Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 42 (2) 2014

Annotation:  Pleistocene Environments of the Northwestern Altai: Vegetation and Climate Early Upper Paleolithic Assemblages from the Japanese Islands: A Case Study from the Musashino Uplan Studying the Forms of Ancient Ware: Theoretical and Practical Aspects A Morphological Analysis of Vessels from Middle Bronze Age (Early 2nd Millennium BC) Burials at Veng Dendrochronological Dating of Buildings in the Central Part of the Residential Area at the Staroturu Bronze Age Animal Figurines from the Taiga Zone of the Ob Region Kurgans of the Yenisei Kyrgyz at the Chineta II Burial Ground in the Altai The Origin of A-frame Carts in the Minusinsk Basin, Southern Siberia The Dolgaya-1 Site and the Novoromanovo Rock Art Gallery: A Tentative Interpretation with Regard to Cultivated Plants of the Bohai Population of Primorye According to Archaeobotanical Data Wood Painting Tradition of the Upper Vychegda Komi in the Late 19th – First Quarter of the 20th Cent Wedding Food of Germans Living in Siberia: Symbols and Signs Buccal Dental Microwear and Diet of the Sunghir Upper Paleolithic Modern Humans Dental Palaeopathological Analysis of the Eneolithic-Early Iron Age Populations from the Minusinsk B   

Wood Painting Tradition of the Upper Vychegda Komi in the Late 19th – First Quarter of the 20th Century

V.T. Sharapov and I.V. Zemtsova.

Based on collections housed in the Russian Museum of Ethnography and the National Museum of the Komi Republic, as well as previously published materials and results of fi eld studies from 1989–2013 in the Komi Republic, the article discusses the local ethnic traditions of peasant wood painting among the Upper Vychegda Komi Zyryans. These traditions were in practice at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries in the villages of Ust-Sysolsk and Yarensk Uezds of Vologda Guberniya (the modern Ust-Kulom and Kortkeros Regions of the Komi Republic). In particular, study addresses the decoration of the Upper Vychegda wooden distaffs and brakes. It is hypothesized that this decorative style originated from a blend of Finno-Ugric and Russian traditions in overlapping or adjoining regions of Russian, specifi cally Old-Believer, and Komi settlement. Painting technique, decoration, and coloring of artifacts from the area of Vychegda differ from those seen elsewhere in northern Russia or in the Kama region.

Keywords: Vychegda Komi, wood painting, technique, composition, folk wood painting, Komi Old Believers, ethnographic mapping.