Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2020 number

The study of ornamentation of female needlework is relevant from the viewpoint of identifying conservation strategies and reasons for actualization of ornamental motives during the XX century up to the present. This work is the first attempt to overview study of women needlework ornamentation of the Russian population of the Altai Mountains. The regional materials are interesting as they have not been comprehensively studied before. The study of these materials provides the opportunity to trace a number of factors affecting the existence of ornamental motives at the local level among the Russian population that lived in a different ethnic environment and was heterogeneous in terms of faith and time of arrival to Gorny Altai. The study results will allow to show the existence of this tradition in the XX century and move on to disclose mechanisms and strategies for preserving and actualizing traditional ornamental motives of female needlework. The paper shows a variety of ornaments of Russian peasants based on the analysis of material sources stored in museum collections, and the author’s field data collected in different years. It is established that the Uimon Old Believers handicrafts stand out by specific features against the general background. Their ornamentation peculiarities existed in villages located in the Peschany River valley (Baragash, Ilyinka, Mariinka). There is a bear’s motif not previously seen in the embroidery of Russian Siberians. As a result of systematization and analysis of ornamental series made on female needlework, the author identifies ornamental motives that either lost their value or remained stable during the XX century. Traditional anthropomorphic images observed in the late XIX - early XX centuries are not traced in needlework of the second half of the XX century. Various images of fantastic animals and paradise birds recede into the past as well. Moreover, geometric motives (crosses, rhombuses), motives of vine, roses, flower sockets, images of roosters and pigeons have been actively used in the second half of the XX century. Local features of economic activity and environmental perception are reflected in multi-temporal zoomorphic compositions. Defining conservation strategies and updating mechanisms for identified peculiarities is a challenge of further research.