https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7761-3265
E-mail: altmaani@yandex.ru Tel.: +7 (847) 223-55-80
8, Ilishkin str., Elista, 358000, Russian Federation
Researcher, Kalmyk Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Sciences
Elza P. Bakaeva
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7761-3265
E-mail: bakaevaep@kigiran.com Tel.: +7 (847) 223-55-80
8, Ilishkin str., Elista, 358000, Russian Federation
DSc in History, Deputy Director, Leading Researcher, Kalmyk Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Sciences
The research was carried out within the framework of the state funded the project “Comprehensive Study of the Processes of Socio-Political and Cultural Development of the Peoples of the South of Russia” (state registration number AAAAA-A19–119011490038–5).
This article discusses part of a documentary film shot in the early 1920s by a Swiss expedition. Thanks to the director, August Kern, visual material has been preserved about the life and culture of the Kalmyks in the era of their transition from nomadic to sedentary life. The article shows how the film “Die Geheimnisse der Kalmückensteppe. Aus dem Leben der Tataren und Kalmücken” (“Secrets of the Kalmyk Steppe. From the Life of the Kalmyks and Tatars”) reflects the humanitarian tendency in cinema of the early 1920s, created with the support of organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross. Kern shot the film as a representative of the Swiss Red Cross in southern Russia. The surviving parts of the film are newsreels of an ethnographic type and examine the Kalmyks’ Buddhist culture, undoubtedly of particular interest to the European viewer. Two of the four parts of the film have been preserved; there are two versions of them, with titles in Czech and with German and French titles. The Kalmyk part of the film was shot in the settlements of Zeta and Khanate. A hundred years after it was made, the “Secrets of the Kalmyk Steppe” is an important visual document for both scholars and the general public
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