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History of collections
The Indonesian collection of the Museum began to form in 1838. In the 19th century small collections on different peoples of then Dutch Indonesia were brought to the Museum by Russian and foreign collectors, for example, navy officer O.R. Stackelberg, diplomats V.A. Baud and de Bruin, missionary G. Chudnovski and others. Several objects from Indonesian Isles were brought by an outstanding Russian traveler and researcher N.N. Miklukho-Maklai as part of his vast Oceanian collections. On the turn of the 19th century the Museum received collections on the peoples of the Greater and Lesser Sunda Islands from the Berlin Museum of Peoples (Germany).
It was approximately at the same time that the Museum was enriched with large collections on the ethnography of the large peoples of the western Malay Archipelago received from foreign officials, travelers and researchers K. Mashmeyer, G. Meissner, G. Meyer, etc. In mid 1920s husband and wife A.S. Estrin and A.Ya. Smotritskaya, who worked in Indonesia, handed to the Museum a collection of objects on the culture and everyday life of the Molucca Islands population. At the same time the Museum acquired collections from Leiden Ethnographical Museum (the Netherlands).
In 1950s – 1960s an Indonesian researcher Effendi Usman who worked at the Oriental department of the Leningrad State University donated to the Museum a collection on Minangkabau people, and journalist P.V. Komnin – on Papua of the Indonesian part of the New Guinea Island. New exhibits are still acquired by the MAE. One of the most interesting recent acquisitions is the donation of Mrs. Erna Witoelar, wife of the Indonesian ambassador in Russia.
At present, the Indonesian collections of the MAE RAS contain about seven thousand various objects that characterize the traditional culture of many peoples inhabiting the Indonesian Islands.
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