Kyiv theater actors revive the history of the Odesa Archaeological Museum

The Kyiv-based creative association Night at the University held two consecutive nights of theatrical tours at the Odesa Archaeological Museum as part of the museum's 200th anniversary celebration.

As Oleksandra Ivanova, the partnership and communications manager of the Night at the University Creative Association, told an Intent correspondent, 250 people attended the tours over the two evenings, divided into 10 groups.

There were four locations for the visitors to visit: the first director of the museum, Jean Paul Blaramberg, performed by the creative association, excavations on Zmiinyi Island in the 1940s, the opening of the museum building, and the events of the archaeological congress of 1884.

The main goal of the event, according to Oleksandra Ivanova, was to familiarize Odesa guests with the history of archeology in the South of Ukraine and the history of the museum, which is the main center of classical archeology in Ukraine. Half of the visitors to the tours were Kyivans-patrons, supporters of the association, and more than a hundred were Odessans.

"Odessans see this museum every day, visit it, but do they realize what these walls were like in the first decades of the museum's existence? Can they imagine how the figures we are used to seeing in portraits and textbooks lived, how they laughed, joked, celebrated. It's hard to imagine, so we decided to try to show it," said the manager.

According to Oleksandra Ivanova, these excursions were the first in the nine years of the Night at the University in Odesa and the 50th anniversary in general.

Odesa Archaeological Museum is one of the oldest museums in the country. Founded in August 1825 to collect and preserve the antiquities of the Northern Black Sea region, it quickly turned into a powerful research center that brought together collectors and leading researchers.

In 1839, the Odesa Society of History and Antiquities was founded on the basis of the museum, under whose care it remained for decades. The museum received its own building in 1883. It was built in the center of Odesa, near the Opera House, Deribasivska and Prymorskyi Boulevards, at the expense of philanthropist Hryhorii Marazli and designed by architect F. Gonsirovskyi.

According to the museum, it has more than 170,000 exhibits in its collections. The museum describes its collection as the largest collection of archaeological sources in Ukraine, covering the history of southern Ukraine from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages. In addition to the monuments of the Northwestern Black Sea coast (Tira, Koshary, Zmiinyi Island, Mayaki, and others), the museum also houses collections of ancient finds from Egypt, Greece, Italy, and Cyprus.

PHOTO: Intent/Natalia Dovbysh

Кирило Бойко