Музейные коллекции как исторический источник (обзор отечественной историографии)

The article considers modern approaches to the museum collections as a historical source. At the present stage, the historical science acquires new sources, and the introduction of museum items and collections into the scientific circulation essentially stimulates the development of scientific directions, enriching the existing source base. Potentially museum items and collections can become new complexes of historical sources. Theoretical aspects of the museum subject as a historical source are studied rather superficially, so researchers are slow to address them. At the same time, in domestic historiography it is possible to single out a number of established areas of study, where museum objects are an independent or auxiliary source. More actively, researchers study the written and archaeological museum collections. The study of museum subjects by historians involves a number of problems. The informativity of these sources can be questioned due to their association with associativity, expressivity, attractiveness, because the museum source has special aspects related to the selection of items in museum collections. Key words: museum item, historical source, historiography, written sources, material source.