The traditional economic culture of the Tatars in N.A. Khalikov’s works (in memory of the scholar and colleague)

Abstract

The article highlights the main directions of scientific work of Nail Alfredovich Khalikov, a well-known Russian ethnographer who studied the life and traditional economy of the Tatars, the author of significant academic works on the ethnography of the people. The main research of the scientist is related to the collection and interpretation of ethnographic sources (expedition, museum, archival, visual) and preparation for publishing “Historical and Ethnographic Atlas of the Tatar People”, where he was the author and a permanent member of the editorial board. In the 1970s–2000s, rural settlements of the Volga-Ural Tatars (Tatarstan, Udmurtia, Chuvashia, Bashkiria, Mari El, Kirov, Penza, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk, Perm, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk regions), then Astrakhan (Astrakhan, Saratov regions) and Siberian Tatars (Tyumen, Omsk, Tomsk regions) were examined according to a special program developed by N.A. Khalikov. As a result of that work, a source base on traditional farming, including agriculture and folk crafts, as well as numerous monographs, publications in scientific collections, articles in the multi-volume “Tatar Encyclopedia” was created. Currently, N.A. Khalikov’s expedition materials (field diaries, photographs, sketches and drawings) have been partially digitized and are stored in the archive of the Marjani Institute of History of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences.

Keywords

• volga-ural region
• tatars
• ethno-territorial groups
• agriculture
• economic activity
• crafts
• traditions