HISTORY REFLECTED IN MUSEUMS

This article examines the historical, educational, cultural, and digital significance of museums through the case of the State Museum of History and Culture of the Fergana Region, one of the oldest museum institutions in Uzbekistan. Preserving the core factual material of the original institutional account, the study systematizes the museum’s formation from the 1894 agricultural and industrial exhibition in New Margilan to its present role as a scientific, educational, and cultural center. The analysis focuses on the growth and composition of the museum collection, including more than 100,000 holdings, an archaeological collection of over 11,000 objects, a rare late nineteenth-century furniture ensemble executed in the European classical tradition, and natural-history displays representing the landscapes and fauna of the Fergana Valley. The article also considers the museum’s contemporary transition toward digitization through electronic cataloguing, 3D modelling, and virtual access. Methodologically, the study combines historical-descriptive analysis, institutional case-study analysis, source comparison, and museological interpretation.