The Department of Russian Culture is one of those organized in the Museum after the October Revolution of 1917. It was created in 1941 and takes now 40 rooms of the Winter Palace. Special emphasis deserves the fact that it is the history of Russian culture and not the development of fine arts in Russia that the Hermitage is intended to demonstrate, the Russian School being represented in about 100 museums and art galleries of the country, of which the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg are the noteworthiest.
The contents of the exhibitions of the Russian Section in the Hermitage can be summed up by saying that they comprise archaeological material, memorial objects, paintings, engravings and specimens of applied art brought together to represent Russian culture from the 7th to the 19th century.
The early stage of Russian culture (RUSSIAN CULTURE, 7th—15th CENTURIES. (Hermitage, 1st floor, rooms 143 – 150) is represented by a number of objects from excavations of the ancient settlements of the Slavs, from Kiev in the South, to Ladoga in the North, giving evidence of the high standard of agriculture and handicrafts developed by the Slavs. To these were added some separate works of art, of which special mention deserve a twelve-century fresco representing St. Nicholas and a mosaic ornament of the same date transferred from the former Mikhailo-Zlatoverkhy Monastery in Kiev Hermitage, room 147) as well as Russian icons of the 15th century Hermitage, rooms 149). Unique in its historic value is the “Tmutarakan stone” stating that in 1068 the width of the Kerch Straits was measured to the order of the Tmutarakan Prince Gleb Hermitage, room 148). Attention must be also paid to a number of pendants, breast chains and other pieces of twelve-century Russian jewellery richly represented in the collection (rooms 147—148). In the process of arrangement is an exhibition relating to the history of Russian culture of the 16th and 17th century.
The works shown on the exhibition devoted to the history of RUSSIAN CULTURE AT THE CLOSE OF THE 17th — BEGINNING OF THE 18th CENTURY. Hermitage, 1st floor, rooms 151-156) bring us to the days of the reforms carried out by Peter I, the days of rapid growth of Russian industry and handicrafts, accumulation of knowledge in different branches of science, establishment of trade and cultural ties with many countries of the world; we assist at the foundation and growth of Petersburg, trace the changes in the morals and manners of the Russian society, learn that Russian people took great interest in the arts already in those days, we, finally, see a number of memorial things which belonged to Peter I personally. All these aspects of the Russian early-eighteenth-century life are represented by a great variety of contemporary objects of which many are of great rarity.
Among the most noteworthy exhibits relating to the pre-Peter Russia will be found “The Map of all Siberia” painted on cloth in 1698 by a Siberian geographer S. Remezov; the Holy Gates from the church on Kulikovo Field, an extremely fine work carved in wood by an unknown sixteenth-century artist; printed books and manuscripts of which outstanding is an illustrated “Titulyarnik” (Record of Sovereigns) dating approximately from 1678; early-eighteenth-century enamels and metalwork,— all grouped in the beginning of the “Gallery of Peter I” (Hermitage, 1st floor, rooms 151—153).
Outstanding among the exhibits of the later period are: a bronze bust of Peter I executed by C. Rastrelli in 1723, two years previous to Peter I’s death; a unique collection of lathes designed by the talented Russian mechanic A. Nartov in the first quarter of the 18th century and intended for the workshop of Peter I, who mastered 14 trades; engravings contemporary to the early days of the building of Petersburg; several personal belongings of Peter I including an enormous desk made according to Peter’s height, who was 2 m 4 cm (7 feet).
The collection derived from a memorial museum, created after Peter I’s death by the Academy of Sciences, of which a considerable part was later given over to the Hermitage. In addition to this material a number of rare exhibits were received from several scientific institutions of the country, thus forming together with the objects previously assembled a remarkably fine collection representative of the early-eighteenth-century Russian culture.