A Visitor's Guide to Shamans and Shamanism

During the late imperial period, the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera) in St. Petersburg published guidebooks documenting changes to its galleries and collections. One major reorganization eliminated a gallery dedicated to Russian ethnography, which had displayed Siberian, Central Asian, and some European Russian objects. Siberian and Central Asian materials were subsequently presented as part of an Asian ethnographic collection. Within this new arrangement, shamanism became a unifying category that portrayed Russia in Asia as a culturally contiguous imperial space located east of the Urals.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In the late imperial era, the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera) in St. Petersburg produced a series of guidebooks for visitors that provided an account of the changes in the gallery spaces and collections within the museum. Among the changes was a reorganization of the collection that brought about the removal of a gallery dedicated to Russian ethnography, which had housed Siberian, Central Asian, and a small number of European Russian objects. Siberian and Central Asian materials were then presented by the museum in an Asian ethnographic collection. In this new Asian collection, shamanism emerged as a category that operated to unify Russia in Asia as a culturally contiguous space located in an imperial elsewhere east of the Urals.