D.V. Kepin presents the employees of the Department of History and Sociology of Science and Technology with an anniversary monograph.
On 22 October 2024, a meeting of the scientific seminar of the Department of History and Sociology of Science and Technology of the State Institution "Dobrov Institute for Scientific and Technological Potential and Science History Studies of the NAS of Ukraine" was held, where, as part of the staff training and exchange of experience, the renowned Ukrainian historian, museologist and monument expert, senior research fellow of the Department of Retrospective Bibliography of the State Scientific Institution "Book Chamber of Ukraine named after Ivan Fedorov" Dmitry Volodymyrovych Kepin delivered a review report "Museology as a Scientific Discipline". There was also a presentation of the anniversary edition of the publication "Kepin Dmitry Volodymyrovych: Biobibliographic Index. Tytova O. M. (chief editor of the series; chief editor of the issue), ed. Kepin D. V., ed. col.: Homeniuk V. M. [et al.]; Center for Monument Studies of the NAS of Ukraine and UTOPIK; DNU "Book Chamber of Ukraine named after I. Fedorov". Kyiv: DNU "Book Chamber of Ukraine named after I. Fedorov", 2024. 68 p. (Series: "Biobibliographic Indexes"; issue 10)"
The speaker noted that in modern science in Ukraine and abroad, methodological discussions are ongoing on the advisability of separating museology (museum studies) into a separate branch of scientific knowledge. Research is being conducted on the history of the formation of both museology and its component part of museum work (museum studies). Since the mid-20th century, textbooks and dictionaries have been published, which reveal the specifics of museological knowledge through the prism of the activities of museums of various profiles. In 2016, a monographic study by the historian-museologist R. V. Mankovskaya was published in Ukraine, in which museology is considered as a scientific discipline with its own object and subject of research, and the functions of the museum in the modern socio-cultural space are analyzed.
At the same time, with the development of methodological principles, museology is developing and monument studies as a scientific discipline, with various definitions of this science, which is seen as a field aimed at studying and preserving cultural heritage. The museum is analyzed as a cultural phenomenon in historical retrospect and a unique communication environment - a communicative system. Meanwhile, researchers pay attention to the specifics of natural museums (S. Astma, A. Maran-Stevanovic, O. S. Klimishin), which makes it possible to identify geological, paleontological, zoological and botanical museology.
The scientist expressed the opinion that the construction of a universal periodization of world museology and museum studies is hardly possible, since until the 16th century. in European culture we can talk about the prehistory of museology, but not of museology. It was during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment that the first scientific treatises on museum work appeared in European countries, primarily in England, Holland, Denmark, Flanders, Florence, Croatia, Montenegro, and Sweden, which were associated with the development of natural science and humanities. Descriptions of antiquities, in particular Greco-Roman culture, works of fine and decorative and applied art, were published, and catalogs of book collections, as well as natural science collections, were compiled. The first works of fine art appeared, depicting the interiors of "Kunstkammers," which became widespread in the 17th and 18th centuries. According to the researcher, the portrait of the Belarusian enlightener F. Skaryna (c. 1486 - 1540 or 1541), which is included in his translation of "Byvlia Ruska" (1517 - 1519), which was published in Prague in 22 books, gives an idea of the interior of the first Renaissance "Kunstkammer" gatherings. The room depicts F. Skaryna, surrounded by natural history collections, scientific instruments, tools and books.
Such works can be conditionally divided into two groups. The first group includes mainly graphic works depicting collections of natural and scientific nature, and the second group includes collections of paintings and decorative and applied arts. For example, the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts in Kyiv exhibits a painting by representatives of the Flemish school David Teniers the Younger (1582 – 1649) and Frans Franken II (1581 – 1642) “The Cabinet of an Art Lover”. In other paintings, we can see complex collections that included natural collections, anatomical preparations, “curious” things, works of decorative and applied arts and painting. Images of museum collections of ethnographic and memorial nature have also survived to our time.
The works of the English philosopher F. Bacon (1561–1626) were of great importance for the development of museological thought, who in his work “New Atlantis” proposed the structure of the Academy of Sciences, where inventions and sculptural portraits of inventors would be exhibited in separate rooms. Thus, the philosopher envisaged the organization of a museum of science and technology.
A significant step forward in the development of the theory and practice of museum work was the work of C. Linnaeus (1707–1778). Based on his own collection in the 1730s, he created a natural history museum in Uppsala, open to students. In 1753, his treatise "Instructions on the Preservation of Natural History Museum Collections" was published, where the museum was defined as an institution whose functions are the collection, storage and scientific research study of material evidence of man and samples of nature. C. Linnaeus was the first in Europe to train museum personnel, and had doctoral students from European countries who defended their dissertations on natural history museology.
Prominent figures of German culture of the Enlightenment and Classicism J.-J. Winckelmann (1717–1768) and J.-W. Goethe (1749 – 1832) stood at the origins of museology. The foundation of archaeology and art history is associated with the name of J.-J. Winckelmann. He wrote the fundamental work “History of the Art of Antiquity”, which is a valuable source for recreating the history of museology in Italy, Florence, the Vatican, and Germany. J.-W. Goethe used the term “Museumskunde” (German), i.e. “museology”, in the columns of the journal “On Art and Antiquities in the Lands Along the Rhine and Main” in 1816.
In the work "Experience of the Philosophy of Sciences, or Analytical Exposition of the Natural Classification of All Human Knowledge" (1834-1843), the French physicist A. M. Ampère (1775-1836) identifies archaeology as a scientific discipline that studies the origin of monuments, which is divided into mnemonology and comparative archaeology. Thus, A.-M. Ampère was the first to introduce the term "monument studies" in Europe.
In the second half of the 19th century. the differentiation of sciences continues to occur, which also influenced the development of museology. The process of integration of sciences is also observed. D.V. Kepin offers his own definitions: museology is a cultural discipline that studies a specific axiological (value) "museum" attitude of man to reality. Its object is museology as a socio-cultural phenomenon, and the subject is the phenomenon of a person's "museum" attitude to reality in different historical eras.
Monument studies is an interdisciplinary science that studies monument protection in historical, theoretical, technical, legal, and economic aspects. The object of its research is immovable monuments of natural and cultural heritage; the subject is the monument-scientific essence of natural and cultural heritage objects.
Natural museology is an integral part of museology, the subject of which is the exhibition reflection of the history of the formation of natural science knowledge.
At the current stage of the development of European museology, we can talk about the formation of museological schools in the world and Ukraine, in particular in Kyiv. The first museological school can be considered the scientific school of Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor G. G. Mezentseva (1923–1997) – Candidate of Historical Sciences, Professor Yu. A. Omelchenko (1937–2017), which was formed in the 1950s at the Department of Archaeology and Museology of the Faculty of History of the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv State (now National) University.
Summarizing, D. V. Kepin emphasized that the structural elements of museology also require further research.