World history and culture: Exhibition “In Search of the Ancient Bosporus. Foreword” opened at the State Hermitage

October 27, 2020 the State Hermitage Museum, within the framework of the international congress "Days of Antiquity in St. Petersburg" (October 26 - 31), uniting researchers of the history and art of the ancient world, launched a preview exhibition - "In Search of the Ancient Bosporus. Foreword".

The exposition is timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Mikhail Ivanovich Rostovtsev (1870-1952), one of the outstanding world historians of the first half of the 20th century, a representative of the Russian classical school of classical studies and the Russian school of science in emigration. The exhibition reveals the pages of the creative biography of the brilliant archaeologist, philologist, epigraphist, papyrologist and art connoisseur.

More than 80 exhibits from the collections of the State Hermitage Museum, the Scientific Archives of the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the St. Petersburg branch of the RAS Archives are introduced to the scientific interests of the scientist.

Mikhail Ivanovich Rostovtsev belonged to the best representatives of the Russian intelligentsia of the early 20th century. He was closely related to many outstanding Russian scientists, writers, poets, artists - I. A. Bunin, A. A. Blok, A. I. Kuprin, V. V. Nabokov, K. A. Somov, A. N. Benois.

The exhibition in the Hermitage opens with a section dedicated to Rostovtsev's archaeological activity, which introduces documents, photographs and other archival materials telling about the life and work of one of the greatest figures of the Russian classical school of antique studies at the turn of the past two centuries. The editions that became the first publications of archaeological finds are adjacent to the monuments of culture and art published in them.

The exhibition showcases the architecture and sculpture of the Bosporus, grave reliefs and works of glyptic stored in the Hermitage collection.

It is not by chance that the word “Foreword” has been added to the name of the exhibition - this is the prologue of the large-scale exhibition “In Search of the Ancient Bosporus. Marking the 150th anniversary of M. I. Rostovtsev", scheduled for autumn 2022. This exhibition will showcase archaeological finds and unique graphic and painting works related to the Black Sea antiquities. Among them are watercolor drawings made from wall paintings of the Bosporan crypts, most of which have not survived to this day. For the first time, the works of the outstanding draftsman - academician Fyodor Solntsev, unique in their historical and artistic value, will be shown, which will be provided by the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin Museums. On these sheets, the world-famous finds from the Kul-Oba mound have been preserved in an amazingly accurate and bright performance, the artist's imagination recreates scenes with the participation of legendary Scythians in reconstructed costumes and much of what today's scientific fixation of archaeological objects simply does not suggest. The Black Sea antiquities and works of art of the 19th century, which will be shown in the halls of the Hermitage, will fill them with the atmosphere of an era, imbued with the charm of antiquity, allowing the viewer to feel the spirit of that extraordinary and, in many ways, unique time.