Chuvash National Museum, National museum in Cheboksary, Russia
The Chuvash National Museum is a museum in Cheboksary that occupies several exhibition areas and holds a large collection of objects from the region. It covers archaeological finds, historical documents, and handcrafted works from different periods.
The idea of a Chuvash museum was raised at the All-Chuvash National Congress in Simbirsk in June 1917, and a museum opened in Kazan in March 1919. In Cheboksary, teachers of the Proletarian University proposed a museum of antiquities on 20 March 1919; the Central Chuvash Museum opened on 12 February 1921 with N. P. Neverov as director. In 1930 it moved into the former Church of the Assumption, and in 1980–81 into the former Efremov mansion.
The museum houses the Society for the Study of the Native Land, founded at the museum on 17 April 1921, which brought together Chuvash scholars and artists and organised expeditions to collect material on the history, culture and nature of Chuvashia. Its name in Chuvash is Чӑваш наци музейӗ. Four branches operate under it: the Chapaev Museum, the Ivanov Literature Museum, and the Sespel museums in Cheboksary and in Sespel.
The museum occupies the former Efremov mansion in the city centre, where only part of the original façade survives in the eastern wing after rebuilding and a 2005 restoration that added a mansard floor. Its four branches — the Chapaev Museum, the Ivanov Literature Museum and the two Sespel Museums — are visited separately from the main building.
The collection spans from the Stone Age to the present day and includes rare examples of Chuvash embroidery alongside old manuscripts containing regional folktales. These handwritten texts and textiles are rarely found outside the region.
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