Liminality and Museums in Ukraine: the Khanenkos’ Case
In this essay, I apply “liminality”—linked to the idea of a specific contact zone characterized by ambiguity, high potential to hybridization of identities and subversion of authority—to examine the case of Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko. The Khanenkos were prominent collectors of Ukrainian cultural heritage and the founders of the first public museums in Kyiv in the late 19th and early 20th century. Mentally shaped by the empire(s), the Khanenkos started acting on both sides of the colonial divide since the 1890s: At the Russian court, they played impeccably loyal subjects. Simultaneously, in Kyiv, they converted the empire’s trust into a new freedom of action enabling grand, future-oriented cultural changes.


