Mordvinian (Moksha) women’s costume of the Insar district of Penza province of the mid XIX century: local peculiarities

Abstract

This article describes the uniqueness of the local version of traditional clothing of Moksha women who in the mid XIX century resided in the rural localities of Levzha, Perkhlyay, and Suzgarye in the Insar district of the Penza province. The characteristic attributes of women's costume of this period are reflected in the written sources of the Russian Geographical Society. The relevance of this research is defined by the absence of special works on the topic, as well as by the attempt to reconstruct the elements of traditional clothes of the mid  XIX century, which is the first time period used for mapping material culture of the Mordvinian people. The object of this research is the traditional costume of the Mordvinian women; while the subject is the local peculiarities of Moksha women’s costume of the Insar district of Penza province of the mid XIX century, which was characterized by silhouette of the shirt, original style of its wearing with a set of belt ornaments-pendants and loincloth. The goal of this research consists in the analysis of the local peculiarities of Mordvinian (Moksha) women's costume of the mid XIX century and its transformations until the early XX century. The novelty lies in the use previously unpublished handwritten materials of Russian Geographical Society are valuable for reconstructing the historical costume of Moksha women. It is established that in the traditional women’s costume of this territory was a unique phenomenon of material culture, resembling the complex processes of ethnogenesis of the Mordvinian people, hardworking nature of women, results of their creativity, and the national aesthetic canon. The article describes the style of wearing women's blouses shirt. The combination of basic elements of the local complex (shirt and lower waist clothing) allowed the women to wear a short version of the shirt, which did not constrain them in movement or physical work.