{"title":"Figurative Art and Epic Imagery in Kalmykia in Light of the Ethnic Identity of the Creative Individual","authors":"K. P. Batyreva, S. Batyreva","doi":"10.1080/10611959.2015.1194692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2015.1194692","url":null,"abstract":"The article explores the question of ethnic identity, using the case of the 1990s Kalmyk association of artists “Dzhungaria” [also Jangaria or Zungharia]. It then analyzes the significance of folklore in Kalmyk artistic and cultural revival, with focus on the painter Garri Rokchinskii and his cycle based on the Jangar heroic epic. The authors conclude that recent Kalmyk art, reflecting historical memories of Mongol and Oirat ancestry, derives from and shapes ethnic self-awareness.","PeriodicalId":35495,"journal":{"name":"Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10611959.2015.1194692","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59599652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Art and ethnic identity: On the Example of the Culture of the Altai People","authors":"S. Tyukhteneva","doi":"10.1080/10611959.2015.1194691","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2015.1194691","url":null,"abstract":"The connection of art, ethnography and politics is explored using the example of the distinguished Altai painter and statesman Grigorii Ivanovich Choros-Gurkin (1870-1937). Choros-Gurkin's formation as a painter and indigenous Siberian activist is analyzed, including discussion of his mentors, Russian landscape painter Ivan I. Shishkin, ethnographer Andrei V. Anokhin, and academician- Siberian regionalist Grigorii N. Potanin. The author argues that Choros-Gurkin's post-Soviet revival and popularity as an exemplar of the spirituality of the Altai people is based on his deep understanding of the connections among “Land-Water, and Khan-Altai” [diety of the Altai Mountain peoples]. This was the motto of the Altai Mountain Duma he led in the 1920s.","PeriodicalId":35495,"journal":{"name":"Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10611959.2015.1194691","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59599621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ethnocultural Traditions in the Art of the Arctic North and Sakha Republic (Yakutia)","authors":"Zinaida Ivanova-Unarova","doi":"10.1080/10611959.2016.1194700","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2016.1194700","url":null,"abstract":"Creative artists of the Arctic are discussed, including an Inuit sculptor, a Yukagir graphic artist, a Dolgan painter, and numerous artists representing the legacy of Sakha (Yakut) art. While emphasis is on contemporary artists, significant historical figures and themes are mentioned. The recent generation of modern artists are united by a new reading of mythological narratives and ancient tales, a desire to find in them the historical roots of their people, and love for their land. Some represent a trend the author terms “ethnomodern.”","PeriodicalId":35495,"journal":{"name":"Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10611959.2016.1194700","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59599371","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editor's Introduction","authors":"M. Balzer","doi":"10.1080/10611959.2015.1207402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2015.1207402","url":null,"abstract":"During the cultural revivals of the late Soviet period and the 1990s in many of the ethnic republics of Russia, art and museum exhibit openings, theater premières, and book presentations were happening nearly every week. For me, traveling frequently to Sakha Republic (Yakutia), it was as if some cork had been popped on a champagne bottle, unleashing a pent-up creativity that had deep sources in local cultures. The cultural intelligentsias of Kalmykia, Buryatia, and the Altai and Sakha Republics, featured here, were encouraged by the conditions of the 1990s and by each other to explore many cultural paths, including new globalizing inspirations from Europe and Asia. Yet many of them simultaneously looked to folklore and their artistic roots. Social patterns became remarkably similar in the ways artists in these communities were and are valorized for their national themes. While republic leaders were busy choosing national flags, and arguing over national constitutions—within the Russian Federation—their artists were exploring epics and other spiritual resources. I have chosen two Mongol and two Turkic republics to illustrate the little-known and underappreciated artistic flourishing of the post-Soviet period and its legacies. This is partly because these are places I know, where specific artists have become brilliant synthesizers of their cultural traditions. They are also places where local art historians and anthropologists have been producing reflective work about their creative artist-culture-heroes. This issue merely samples their work:","PeriodicalId":35495,"journal":{"name":"Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10611959.2015.1207402","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59599669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Visualizing (Post)-Soviet Ethnicity. Fine Art of Buryatia","authors":"Maria Tagangaeva","doi":"10.1080/10611959.2016.1194699","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2016.1194699","url":null,"abstract":"The author reviews the history of art in Russia's Buryatia in an interpretive analysis, beginning with pre-revolutionary Buddhist art legacies, through various stages of Soviet art policy, to the difficult post-Soviet period of national identity quests. The creative art of pre-revolutionary Buryat Buddhist Sanzhi-Tsykik Tsybikov, Soviets Ivan Kopylov and Tsyrenzhap Sampilov, and the famous post-Soviet Dashi Namdakov is examined. The author argues that current trends toward valorization of Eurasian identity resonate with Russia's politics and popular culture.","PeriodicalId":35495,"journal":{"name":"Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10611959.2016.1194699","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59599321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mineralogical and Geochemical Indicators of the Sources of Gold for the Production of Ancient Jewelry Artifacts (The Case of the Urals)","authors":"V. V. Zaikov, E. V. Zaikova","doi":"10.1080/10611959.2015.1114861","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2015.1114861","url":null,"abstract":"The article proposes mineralogical and geochemical indicators of ancient jewelry artifacts for determining raw material sources. These include the composition of gold and the presence and composition of inclusions of high-temperature platinum group elements (the minerals Os–Ir–Ru). The proposed indicators enable determining probable sources of