major topics of investigation among the collections’ source communities have been presented: Benedykt Dybowski’s collection from Kamchatka, Konstanty Podhorski’s collection from Chukotka, Nenets’ clothing donated by Izydor Sobański, and two cult figurines which reached the Cracow Museum from Jan Żurakowski. The presentation reveals the assumptions of the in-field museology: the method combining the anthropological perspective with museology elements. Furthermore, the digital repository www.etnomuzeum.eu/syberia is discussed; it is the one that makes the collections and research results available online. The paper may prove of interest to professionals curating collections, culture researchers, historians, cultural anthropologists, art historian, conservation services, museology theoreticians.