Dnepropetrovsk National Historical Museum named after D. I. Yavornitsky

In February 1849 , in Yekaterinoslav, on the initiative of the director of the local gymnasium, Y. D. Grakhov, governor A. Ya. Fabr , the Public Museum of the Yekaterinoslav Province was created - the first museum in the province. It was located in the Potemkin Palace, which belonged to the Nobility Provincial Assembly.

During the Crimean War , when the hospital was located in the Potemkin Palace, the museum was located in the premises of the Yekaterinoslav Classical Men's Gymnasium (now the Medical Academy building on Cathedral Square ), which became its permanent home until the beginning of the 20th century .

In the museum, next to archaeological finds, local antiquities, stone sculptures, relics of ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, Russian and foreign coins, samples of different rocks, paleontological remains were exhibited. His attraction was the mummy of an Egyptian woman with a child, who, according to legend, was brought by the governor A. Ya. Fabr from the Odessa Museum of Local Lore (this exhibit is still kept in the museum).

The best times for the “public museum” were its first decade, when, focusing on a new idea, city dwellers, lovers of history and antiquities, brought objects to the museum, donated money for window dressing and other acquisitions. However, in the following years (1860-1900s), without financial support from the authorities, the museum fell into distress, rather resembling the office of an educational institution.

One of the largest and most famous collections was the collection of the Honorary Citizen Yekaterinoslav A.N. Paul , which totaled more than 4770 items. In 1887, Paul opened the first private museum in the city, located in 4 rooms of his own house on Cathedral Square.

In the Polevsky Museum, which even had a special guardian-guide, there were 7 departments. A significant part of the materials was archaeological finds found by Paul in mounds and other burials on the territory of the Yekaterinoslav province, in particular in Kryvyi Rih . The contemporaries of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks , Egyptian antiquities, religious objects, coins of all countries of the world from different times, painting, were amazed by their contemporaries - that is, it was a kind of “ Kunstkamera ” in miniature.

After the death of Paul in 1890, the city public took the initiative to create a provincial museum of his name - a kind of monument to Paul.

The cost of the Polevo meeting during the lifetime of the owner was estimated at 200 thousand rubles. in silver. Finally, on May 6, 1902, in the building of the Commercial School (now the building of the regional council), the Regional ^{[ which one? ]} Museum to them. A.N. Fields. Gradually, the collections of the first “public museum”, stored in the classical gymnasium, the private museum of A. Paul , the collection of D. Yavornitsky , and other owners of the collections, joined him.

Especially for the museum, under the supervision of architects G.K. Sandetsky and G.I. Panafutin, in 1905, a building was constructed on the model of the Hoffmann house in Berlin . For the first decade, from a small collection of 300 objects, the museum grew to almost a ten-thousandth collection of archaeological finds of different periods and cultures, Zaporizhzhya Cossack relics , church antiquities, ethnographic, numismatic , pictorial objects, handicrafts, books and documents, photographs distributed on 9 sections.

In 1917-1923, renamed the first People’s Museum of Yekaterinoslavschina , the museum was replenished with private collections, items from noble houses, zemstvo institutions, and the director made every effort to save the museum collection and buildings from destruction and robbery.

The museum was significantly enriched in 1927-1932 (in those years it was called the Dnepropetrovsk Regional Historical and Archaeological Museum), when D. I. Yavornitsky led the Dneprostroevsky archaeological expedition. 40 thousand units of archaeological objects found in the vast territory where the Dnieper was supposed to be and splashing the waters of an artificial sea, entered the museum.

In 1940, after the death of D.I. Yavornitsky, his name was given to the museum and it became known as the Dnepropetrovsk Historical Museum named after D.I. Yavornitsky.

The museum suffered heavy losses during the Nazi occupation . The museum building housed the commissariat, led by the city commissioner Klosterman, and the exhibits in the rain, in bad weather, were transported to the dilapidated premises of the Art Museum (on Shevchenko St., 21).

Museum items evacuated to the East are almost all lost, the remaining ones in the city were taken out by the Germans. Only a small part of the materials was saved by the museum's technical workers M. Ya. Bely and P.K. Duz.

The museum experienced a real revival in the 1970-1980s: in 1975 - the drama “ Battle for the Dnieper ” was opened, in May 1977 - a new exposition on the history of the region from ancient times to the present.

• Archaeological collection.
• Monuments of Ancient Egypt.
• Antique collection.
• A collection of Cossack antiquities.
• A cult collection.
• Ethnographic collection.
• Book and archive collection.
• Photofonokinovideo materials.
• Weapons collection.
• Numismatics and bonistics.
• Faleristic collection.
• Watch collection.
• Museum mosaic.
• Memorial things.
• Ceramics, porcelain, glass.

• Scythian and Polovtsian "stone women"
• Kernosovsky idol
• Cossack antiquities
• Figurine of Pharaoh Ramses VІ
• Carriage from the time of Catherine II
• Catherine II

Dnepropetrovsk Historical Museum includes 7 branches, among which:

• Museum of History D. I. Yavornitsky
• Diorama “ Battle for the Dnieper ”
• Memorial House-Museum of D. I. Yavornitsky
• Museum "Literary Dnieper"
• Memorial Center of E.P. Blavatsky and her family
• Museum of the History of Local Government of Dnipropetrovsk Region
• Street exposition "Roads of Donbass" and the museum "Civil feat of the Dnepropetrovsk region in the events of the ATO"

• Dnepropetrovsk Historical Museum named after D. I. Yavornitsky: Travel Guide / Dnepropetrovsk: Promin, 1979. - 118 p.

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• In the museum to them. Yavornitsky opened a unique exhibition of Scythian gold