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# Ivan Grinko in “Etno dialogi” proposes viewing the museum through the concept of totemism
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/sotrudnik-moskovskogo-agentstva-organizatsii-otdykha-i-turizma-ivan-grinko-v-svoei-state-v-etno-dialogakh-predlagaet-dovolno-originalnyi-vzgliad-na-muzeinyi-totemizm/
- Published: 2021-01-18T09:14:25.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:03:47.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Museums, Observations, Ethnography, Humour

Ivan Grinko of the Moscow Agency for the Organisation of Leisure and Tourism offers, in his article in "Ethno Dialogues", a rather original view of museum totemism. Let us replace the word "totem" in the definition with the word "museum", and it really does all add up. A museum is a class of material objects towards which the savage feels a superstitious respect, believing that between himself and every member of the class there exists an intimate and quite special bond. And the savage, of course, stands for any visitor to a museum. Moreover, one can go further and find the definition of a museum in the extended description of totemism as a complex social system: "a view of nature and life, of the universe and man, a view that characterises the mythology of the aborigines and influences their social relations, feeds their rites and binds the aborigines to the past". The aborigines are, naturally, you and I. A splendid exercise