The Museum of the Jews of Georgia (1933 – 1952) in the Context of Soviet Ethnography

Representation of Jewish culture in the museums of the USSR was a phenomenon of two origins: Bolshevist political appeal to the Jewish population of the Soviet Union and the indigenization policy developed in 1924 – 1933 in pursuit of the sustainable national paradigm across the country. The museum of the Jews of Georgia was founded in Tiflis in the final stage of the Soviet indigenization campaign in 1933 when the Soviet ethnography experienced a dramatic reboot and developed a new museum discourse. The extensive fieldwork of the Museum of the Jews of Georgia and its cooperation with the State Museum of Ethnography in Leningrad promoted this institution into the central venue for the ethnographic researchers exploring the cultural heritage of the Georgian Jews. The Museum organized ethnographic expeditions to the settlements of the Georgian Jews before and after the Second World War and published the results of its researches in the Works of the Museum. In my paper, I would like to explore the Georgian Jewish ethnographic activities in the context of the Soviet ethnographic doctrine and the Jewish museology policies in particular. Of special interest are cases of approach transfer, the museum’s practical reaction to the turning points in the Soviet ethnographic methodology during the 1930-ies as well as the activity of the museum during the Stalinist persecution of the Jews after 1947.