The Racial Department of the Museum of Anthropology at Moscow State University in the 1930s: On the history of scientific criticism of racial theories in Soviet museum practice

Abstract

Introduction. The years 2025–2026 mark the 95th anniversary of the foundаtion of the State Museum of Anthropology at Moscow State University (1930) and the 90th anniversary of the unveiling of its racial exhibition (1936). These dates provide an opportunity to examine the history of an institution that played a significant role in the development of Russian physical anthropology and in the popularization of scientific knowledge about humans. A that time the racial exhibition at the State Museum of Anthropology, represented a rare attempt to demonstrate systematically the scientific inconsistency of racism—not through mere rhetoric, but through the consistent presentation of factual material about human races, their variability, and their interconnections.

Materials and methods. The reconstruction of the history of the State Museum of Anthropology and its exhibits was based mainly on literary sources: the article by N.N. Cheboksarov «The Racial Department of the State Museum of Anthropology of Moscow State University» (1936), and the articles by M.S. Plisetsky (1932, 1936, 1940), as well as archival materials from the Research Institute and the Museum of Anthropology of Moscow State University. This article aims to trace the museum's path from an academic to a public institution and to characterize the scientific content of its exhibits dedicated to racial studies.

Results and discussion. The racial exhibition of the State Museum of Anthropology at Moscow State University is a unique phenomenon in the history of science and museum studies. The methodological solutions developed by Moscow anthropologists remain relevant today. A.I. Yarkho's concept of the taxonomic inequality of racial traits allowed for the construction of a hierarchy of racial differences without any judgment. Demonstrating the variability of traits – age-related, individual, and historical – undermined notions of their immutability and determinism. Materials on miscegenation refuted the thesis of the biological harm of racial mixing. The ethnographic section demonstrated the independence of cultural forms from racial identity.

Of particular value is the documentation of Nazi racial policy «in real time». The 1935–1936 exhibition documented events in Germany – sterilization laws, ideological texts – at a time when it was impossible to foresee the consequences of these policies. The museum performed a function that today we would call monitoring.

Conclusion. The Racial Division as it existed in 1936 has not survived. But its principles – strict factuality, critical analysis of sources, and the distinction between science and ideology – remain relevant in any era in which human biological diversity is used to justify inequality.

Acknowledgements. The study was conducted under the state assignment of Lomonosov Moscow State University. The author thanks A.V. Sukhova and A.V. Stepanova for assistance in selecting photographic materials and A.A. Mukhin for assistance in processing the photographs.

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