the gold for archeological sites, items with inclusions of osmium. The location of jewelry workshops and the conditions and scale of extraction of gold in antiquity are discussed. Further work in establishing the concrete sources of gold artifacts requires determining the natural analogues of abnormal compositions of osmium minerals.","PeriodicalId":35495,"journal":{"name":"Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10611959.2015.1114861","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59599348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What Are the Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Underbarrow Mudbrick Enclosures of the Lower Volga Region?","authors":"Emma D. Zilivinskaia","doi":"10.1080/10611959.2015.1114870","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2015.1114870","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the underbarrow [podkurgan] mudbrick enclosures that comprise a numerically large group of burial structures from the time of the Golden Horde. They had previously been associated with nomads who had switched to a sedentary way of life and had been exposed to the influence of the sedentary population of Golden Horde cities. A detailed examination of this category of structures allows us to assert that earlier characterizations were often erroneous. These constructions are in no way associated with nomadic barrows, but are hillocks that suggest the outlines of ruined mudbrick edifices. Juxtaposing various types of “enclosures” with the layout of mausoleums leads to the conclusion that they are mudbrick mausoleums, situated in necropolises on the outskirts of cities and on the steppes.","PeriodicalId":35495,"journal":{"name":"Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10611959.2015.1114870","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59599362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bird's Head Chapes from the Early Iron Age of the Central Caucasus and Their Analogues in the Scythian-Siberian Animal Style","authors":"Galina N. Vol'naia","doi":"10.1080/10611959.2015.1114852","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2015.1114852","url":null,"abstract":"The article explores the origin of bronze chapes [scabbard mountings] in the form of bird of prey images [protoma] found in sites of the Central Caucasus from the seventh century to the mid-sixth century BCE. Two stylistic types of depictions can be distinguished. The first type (exemplified by the Faskau burial sites, the Nizhnii-Chegem burial site, and Verkhnii Aul) is characterized by a ring-shaped beak, a sharp-pointed and slightly outwardly-bent tongue, and a not-large round eye. This type is similar to the early Scythian imitations of the depiction of an eagle-headed griffin of the early Greek type. The second type (exemplified by the Faskau, Koban, Klivana, and Dvani burial sites) features a beak that is strongly curved inward and made of two bands, a large round eye, and a semi–ring-shaped tongue. The first type is stylistically more homogeneous than the second, and is the earlier of the two. The idea of depicting bird of prey on chapes continued at Scythian sites of the mid-sixth century through the mid-fifth century BCE in the North Caucasus, western Transkubania, in the Dniepr region of Ukraine—and in the midst of other cultures, in Transylvania and the Lower Volga Region.","PeriodicalId":35495,"journal":{"name":"Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10611959.2015.1114852","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59599150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Grounds for Designating the Late Neolithic Bas'ianovo Archeological Complex","authors":"A. Shorin, E. V. Vilisov, A. Shorina","doi":"10.1080/10611959.2015.1114848","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2015.1114848","url":null,"abstract":"The article discusses characteristics of the Bas'ianovo archeological complex from the Late Neolithic Age, discovered in Middle Transuralia [Zaural'e]. It is dated to the first half of the fourth millennium BCE and is genetically connected with the Transuralian Boborykino culture. It is premature to establish whether the Bas'ianovo archeological complex is a new archeological culture or a local variant of the Boborykino culture (province, community). It is more productive to research the issue of Boborykino archeological-cultural and historical-cultural unity (and differences) through the prism of linguistic continuity, which is familiar from ethnographic materials—above all those of the aborigines of Australia and New Guinea. This may be designated as archeological continuity.","PeriodicalId":35495,"journal":{"name":"Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10611959.2015.1114848","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59599087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editor's Introduction: Treasures of the Dead: Burials and Workshops from the Neolithic Urals to the Scythians, Early Balts, and the Golden Horde","authors":"M. Balzer","doi":"10.1080/10611959.2015.1160198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2015.1160198","url":null,"abstract":"Treasures for archeologists represent far more than gold objects found in a grave, for the true treasure is usually an addition to extensive knowledge bases accumulated over years of painstaking digging in calculated sites, felicitous accidental finds, and diligent museum exponent research. The new, cutting-edge articles in this issue present “treasures” in multiple senses—discussing precious finds and placing them in new or adapted interpretive contexts. Chronologically their range and depth is considerable, since the territory of the former Soviet Union, today’s Eurasia, continues to yield diverse riches that span the Neolithic to the Bronze and Iron Ages in the articles represented here. As usual for Eurasia archeology, these articles continue important themes in the literature, such as exploring how one determines a “people” or a “culture area,” understanding Scythian art, expanding the range of the Golden Horde, and interpreting interrelationships between nomadic and settled peoples in various time periods. Our lead article, by Aleksandr F. Shorin, Evgenii V. Vilisov, and Anastasiia A. Shorina, plunges us into the Late Neolithic, through an archeological complex beyond the Ural Mountains that raises important questions about how archeologists and anthropologists can designate a “people” and a “cultural complex” with mostly ceramic shards to go on, and only fragmentary evidence of dwellings, burial rites, or artifacts that might correlate to specific “cult” practices. One puzzle the authors","PeriodicalId":35495,"journal":{"name":"Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80664839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}