Art and ethnic identity: On the Example of the Culture of the Altai People

The connection of art, ethnography and politics is explored using the example of the distinguished Altai painter and statesman Grigorii Ivanovich Choros-Gurkin (1870-1937). Choros-Gurkin's formation as a painter and indigenous Siberian activist is analyzed, including discussion of his mentors, Russian landscape painter Ivan I. Shishkin, ethnographer Andrei V. Anokhin, and academician- Siberian regionalist Grigorii N. Potanin. The author argues that Choros-Gurkin's post-Soviet revival and popularity as an exemplar of the spirituality of the Altai people is based on his deep understanding of the connections among “Land-Water, and Khan-Altai” [diety of the Altai Mountain peoples]. This was the motto of the Altai Mountain Duma he led in the 1920s.