From the history of collecting Yakut ethnographic collections: an demonstrational Ysyakh in Namsky ulus in 1908

Abstract

Russian Ethnographic Museum (St. Petersburg) and the National Archive of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) revealed that on July 9, 1908, in the Khomustakh nasleg, Namsky ulus, Yakut Region, a demonstrational Ysyakh (the Yakut traditional festival of the summer solstice) was held at the expense of the Ethnographic Department of the Alexander III Russian Museum (now the Russian Ethnographic Museum). The Ysyakh was organized by A. I. Popov, the secretary of the Statistical Committee, the official correspondent of the Ethnographic Department of the Russian Museum, and hosted by S. Rykunov, the head of Namsky ulus. It is revealed that the pictures of the course of the festival with scenes of wrestling and traditional games were taken by A. P. Kurochkin, a political exile, a conservator of the Yakut Museum of 1905 – 1908. The photographs were included in the collections of the museums of St. Petersburg and Yakutia, and are now well known to researchers. But the fact that they were made by order and at the expense of the Ethnographic Department of the Russian Museum of Alexander III (now the REM), as well as the participation in the collection of the Yakut collection of E. K. Pekarsky, V. M. Ionov was not known until recently.