Tatar clasp-necklace yaka chylbyry: questions of genesis and ethno-cultural interrelations

Abstract

The article is devoted to the history of the formation of the ethnospecific jewelry of the Kazan Tatars – a collar clasp-necklace called yaka chylbyry. This piece of jewelry in its classic look had formed by the early-middle 19th century. However, the artistic image of the constituent elements of this multicomponent product, as well as the techniques of its manufacture, go back to medieval traditions. The publication focuses on an earlier constructive analogue of the yaka chylbyry – a clasp for a woman's camisole in the shape of double sheep larvae. The functional reorientation – the use of a clasp for a doublet as a collar clasp-necklace occurred at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries. The ram's face is considered by the authors as a result of the historical transformation of the "scarab" image typical for Russian caftan fasteners of the 16th–19th centuries. Echoes of the stylized motif of the ram can be seen on the classic yaka chylbyry up to the early-middle of the 20th century.