Tatars of Russia. Photographs of the late XIX - early XX centuries

EXHIBITION
TATARS OF RUSSIA
PHOTOS OF THE END OF XIX - THE BEGINNING OF THE XX CENTURIES
Private collection of Nizami Ibraimov

Photography entered Russia immediately after its invention. On behalf of the Academy of Sciences, Academician I. Kh. Gamel in 1839 - 1841 gets acquainted with F. Talbot, I. Niepce and L. Dager and delivers to Russia descriptions of the photographic processes known at that time, the necessary equipment and chemicals, image samples, in particular, a large number of daguerreotypes.

In the years 1850 - 1860, photography quickly spread to many cities of Russia. In a new field, people of different classes and specialties - nobles, merchants, bourgeoisie, peasants - sought good luck. Doctors of medicine, dentists, pharmacists, retired military, officials, students filed petitions for opening the case. The largest percentage of owners of photographic institutions were artists who graduated from the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture and the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Photography very quickly became widespread. By 1882, there were already about 800 photographic institutions in Russia. By 1917, there were photographic establishments in every city, and numerous traveling photographers, including amateurs, worked in the countryside.

Exhibition at the Khazin of the Pushkin Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan “Tatars of Russia. Photograph of the late 19th - early 20th Century ”for the first time provides an opportunity to get acquainted with a large collection of Nizami Ibraimov - photographs, open letters depicting Tatars, mosques and genre scenes from the turn of the century.

The first photographs of the Tatars have been known since the 60s of the XIX century, but these were, rather, exceptional cases. Later, as a result of close interaction with the Christian world, the upper strata of Tatar society joined the European innovations, including the art of photography, much earlier than the inhabitants of certain Muslim countries.

The exposition presents photographs of Tatars created in the photographic studio of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Chistopol, Astrakhan, Nizhny Novgorod, Kasimov, Ufa, cities of Siberia and the Urals, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan. Of great interest is the Crimean part of the collection, where you can see not only photographs of representatives of various families, but also photographs of landscapes, genre scenes that were created as open letters for numerous travelers of Russia.

The appearance of photography was another step towards the emancipation of the Tatar woman. In the exposition one can see both single portraits of women and family ones, where a Tatar woman, as a rule, is dressed in European fashion, but with elements of national decor. The new phenomenon was of interest to various layers of Tatar society, photographs were taken on special occasions, such as marriage, the birth of a child, a meeting of friends, business partners, group photographs of various societies, were presented to relatives and friends.

It is noteworthy that almost all of the inscriptions are made in a high literary style, as evidenced by the gift inscriptions in the Tatar language in Arabic letters, translated for reading specifically for the exhibition. The inscriptions admire not only a peculiar etiquette, a respectful appeal to the addressee who was given the photograph, but also, as a rule, a fine calligraphic handwriting of the author, which reveals a very educated person in him.

In order to get a picture, Tatars had to appear in front of a male photographer, show him their face. Therefore, in many cities ateliers were opened by women, which allowed Tatars to be photographed without violating the norms of Muslim society. And the woman, usually hiding in her female half, appeared in a joint picture with her husband in front of his close friends. The photo, of course, was not only presented, but also shown to relatives and friends in family albums.

Along with photographs, the exhibition presents Tatar decorative and applied art items from the collection of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, N. Ibraimov’s private collection - women’s hats, jewelry, household items that recreate the spirit of the time at the exhibition.

During this period of its history, Russian photography has established its place as a special kind of art, mastered the main photographic genres and types of photography. Photo magazines are published. Numerous photographic societies are being created. The Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts of KFU presented rare editions of the turn of the century: amateur magazines “Amateur Photographer: A Guide for Beginners” in 1906 and professionals - “Photographer. The organ of the 5th department of the Imperial Russian Technical Society for Photography and its Applications ”, directories, guides, desktop and travel books, and much more that modern people will be interested in…

The exposition includes models of photographic equipment from the collection of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Tatarstan, as well as a small part of the collection of private collector Rasikh Faskhutdinov, which with great confidence for the viewer creates the image of a photographer’s studio.

The exhibition includes research materials on the Tatars of Russia of the Tatar Encyclopedia, Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, Doctor of Art Criticism G. Suleymanova-Valeeva, Doctor of Historical Sciences L. Gabdrafikova. A little-studied topic about photographers of pre-revolutionary Russia is presented by materials from D. Akhmetova’s research on Kazan and Astrakhan photographers. Translations from the Arabic letter of the famous Arabic textologist, calligrapher Najip Nakkash allowed attribution of faces and names in many photographs of the “nameless” collection. The exposition includes short biographies of famous Tatar families - the Apanayevs, Akchurins, Akhtyamovs, Gasprinsky, Davletkildeyevs, Ishmuratovs, Maksyutovs, Musins, Teregulovs, Sabitovs, Utyamyshevs and others.

Gasprinsky

Capturing the exhibition, where more than 400 photographs are presented, it is worth thinking about our contemporaries who throw away, sell family photographs, commemorative signs, symbols of bygone generations that become “nameless”, and thank those who collect them bit by bit, peering into surprisingly dear and dear faces and shares this miracle with us…