FIELD RESEARCH AND VISUAL RECORDING OF RELIGIOUS PRACTICES IN THE SOVIET PERIOD (CASE STUDY OF THE FILM AND VIDEO ARCHIVES OF THE ESTONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM)

Abstract

The article describes and analyzes film and video materials containing information on the topic of religious practices of the Finno-Ugric peoples in the Soviet period. The main sources of the research are archival audiovisual records created by the staff of the Estonian National Museum in the period from the 1960s to the early 1990 s, as well as field diaries of participants in the Finno-Ugric expeditions. This was the time when official atheism prevailed in the Soviet Union, the main blow of which was directed primarily at the churches. At the same time, this was a period when open persecution of traditional rituals was not observed, and the study of the worldview aspects of the traditional culture of different ethnic groups was strongly encouraged by ethnology. On the basis ofaudiovisual materials, the article analyzes which fragments of the religious practices of the Finno-Ugric peoples are reflected in the museum archives, and which methods were used by researchers to record different rituals. Much attention is paid to building the relationship between the ethnologist and the bearer of the tradition in the field, as well as the special role of the local mediator in the study of religious rituals through a film or video camera. The considered examples of collecting audiovisual material confirm that in the Soviet period, in contrast to today's digital technologies and the usual practice of photographing and filming various (including sacred) events, researchers with a camera were not always welcomed at prayers. In the audiovisual study of religious rites, the process of adaptation to the environment of the culture under study and the effect of building a first impression acquired particular importance for ethnologists, largely related to the authority of the local mediator who brought them to prayers.