Kunstkamera, Schumacher and the Academic Regulations of 1747

Traditionally, the Kunstkamera is defined as a scientific and auxiliary institution (“laboratory”) of the Academy of Sciences, coming from the “Draft Regulations on the Establishment of the Academy of Sciences and Arts”. However, in the “Regulations of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Arts in St. Petersburg”, approved in 1747, the status of the library and the Kunstkamera had a different character, as they are defined in the Regulations as an independent institution within the Academy with its own management, staff and funding. Leadership should be concentrated in the hands of the librarian — he is the main commander under the president, and with him a non-commissioned librarian. The official alienation of the museum and the library resulted from many years of confrontation between the scientific community and I. D. Schumacher. This situation did not last long. However, this short period of activity of the Kunstkamera and the Library under the Regulations of 1747 shows what role librarian Schumacher played in the history of the Academy in the first half of the 18th century. In the Regulations of 1803 and the Charter of 1836, the library and the museums were classified as “scientific accessories” of the Academy. Peter's Kunstkamera ceased to exist as a universal encyclopedic museum on December 5, 1747, but from 1714 to 1747 the museum gained such potential that, despite a twenty-year period of conservation, it was revived in the last third of the 18th century in the status of first specialized offices, and then independent museums.