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VISUALIZATION OF ETHNICITY IN SOVIET CINEMA: «COUNTRY OF GOLDS» BY AMO BEK-NAZAROV (1930) // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2020. Issue 1 (27). P. 114-125

Based on the material of the ethnographic documentary «Country of Golds» by the classic of Soviet cinema, Amo Bek-Nazarov, the article considers the direction of artistic documentary as an example of visual and anthropological experiments in the USSR at the turn of the 1920–1930s. Analyzing archival data, director’s diaries, and contemporary testimonies, the author traces the evolution of the mentioned film project in connection with parallel processes in politics and cinema. In the period under study, Soviet filmmakers tested various visualization formats of ethnicity, constructing the Soviet myth of the peoples of the new Union freed by the revolution, which the party leadership needed. Based on an illustrative example of the work of director Amo Bek-Nazarov, the article traces the use of the capabilities of ethnographic cinema as a resource for creating effective on-screen images for traditional use: traditional life (the image of the «dark past») and innovations of socialism (the image of the «bright future»). As soon as the film «Country of Golds» is a kind of film text, consisting of approximately the same number of film frames and text captions alternating in the narrative, the method of analysis of the film was its research decoding – «translation» into text format. The article analyzes the potential of the cinema as a form of visual anthropology, and the film as a multicomponent historical source that displays the culture of the film being shot and shot, reflecting the silhouettes of culture and ideology of its time. Conclusions are drawn about the film «Country of Golds» as a multi-layered historical cinema source, and about the director’s creative methodology for combining documentary and artistic techniques in the process of ethno-cinematic work, as relevant for study and use in modern visual anthropological practice.

Keywords: visual anthropology, anthropological cinema, Amo Bek-Nazarov, national politics, USSR

VISUAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF IVAN LOPATIN (ON THE MATERIALS OF THE AMUR EXPEDITION OF 1913) // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2021. Issue 1 (31). P. 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

"CINEMA ATLAS OF THE USSR": EDUCATIONAL FILM "EASTERN SIBERIA" (1935) // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2022. Issue 3 (37). P. 117-127

The paper examines the role of educational cinema in the USSR during the 1930s, with a focus on films about the “socialist reconstruction” of remote regions of the Soviet Union. As an example, the film “Eastern Siberia” (1935) filmed at the “Sibtechfilm” studio, directed by A. I. Gaidul is analyzed, using scripts and other documentation from the State Archives of the Novosibirsk Region. The film is analyzed in terms of its place in the history of regional cinema and its role in the construction of ideas and images in the context of Soviet history. The paper also discusses the historical context of the creation of educational films in the 1930s, the production process at the Novosibirsk studio “Sibtechfilm”, and the biography and methods of the film's director, A. I. Gaidul are considered. The authors also address methodological issues related to educational cinema at the Sibtechfilm studio in the 1930s. It is concluded that the creation of educational geographical films was a significant development in Russian visual anthropology and that the analysis of such films helps to understand the ideological, conceptual, and creative considerations involved in their production and use in the USSR in the 1920s–1930s.

Keywords: visual anthropology, Soviet cinema, film production, educational cinema in the 1930s, Sibtechfilm, Eastern Siberia (1935), A. I. Gaidul

The cinema-atlas of the USSR: "Bukhara" (1927) // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2023. Issue 2 (40). P. 90-99

The proposed study brings information about the ethnographic film “Bukhara” (1927) by well-known Soviet filmmakers, the cinematographer Ya. M. Tolchan and the editor E. I. Svilova. Based on this film work, the article examines the “experimentation of filmmakers” in the process of developing an ethnographic tendency in Soviet cinema. In the period under study, filmmakers fascinated by ethnographic exoticism and expeditionary romanticism actively tested various approaches to visualizing ethnicity and constructed a screen image of the Union of Nationalities Liberated by the Revolution, in which the party leadership, as the monopolist of thematic and production plans in the film industry, was interested, in order to strengthen the programs of the “Cultural Revolution” Among the tasks of the work is the description of the images of the collapse of the traditional existence of Uzbek society during the socialist upheavals in the east of the country in the mid-1920s, which were captured in the mentioned film. Since the heterogeneous Soviet East was one of the most problematic regions regarding Sovietization programs in the early Soviet period, it was assigned special cinematographic resources – the filming of the Central Asian film expedition by Ya. M. Tolchan and the subsequent editing of an independent film, “Bukhara” by E. I. Svilova, are considered in the context of the development of the large-scale state project “Cinema-Atlas Of The USSR” and in the context of parallel processes of Soviet national policy. The reference sources for the study were little-known archival documents and materials from the Soviet periodical press. The study uses an effective method of the author to read the film as a film text because, due to the peculiarities of silent film, the film “Bukhara” consists of approximately equal parts of film images and text subtitles interspersed in the narrative. The conclusion points to the film “Bukhara” as a multi-layered visual document of its time and to the need to study the phenomenon of the Soviet film atlas as a whole as a unique phenomenon that has produced a range of practical and theoretical materials that are in demand in modern visual anthropology.

Keywords: visual anthropology, Cinema-Atlas of the USSR, ethnographic film, "Bukhara"