ABSTRACT
The decision to participate in the Great Exhibition was in part a reaction against the most popular travelogue of the 1840s about the Russian Empire, the Marquis de Custine's Russia in 1839. Participation in the Exhibition raised a number of questions and opportunities for reflection about Russian identity. The Russian exhibition commission wrestled with the problem of how to represent Russia in material form and what scope to give private subjects in shaping the exhibit. Both Commissioner Gavril Kamenskii and Ambassador Baron Filip Brunnov had expressed concern regarding how Russia would be perceived by the British public at the Exhibition. The Great Exhibition opened on 1 May 1851 in a ceremony presided over by the British Royal Commissioners and attended by Queen Victoria, her court, government ministers, the foreign diplomatic corps, and 25 thousand guests. Queen Victoria visited the foreign section of the Crystal Palace on the morning of 19 May.
