TY - JOUR AU - Mokhov, Anton AU - Shamanaev, Andrey AU - Kapsalykova, Karina PY - 2020/06/23 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - They Arrived Completely Intact: The Evacuation of Chersonese Museum Collections to Sverdlovsk JF - Quaestio Rossica JA - QR VL - 8 IS - 2 SE - Disputatio DO - 10.15826/qr.2020.2.485 UR - https://qr.urfu.ru/ojs/index.php/qr/article/view/qr.485 SP - 639–651 AB - <p>This article considers the emergency evacuation of the collections of the&nbsp;Chersonese Historical and Archaeological Museum from Sevastopol to&nbsp;Sverdlovsk during the Great Patriotic War, between September and December&nbsp;1941. The authors analyse some issues concerning the preparation and&nbsp;transportation of the museum collection and the interaction between state&nbsp;structures and cultural institutions in wartime conditions. The study is based&nbsp;on unpublished archival materials from the funds of the State Archive of&nbsp;Sverdlovsk Region and the Documentation Centre of Public Organisations&nbsp;of Sverdlovsk Region. The study of problems connected with saving cultural&nbsp;heritage during military conflicts is relevant considering the threat of local wars in the modern world. At present, military actions pose serious risks of the&nbsp;destruction, damage, and illicit transfer of museum exhibits. The authors employ&nbsp;the historical and anthropological approach, paying a great deal of attention&nbsp;to the historiography of the issue of cultural heritage preservation during the&nbsp;Great Patriotic War. The experience of evacuating heritage collections from&nbsp;the Chersonese Museum is both unique and typical. One hundred and eight&nbsp;crates of artifacts, books, and archival documents were sent from Sevastopol to&nbsp;Sverdlovsk, accompanied by a single employee of the museum, S. F. Strzelecki.&nbsp;Owing to his effort, the priceless collection was successfully delivered to the&nbsp;rear. Most problems faced during the emergency evacuation of the Chersonese&nbsp;collections related to the deficit of material resources, rapid changes in the&nbsp;situation at the front, inefficient interaction between the bodies of power,&nbsp;academic and cultural institutions, and deficiencies in the transportation system. The authors argue that during the early stages of the Great Patriotic&nbsp;War, the conditions in the military and cultural spheres posed a significant&nbsp;threat to the preservation of cultural heritage. There were no mobilisation&nbsp;plans for museums and the authorities failed to assess the real risks of wartime.&nbsp;Taking these factors into account should help diminish the threat of cultural&nbsp;heritage loss during military conflicts.</p> ER -