Neratova E.I. (2023). Sud’by muzejshhikov i muzejnyh predmetov. K biografii K. Z. Kavtaradze [Fates of museologists and museum items. To the biography of K. Z. Kavtaradze]. Istoricheskoe oruzhievedenie [Weapons History Journal], № 12, pp. 223 — 262.
Abstract: This article is an attempt to show that circumstances affect not only fates of countries and people… but also fates of museum objects. And in this regard, the author presents four items of Caucasian arms (one dagger and three sabers), as well as describes the error that occurred during the registration of three of them in the museum collection and restores the collector’s name – Konstantin Zurabovich Kavtaradze (1879 – 1941).
The fate of K.Z. Kavtaradze himself was quite unusual: a talented portrait painter, an art teacher who successfully tried himself in dental prosthetics, a creator of anthropological mannequins of the Ethnographic Department of the Russian Museum (now Russian Museum of Ethnography) and a restorer. K.Z. Kavtaradze used to go on expeditions to Transcaucasia where he collected items for the Ethnographic Department and made sketches. He also worked at Museum of History in Georgia for about three years. But most of his professional life was connected with St. Petersburg (Leningrad) as briefly described in the article.
The author pays attention to expeditionary and collecting activities of K.Z. Kavtaradze, listing all his trips and briefly characterizing them, as well as focusing on the trip from which he brought cold arms to the museum.
Keywords: Russian Museum of Ethnography (RME), K.Z. Kavtaradze, Transcaucasia, Caucasian arms.