The Priest Matija Majar and the Moscow Ethnographic Exhibition of 1867

The author discusses the meaning and role of the AllRussian Ethnographic Exhibition and Slavic Congress held in Moscow in 1867 and Matija Majar’s donation of six folk costumes from the Zilja-Gail Valley in Carinthia to the organizers of the exhibition. The author explains how the imperial powers used exhibitions to send the message that progress and civilization could only occur within the colonial enterprise. For them, the motto of exhibitions was: scholarship is proof of our superiority. For smaller nations, especially for “awakening” ones, taking part in an international exhibition was a convenient opportunity to establish themselves as nations, and their motto was: scholarship is proof of our ethnic individuality. *** Avtor predstavi pomen Etnografske razstave in Slovanskega kongresa v Moskvi leta 1867, pri čemer se posebej posveti ljudskim nošam iz Ziljske doline na Koroškem, ki jih je Matija Majar podaril organizacijskemu odboru. V prispevku pojasni, kako je Rusija izrabila prireditev za prikaz narodnega napredka in civiliziranosti, ki najdeta svoje mesto le v imperialnem kontekstu. S tega vidika je bilo torej osrednje sporočilo razstave: znanost dokazuje našo superiornost. Manjšim narodom, ki so v tistem času doživljali »prebujenje«, pa je sodelovanje na prireditvi pomenilo priložnost, da se vzpostavijo kot narodi. Njihov moto je zato bil: znanost dokazuje našo etnično samobitnost.