Photographs by V. P. Ermolaev in the Collection of the Krasnoyarsk Regional Museum of Local Lore as Additional Sources for Tuvan Studies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25178/nit.2026.1.13Keywords:
Tuvans, Tuva, Tuvan culture, photography, Vladimir Petrovich Ermolaev, archive, history of Tuva, KrasnoyarskAbstract
The article introduces into academic discourse a body of information concerning early 20th‑century photographs taken by the local historian V. P. Ermolaev, preserved in the archival collection of the Krasnoyarsk Regional Museum of Local Lore. These photographs represent the culture of the Tuvan people at the time of their creation, as well as the temporal and territorial contexts of the images. The authorship of 29 photographs has been reliably attributed to V. P. Ermolaev. More than 70 other photographic works require further attribution and scholarly verification of authorship.
The authors describe the stages of their research, including the study of V. P. Ermolaev’s biography and his professional activity at the Krasnoyarsk Regional Museum of Local Lore together with his brother, A. P. Ermolaev.
The article provides a description of new visual photographic sources related to the history of Tuvan culture in the early 20th century that have been attributed to V. P. Ermolaev. For the first time, several of these photographs are published with permission from the copyright holder. The images are compared with available photographic collections by V. P. Ermolaev held by the Aldan-Maadyr National Museum of the Republic of Tuva and the National Archive of the Republic of Tuva.
The authors draw conclusions regarding the scholarly and cultural significance of these findings. In their view, photographs of Tuva from the early 20th century may also be discovered in other archives located in Krasnoyarsk and other Siberian cities.
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Koptseva N. P., Razumovskaya V. A. and Urazayeva K. B. Photographs by V. P. Ermolaev in the Collection of the Krasnoyarsk Regional Museum of Local Lore as Additional Sources for Tuvan Studies. New Research of Tuva, 2026, no. 1, pp. 218‑232 (In Russ.). DOI: https://doi.org/10.25178/nit.2026.1.13
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