#115: The Turkestan Album
The Library of Congress scanned and posted on their website all the images from Turkestanskii Al'bom, which "provides a visual survey of Central Asia from the perspective of the Russian imperial government that took control of the area in the 1850s and 1860s. About 1,200 photographs, with some architectural plans, watercolor drawings, and maps, are arranged in four parts."
The collection includes pictures of historical sites, faces of Central Asian people living at that time, their clothes, traditions, holidays and celebrations, trades, maps (even the siege of Tashkent), and just everyday life. Since it presents things from Tsarist Russia's perspective, viewers should pay attention to the way pictures are taken (after all Russia was a colonizing power in a "backward region") and captions to them.
Another note. The Kazakhs in the pictures are described as "Kirgiz-Kazakhs," while the Kyrgyz are "Karakirgiz." Russians called the Kazakhs as Kyrgyz not to mistaken them for Cossacks, because words "Kazakh" and "Cossack" are pronounced very similarly in Russian, and the Kyrgyz became Karakirgiz, which means "Black Kyrgyz."
Here are some pictures of the Kyrgyz people from 1850s.
Jolbors (Yul Bars)
Dresses of Kyrgyz women
The Library of Congress did a truly great job. These pictures could help the Central Asians to learn more their history (and present). The Kyrgyz government could borrow, copy, or even bring this collection and organize a big exhibition.
Update: Russian version of the post is here.
4 comments:
Azamat, great find! I'm just gonna come out and say it, they style of dress is strikingly Mongol to me. I guess that just depends of where you are when you see these pictures :) Consequently, the Mongolian word for black is "Khar" or "Har". I'm not a "Turkologist" (although I might be on my way to being a "Mongolist")it strikes me as interesting that the Russians would choose a word with Mongolian origins as opposed to using the Russian word for black. I'm gonna check out the other pictures now!
Ulaana, well Turkic and Mongol people of Siberia share a lot in common. As you move to the west, Turkic people have more of Persian. Kyrgyz while migrating from Baykal Lake and Altay to current Kyrgyzstan, assimilated lots of other people and adopted new practices. I think Tuva are one of the closest relatives of Kyrgyz.
Actually, "kara" is a Turkic word for black, which I am sure is similar to "khar" in Mongol, although not sure who borrowed from whom. :)
Oh man, I've been getting into some pretty heated debates about the origins of Turkic words recently! Once again, I guess it depends on where you are! Further linguistic research is needed :)
Azamat: Thanks for posting this. The Turkestan album is remarkably similar to the kinds of survey albums that US government commissioned of the American West during the same period. One Native American historian has called this the period of 'internal colonization.' YOu can find some picturs here: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr014.html>
ANdrew
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