In Memory of the Field Researcher Konstantin Kuzmich Loginov

Abstract

The article analyzes the field work of the renowned ethnographer Konstantin Kuzmich Loginov (1952–2020), an expert in ethno-local history and the culture of Karelia, the Russian North and, in particular, the Zaonezhye Region. The contents of Loginov’s voluminous monographs and articles allow us to identify his strategy in field communications and his relations with specific informants. Loginov’s position inside the ethnic community under research was complex: he was simultaneously a collector, interpreter, supporter, and custodian of the fading collective memory peculiar to a certain ethnic community of the Russian North and Karelia. Loginov’s research prioritized the study of local groups of Russians and partly of Karelians and their leaders. From this point of view, the article considers materials collected by Loginov during two field seasons, which took place in 2011 and 2012, when he conducted a series of in-depth interviews with N. V. Likhacheva (1916–2016), a representative of the elder generations of one of the local groups of the Tver Karelians — Vesiegonskie. The results of those in-depth interviews were the recordings of autobiographical narratives that reveal the informant’s evaluation of her personal life, show her religious views, their depth and peculiar properties, as well as her reading experience and knowledge of local folk traditions. These aspects constitute the worldview of the bearer of the traditional culture in the second half of the 20th — early 21st century.