K. K. Yudakhin Photographic Collections of Traditional Kyrghyz Culture in St. Petersburg Kunstkamera

Abstract

The article is devoted to the history of the MAE RAS collection on traditional Kyrghyz culture. Many generations of Russian researchers collected objects of traditional culture, annotated them, and compiled scientific museum inventories. Besides, they collected photographic material. The focus of this paper is on two photographic collections, donated to the museum by the famous Turkologist, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Kyrghyz SSR, Konstantin Kuzmich Yudakhin (1890—1975). The first collection is devoted to the life of the Kyrghyz people of the Issyk‑Kul region, the second — to the inhabitants of the southern regions of Kyrghyzstan and Kazakhstan. The photographs were taken in the late 1920‑s. They depict the life of average Kyrghyz people engaged in household crafts, children playing traditional games, the life of the ancient city of Osh, the sacred Suleyman Mountain (Takht‑i Suleyman). These photographic materials are a wonderful source on the history and ethnography of Kyrghyzstan during the period when the traditional culture of nomads was being transformed under the influence of modernization processes of the 20th century.