E-mail: slavapozd@yandex.ru Tel.: +7 (8212) 20-17-02
26, Kommunisticheskaya str., Syktyvkar, 426004, Russian Federation
DSc in Philology, Professor, Leading Researcher, Folklore Department, Institute of Language, Literature and History, Komi Scientific Center of the Uralic Division, Russian Academy of Sciences
This article examines D. K. Zelenin’s travel sketches “On Kumys. (Letters from a Kumysnik [Kumis Drinker]),” as well as two guidebooks — Zelenin’s “Kama and Vyatka. Guide and Ethnographic Description of the Kama Region” and V. N. Zolotnitsky’s “Guide to Kumis-Healing Places,” as ethnographic sources. Analysis of this material shows that both Zelenin and Zolotnitsky passed on known information about the production of kumys, about the life of the “kumysniks” undergoing treatment, and about the national characteristics of the Bashkirs and Russian peasants of those places where kumis hospitals were located. The genre of travel essay and the guidebook impose special requirements: for example, in the essays-letters published in “Vyatka Provincial Vedomosti,” Zelenin presents factual information with a personal slant, while in the guidebooks the authors minimize personal elements and give more specific material which can be useful for travelers.
Nevertheless, both travel sketches and guides are worthy sources of ethnographic information from the early twentieth century. After visiting an Usen-Ivanovsky factory, Zelenin published several articles with ethnographic and dialectological data on the Old Believers of the region. The material presented in the essays and articles complement each other in a unique way.
Kuchumov I. V. (2011) Dinamika traditsionnoi russkoi kul’tury Bashkirii po materialam fiksirovannykh nablyudenii (stat’ya D. K. Zelenina o s. Usen’Ivanovskoe v diakhronnom kontekste) [Dynamics of the Traditional Russian Culture of Bashkiria Based on Observation (D. K. Zelenin’s Article About the Village of Usen-Ivanovskoye in a Diachronic Context)]. In: Traditsionnaya kul’tura narodov Uralo-Povolzh’ya v usloviyakh modernizatsii obshchestva [Traditional Culture of the Peoples of the Ural-Volga Region in the Context of the Modernization of Society]. Ed. by R. R. Sadikov. Ufa: IEI. Pp. 26–39. In Russian.
Pozdeev V. A. (2015) D. K. Zelenin i kul’turnoistoricheskoe nasledie Vyatskogo kraya [D. K. Zelenin and the Cultural and Historical Heritage of the Vyatka Region]. In: Zelenin D. K. Dukhovnaya kul’tura Vyatki: (fol’klorno-etnograficheskie i dialektologicheskie stat’i nachala XX veka) [The Spiritual Culture of Vyatka: (Folklore, Ethnographic and Dialectological Articles of the Early Twentieth Century)]. Comp. and ed. by V. A. Pozdeev. Kirov: Raduga-PRESS. In Russian
Pozdeev V. A. Ethnographic Material in the Essays and Guidebooks About “Kumysniks” (Kumis Drinkers) by D. K. Zelenin and V. N. Zolotnitsky. Traditional Culture. 2021. Vol. 22. No. 3. Pp. 135–142. In Russian.