VISUAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF IVAN LOPATIN (ON THE MATERIALS OF THE AMUR EXPEDITION OF 1913)
DOI: 10.23951/2307-6119-2021-1-163-173
The article is devoted to a topical but poorly developed topic in the Russian humanities – visual anthropology as a form of scientific knowledge, a means of fixing and representing materials. It is well known, that the decisive role in the development of the frontier regions of the country during the imperial period was played by professional researchers and travelers, who actively used photographic technology in their activities. Numerous photographic documents collected by them during scientific expeditions are scattered among the funds of central and regional museum and archival institutions. This study focuses on visual anthropological materials from the expedition of the famous ethnographer Ivan Alekseevich Lopatin in 1913, stored in the archives of the Society for the Study of the Amur Region, and studied by the author of the article during research work in the summer of 2020. Many of the photographic documents under consideration, being unique evidence of the cultural evolution of the peoples of the Amur region at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. By comparing the textual and visual archives of the researcher, the key ethnographic images recorded by him among the Orochs and Golds (Nanai) peoples are distinguished and analyzed: phenomena of material and spiritual culture, fishing processes and physical types. The methodological discoveries of Ivan Lopatin in the field of the ethnographer's field work are also specially considered: parallel written and photographic recording of materials in the process of expeditionary research for the subsequent use of photographic documents as illustrations to the main provisions of scientific publications. The photographic work of Ivan Lopatin is analyzed in a historical and anthropological vein, in comparison with thematically related studies of other authors and academic paradigms of the corresponding period. The conclusion is made about the scientist's archival photographic heritage as an informative historical and ethnographic source, visually reflecting not only the culture of the photograph, but also the one who is filming; transmitting not only ethnographic information, but also its figurative and emotional context. The historical experience of Ivan Lopatin is shown as a completely relevant methodological example for today's visual anthropological practices.
Keywords: ethnographic photography, visual anthropology, Golds, Orochi, Ivan Lopatin
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Issue: 1, 2021
Series of issue: Issue 1
Rubric: ANTHROPOLOGY
Pages: 163 — 173
Downloads: 602