ANNOTATION
on the thesis for the master’s degree in Religious Studies
«Theory and methods of collecting information about traditional rites,
holidays and world view in Russia in the second half of the 19th century
(based on materials of the Russian Geographical Society)»
Author: Olga Shamina
St. Petersburg State University
Speciality: 033300 “Religious Studies”
The second half of XIX century has an important place in the history of
Russia. The victory in the 1812 Patriotic war produced, according to Vasily
Klyuchevsky, "unusual political and moral anxiety in the society". The growth of
national self-consciousness was characterized by the immediate growth of interest
to Russian and foreign history as well as to the culture and everyday life of the
people. The desire to study a "homeland reality" had been strengthened with the
publication of first eight volumes of Nikolay Karamzin's "History of Russian
State". Active development of scholarly studies oriented as its model towards the
experience of European countries, the establishment of universities and research
centers allowed Russia to satisfy the social needs about the knowledge of national
history in a substantial measure.
For the purposes of the clear delineation of the State borders a crucial role
was played by the studies of the country wide territories.
The relevance of the dissertation is defined by the insufficient level of
studies of the theory and methods of data gathering of ethnographic materials of
the middle of the XIX – beginning of the XX centuries and by the inadequate
publication level of the scholarly heritage of the period.
Different scholars addressed the issue of the history of Russian ethnography
through different stages of the latter's existence.
The first such description was a work by A. Pypin "History of Russian
Ethnography" (Saint Petersburg., 1890-1892. Vol. 1-4).
Scholarly originality of the dissertation
Although there is a substantial tradition of the studies of the history of
Russian ethnography in a aforementioned period, one can find certain lacunae.
Thus until this moment there was no concrete study specifically devoted to the
methods and techniques of data gathering at this period. The concrete field studies
are of a special interest here.
"Studio" scholars and scholarly communities needed the materials about the
cultural traditions that existed in different regions of the country. In order to reach
this goal scholars established contacts with local members of the professions who
not only send the collected materials to the capital research societies but also
publish the results in the regional press.
The level of the theme's readiness
Among the publications devoted to the history and specific ethnographic
activities of the Russian Geographic Society there are works both by the historianschroniclers of the Society itself (L. Maikov, A. Artemiev, P. Semyonov-TyanShansky, L. Berg) as well as by the scholars of the following generations (M.
Azadovsky, N. Stepanov, Z. Titova, L. Saburova).
Theoretical and methodological background of the presented dissertation
is formed by the works of the scholars who studied the history of Russian
ethnography (A. Pypin, S. Tokarev). The programs of the major studies has been
analyzed. The object of the study are theoretical and methodological foundations
of data gathering about traditional rites, festivities and world views in Russia in the
second half of the 19c century.
The subject of the study
are the programs and expeditions of Russian Geographical Society. The
primary goal of the study
is to analyze the methods and techniques of data gathering about traditional
rites, festivities and worldview in the second half of XIX century using the
examples of the research done by the members of the Russian Geographic Society.
In accordance with the primary goal the following tasks of the dissertation
are formulated:
 To describe the stages of the history and activities of RGS.
 To consider main trends in collecting of the RGS materials (types of
expeditions, programs).
 To characterize the RGS publications issued by its ethnography
departments.
 To analyze the programs of ethnographic field studies.
Russian Geographic Society became an important center of research
attracting scholars who wanted to acquire new knowledge about Russia, to develop
new methods of studying of different sides of social and cultural life, to be
involved into productive scholarly discussions.
The existence of such a research center allowed to create a theoretical
foundation for new research and to establish a full-scale professional network with
purposeful expedition and data gathering activities not only within the borders of
Russian empire but also beyond them.
The idea of creating questionnaires has not been properly developed in
terms of the methods used yet. The methodological principles of such activities
(questionnaries, collecting qualitative data) would be properly introduced later.
However it should be noted that an attempt to develop a complex approach to the
study of a people culture, to collect different types of data was a very productive
idea. The materials collected thanks to these programs until now attract a
professional scholarly interest from the experts in different areas (ethnography,
folklore studies, linguistics, cultural studies, religious studies).
At the same time one should be very careful in his/her research based on the
materials from XIX century archives as a majority of correspondents who collected
the materials for RGS archives were not professional researches and in their data
gathering were guided by diverse motives which naturally influenced the quality of
the resulted materials.