Valery Chernetsov’s archive: Mansi ethnography, folklore and linguistic perspective

Abstract

This article presents the main results of a multidisciplinary study aimed at a complex analysis of the ethnolinguistic identity of the Mansi people. The study encompasses ethnography, folklore studies and linguistics. It investigates the rich data gathered by Valery Chernetsov, a renowned researcher of the Ob-Ugric peoples. The archive is currently kept at the Vasily Florinsky Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography (Tomsk State University). Multiple tasks were performed within this study, such as analysis of the researcher’s methodology, linguistic analysis of Mansi texts, including the transcription system employed by Valery Chernetsov. We have highlighted the difficulties that arise during the interpretation of Mansi folklore texts, which are explained both by the process of language change and by the specific conditions of gathering data in the field in the early twentieth century. In conclusion, we present a brief characteristic of Mansi folklore genres, which were discerned during the analysis of Valery Chernetsov’s data.