Сollectors of Gagauz collections of the Russian Museum of Ethnography

Abstract

The article analyzes the collecting activities of the Russian Ethnographic Museum employees and amateur local historians of Bessarabia, who have been gathering collections on the Gagauz people ethnography for a century. This fund contains over three hundred material monuments, archival, illustrative and photographic materials on the Gagauz migrants who lived in the territory of Novorossiya (and subsequently in the south of Moldova and in the Odessa Region of Ukraine). Of particular interest is the fact that collecting the materials which characterise the material and spiritual culture of the Gagauz people took place over a long period of time in the same villages. This allows us to trace the dynamics of the development of everyday culture of the Gagauz ethnic group.

Keywords

• gagauz
• ethnographic collections
• collectors
• amateur local historians
• russian museum of ethnography