Tatar embroidery: on the historiography of the question

Abstract

The article is devoted to the historiography of the study of Tatar people’s embroidery. The paper addresses the main directions in which the research was carried out; the characteristics of academic and popular-science works are given. It was discovered that the first publications about Tatar embroidery date back to the late 19th century. The subject has been developed up to the present. The history of the emergence of different types of Tatar embroidery, as suggested by scholars, and the depth of research have been analyzed. The conducted study provided an opportunity to systematise the corpus of various sources. The specific feature of the first publications about Tatar embroidery is a particular interest exclusively in handicraft products, which represents the most striking examples of folk art of that time. Later, the focus of scientific interest shifted to the classic samples of Kazan-Tatar embroidery. Starting from the expeditionary trips of the 1970–1980’s of the ethnographers from the Language of Literature and History Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences Kazan Branch, as part of the scientific project “Historical and Ethnographic Atlas of the Tatar People,” materials were collected from major museums of the country, Tatar settlements in the Volga-Ural Region and from other regions of compact residence of an ethnic community. This research area has led to the problematisation of the issue of the diversity in areal technologies of Tatar embroidery. Authors addressed it when studying a certain type of embroidery and its origins, starting from the Middle Ages. Other researchers tried to identify sub-ethnic, sub-confessional features of Tatar embroidery, the influence of other peoples on its development. In the absence of a full-fledged study on Tatar embroidery, it is necessary to take into account the accumulated experience reflected in the publications of various authors – articles, sections of books, and albums.

Keywords

• tatars
• embroidery
• historiography
• ornament
• decor
• pattern
• handicrafts