Traditional Northern communities in ethnographic film: Khanty. The case of the documentary film Tiny Katerina

This article investigates the representation of traditional culture in ethnographic films among the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. The special attention is paid to childhood in traditional culture of Khanty peoples in Ugra. The article focuses on the documentary film Malen’kaia Katerina (...

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Main Authors: Ivan Golovnev, Elena Golovneva
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: CLUEB 2018-09-01
Series:EtnoAntropologia
Subjects:
Online Access:https://rivisteclueb.it/index.php/etnoantropologia/article/view/277
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author Ivan Golovnev
Elena Golovneva
author_facet Ivan Golovnev
Elena Golovneva
author_sort Ivan Golovnev
collection DOAJ
description This article investigates the representation of traditional culture in ethnographic films among the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. The special attention is paid to childhood in traditional culture of Khanty peoples in Ugra. The article focuses on the documentary film Malen’kaia Katerina (Tiny Katerina; Ivan Golovnev 2004), which depicts the childhood of a Khanty girl in northwestern Siberia over the course of three years. Authors analyze the child’s relation to nature, adulthood, and the development of gender identity. The article looks into the cinematographic techniques used for the film creation and major episodes of the film such as “a child`s role in Khanty culture”, “play”, ‘the adult world”. Also explored are objective and subjective conditions in which the cinematographic image is created, with a special emphasis being put on studying filmmaker's (director's) role in film production. The conclusion drawn is that, on the one hand, the ethnographic film is a valuable contribution to Anthropology that adds to the corpus of documents on traditional culture of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. On the other hand, the film contains evidence of scientific criticism and allows one to explore cinematographic material from anthropological, historical, and psychological positions. Authors came to conclusion that ethnographic cinema can be seen as promising research methodology in the field of contemporary anthropology. This essay re- elaborates and enriches some of the themes already present in a previous contribution The Representation of Childhood in Ethnographic Films of Siberian Indigenous Peoples: The Case of the Documentary Film Malen’kaia Katerina (Tiny Katerina) [Golovnev I., Golovneva E. 2016, 83-106].
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spelling doaj.art-185c6a4ad0234977a05dbdc7a9a65f582023-02-12T19:08:20ZengCLUEBEtnoAntropologia2284-01762018-09-0161Traditional Northern communities in ethnographic film: Khanty. The case of the documentary film Tiny KaterinaIvan Golovnev0Elena Golovneva1Museo di Antropologia e di Etnografia "Pietro il Grande" Kunstkamera di San Pietroburgo, RussiaIstituto per le Arti e le Discipline Umanistiche, Università Federale degli Urali, Ekaterinburg, Russia This article investigates the representation of traditional culture in ethnographic films among the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. The special attention is paid to childhood in traditional culture of Khanty peoples in Ugra. The article focuses on the documentary film Malen’kaia Katerina (Tiny Katerina; Ivan Golovnev 2004), which depicts the childhood of a Khanty girl in northwestern Siberia over the course of three years. Authors analyze the child’s relation to nature, adulthood, and the development of gender identity. The article looks into the cinematographic techniques used for the film creation and major episodes of the film such as “a child`s role in Khanty culture”, “play”, ‘the adult world”. Also explored are objective and subjective conditions in which the cinematographic image is created, with a special emphasis being put on studying filmmaker's (director's) role in film production. The conclusion drawn is that, on the one hand, the ethnographic film is a valuable contribution to Anthropology that adds to the corpus of documents on traditional culture of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. On the other hand, the film contains evidence of scientific criticism and allows one to explore cinematographic material from anthropological, historical, and psychological positions. Authors came to conclusion that ethnographic cinema can be seen as promising research methodology in the field of contemporary anthropology. This essay re- elaborates and enriches some of the themes already present in a previous contribution The Representation of Childhood in Ethnographic Films of Siberian Indigenous Peoples: The Case of the Documentary Film Malen’kaia Katerina (Tiny Katerina) [Golovnev I., Golovneva E. 2016, 83-106]. https://rivisteclueb.it/index.php/etnoantropologia/article/view/277Adulthoodethnographic filmethnography of childhoodKhantynorthwestern Siberiatraditional culture
spellingShingle Ivan Golovnev
Elena Golovneva
Traditional Northern communities in ethnographic film: Khanty. The case of the documentary film Tiny Katerina
EtnoAntropologia
Adulthood
ethnographic film
ethnography of childhood
Khanty
northwestern Siberia
traditional culture
title Traditional Northern communities in ethnographic film: Khanty. The case of the documentary film Tiny Katerina
title_full Traditional Northern communities in ethnographic film: Khanty. The case of the documentary film Tiny Katerina
title_fullStr Traditional Northern communities in ethnographic film: Khanty. The case of the documentary film Tiny Katerina
title_full_unstemmed Traditional Northern communities in ethnographic film: Khanty. The case of the documentary film Tiny Katerina
title_short Traditional Northern communities in ethnographic film: Khanty. The case of the documentary film Tiny Katerina
title_sort traditional northern communities in ethnographic film khanty the case of the documentary film tiny katerina
topic Adulthood
ethnographic film
ethnography of childhood
Khanty
northwestern Siberia
traditional culture
url https://rivisteclueb.it/index.php/etnoantropologia/article/view/277
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