The article presents the results of the study of materials collected by A.P. Farafontov and reflecting the folk Orthodox culture of the Russian population of Transbaikalia and the Amur region of the early 20th century. A.P. Farafontov (1889, Troitskosavsk – 1958, San Francisco) is a Russian emigrant enthusiast: ethnographer, naturalist, taxidermist, writer; member of the Russian Geographical Society, The Society for the Study of the Manchurian Region. The collected data (signs, charms, life stories, past occurrences, tales, riddles) were written down by A.P. Farafontov during an expedition from Harbin to the Trans-Baikal resort of Shivanda (1916) and published in the Harbin scientific journal “Monitor of Asia” with a conceptual foreword by P.V. Shkurkin. The first part of the collection – “Among the Russian people” – is of particular interest to researchers. Its value is in fixing the local ethno-religious tradition of the Russian population of the Far Eastern frontier (Transbaikalia and the Amur region), based on folk Orthodoxy with the inclusion of elements of religious cults of local peoples (Buryats, Chinese, Nanais, Udege, etc.). Folklore texts collected by A.P. Farafontov are a valuable source of study of the religious beliefs of the Russian population of the early 20th century, formed in the process of progressive migrations from central Russia and Transbaikalia to the Amur region, and living in close ethnocultural contacts with the local population; expand the system of knowledge about folk beliefs and practices, rooted in the mass consciousness of the Russian population of the Amur region, are of interest for further source, religion, ethnographic, folkloristic, and historical studies. Folklore and ethnographic activity of A.P. Farafontov inserts his work into a broader context of studying the academic and literary ethnography of the Far East and Manchuria in the first half of the 20th century, making it possible to establish typological connections between the works of Russian and Far Eastern scholars.
Keywords: ethnography, Amur region, Far Eastern frontier, Russians, Buryats, Golds, Gurans, emigrant journalism, folk Orthodoxy, triple faith, evil spirits, pandemonium, beliefs, omens
DOI: 10.22250/2072-8662.2021.2.28-43
About the author
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Anna A. Zabiyako – Doctor of Philology, Full Professor, Head of the Department of Literature and World Arts, Amur State University, |
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Yana V. Zinenko – Mater in Philology, Assistant at the Department of Literature and World Arts, Amur State University, |