Museum of Ethnography and Crafts

Museum of Ethnography and Crafts (Музей етнографії та художнього промислу Інституту народознавства НАН України; Muzei etnohrafii ta khudozhnoho promyslu Instytutu narodozvanvstva NAN Ukrainy). The principal museum of its kind in Western Ukraine. It was established in Lviv in 1951 under the name Ukrainian State Museum of Ethnography and Crafts through the merger of the Museum of Handicrafts (est 1874) and the Ethnographic Museum of the Shevchenko Scientific Society (est 1895). The holdings of both museums suffered heavy losses during the two world wars. After the Second World War they were replenished with nationalized private and public collections. Today the museum holds almost 83,000 artifacts of material culture, which are divided into two collections, ethnographic and handicraft. The ethnographic collection encompasses articles from every region of Ukraine, but particularly Western Ukraine: farm implements, craft tools, weavings (see Weaving), folk costumes, embroidery, ceramics, wood carvings, artistic metal products, toys, and Easter eggs. The handicraft collection includes articles not only from Ukraine but also from other territories, such as Russia, Central and Western Europe, and the Orient: porcelain, faience, fine furniture, belts, tapestries, and clocks. In 1967 a Department of Folk Architecture was set up. It oversaw the construction of the Lviv Museum of Folk Architecture and Folkways (opened in 1972). The Museum of Ethnography and Crafts supports a wide research and publishing program. It organizes expeditions, conferences, and seminars and provides methodological consultation for cultural institutions and manufacturing enterprises. It has published scholarly monographs, albums, and the collection Materialy z etnohrafiï ta mystetstvoznavstva (8 vols, 1954–63). Since 1982 the museum has been a subdivision of the Institute of Fine Arts, Folklore, and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

[This article was updated in 2008.]