Из фондов Музея антропологии МГУ. Фотографии народов Северного Кавказа в экспозиции Антропологической выставки 1879 года: кабардинцы и шапсуги

Abstract

Introduction. Since the early 1860s photographic practice has become an integral part of the scien-tific process and one of the main methods of ethnographic and anthropological research in Russia. In the course of preparations for the first Ethnographic Exhibition in Russia (1867), organized by the Society of Devotees of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography (OLEAE), the Photographic Commission established by the Exhibition Committee (1866) developed a regulation on the execution of photographic portraits of the local population. In 1872 the first “instructions” in Russia for ethnographic and anthropological photography were published. Materials and methods. The source for the preparation of the article was a collection of photographs collected by E.D. Felitsyn (1848-1903) and presented at the Anthropological Exhibition of 1879 in Moscow. Currently, it is stored in the funds of the D.N. Anuchin Research Institute and the Museum of Anthropology, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. Results and discussion. Photographs of representatives of two nationalities - Kabardians and Shapsugs, who lived in the Kuban region, are described and analyzed: the villages of Blechepsinsky and Khodzsky (currently the village of Blechepsin and the village of Khodz of the Koshekhablsky district of the Republic of Adygea), Khokhondukovsky and Kasaevsky (currently the village of Ali-Berdukovsky and the village of Khabez in the Khabezsky district of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic) and the village of Kudzhirsky in the Maikop district, that was located on the left bank of the river Farce and abolished in 1885. These are: 3 photographs of children (6 and 8 years old), 7 photographs of men (18-58 years old) and 5 photographs of women (18-60 years old). A description of the depicted national clothes is given, as well as a summary of literary anthropological information about the Kabardians and Shapsugs of this period. Conclusion. The first published photographs of representatives of the two peoples of the North Caucasus living in the Kuban region in the second half of the 19th century make it possible to visualize some aspects of the historical information that scientists have at their disposal, to clarify the available anthropolog-ical, historical and cultural data on the Kabardians and Shapsugs, and also are an addition to the historical, archaeological, anthropological, genetic and ethnographic studies of the peoples of the North Caucasus @ 2023. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license.